The Club Life – I

<Alarm rings>

Its 5:00 am. What!? Already? You gotta be kidding me.

His mind immediately gets into action, pushing the negativity and the laziness away. He jumps out of the bed, standing up straight, stretching his body, making spasms of pleasure-like-relief course through his torso and limbs. He grabs his water bottle and walks out to the balcony, smelling the cold, fresh air.

Heaven.

It’s still dark. But the trees lining the park in front of his house are starting to become visible. A part of him just wants to get back into the bed, back to the wonderland. He shakes this thought out of his head, and gulps down the entire bottle of water.

15 minutes later, he is driving down the empty Club Road towards the sports complex. As he parks the car and plugs into the music, he starts browsing through the playlists looking for ‘Run1’. As soon as he finds it, he gives it a gentle tap, and starts to warm up with some walking. After some time, he turns up the volume, switches on his running app, and breaks into an easy trot.

Its 5:40 am, and probably one of the best times of the day, he thinks, in the national capital of India, New Delhi. Home.

A few hundred meters go by as he finds his rhythm, trying to time his breathing with the beat and the count of the strides.

Breath in. 1, 2, 3, 4 strides. Breath out. 1, 2, 3, 4 strides.

By the end of a kilometer it gets easy, as if everything is falling into place. He feels relaxed, glad that he finally made it to the run after a considerably long gap. He knows he hasn’t been taking care of himself. Long hours at work, late night parties, the weekends spent responding to emails. Drinking. Sigh. Its not as tough physically as it is mentally. Usually, he is juiced out in the head by the end of the day.

It feels awesome to think about life with great music playing in the background. He’s sweating now. And loving it. Next up, Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’. Hardly the kind of music people listen early mornings. But right now it makes total sense.

The end of kilometer number 3, and he can feel the strain in his breathing, and in his legs. But he is not giving up just yet. He knows he can easily do another K on a good day. And this looks like as good a day as any. He has always wanted to break the 5 km barrier, but avoids thinking much about it. It will happen if it has to happen, he tells himself in his head. Focus!

The music has changed to House now. Tiesto. He is really just listening to the beat, matching his groove with it, and focusing completely on the breathing. He can see a lot more people on the track now. He gets to see all kinds of people on this track. The fat ones, the fit ones, and everyone in between.

As he completes 4 kms, he can’t help but wonder what it takes to do a marathon. That doesn’t help. He can really feel the pain now in his legs, and the strain in his breathing.

Breath in. 1, 2, 3 strides. Breath out 1, 2, 3 strides.

He realizes he is missing a stride per breath cycle, and its not under his control now. He looks into the running app in his phone. 4.69 kms. Not bad.

They say its better to suffer the inconvenience of discipline, than suffer the pain of regret. Well they’re damn right this time. Suddenly, his mind changes gears – Silently cursing, he breaks into a sprint. He hates the mind games his mind plays with him.

Breath in. 1, 2 strides. Breath out. 1, 2 strides.

He’s giving it all he’s got, pounding the pavement now. He feels like the whole club can hear his rasping breath. His tee is stained with sweat, as he pushes his body, punishing it, trying to purge his sins, by reaching out to that elusive 5 km barrier…

<Alarm rings again>

What the f…!

He opens one eye, looks at the time. 7:03 am. Sigh. He feels the mild hangover from last night’s party taking over trying to shut the lights off again. He shakes his head before he can doze off again, sit ups, reaches out for his water bottle.

It was crazy at the club last night.

He sips his water. Time to really wake up. He drags himself into the bathroom slowly getting out of his clothes, and puts some toothpaste on the brush as he steps under the shower.

Time to live through another Monday morning. Again. Time to live, the club life.

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