Some things you just can't do without

I represented my college in inter NIT cross country races. 5K and 10K. So I know what competitive running feels like, and I know exactly why I stopped chasing it.

Racing introduces something into running that does not belong there, at least not for me. Other people, a clock, the noise of competition. Running is my peace. The one thing I have never had to convince myself to do. The one activity I have protected from the idea of having to win at it. I would much rather be out there on my own, aimless, talking to the wind, the trees, whatever flora and fauna shows up along the track, lost in the rhythm of my legs, the working of my lungs, not a single person to beat.

So that is what I do. Every single day, without miss.

Morning when work allows it, evening when it does not, though morning wins every time I get the choice. The first kilometre is just warm up, legs finding their rhythm, lungs remembering what they are for. It does not feel like much. But it tells you what the next four are going to be.

No Strava, no medals on a shelf, no finish line photos. Just me and the park and whatever version of myself shows up that day. I switch off completely. Stop being a designer, a manager, a colleague. I am just a person moving through the world at pace, in the moment, more connected to myself than at any other point in the day. There is a genuine high to it. A mood-lifting, everything-is-fine-actually high that I have never found a substitute for.

Two runs I have not forgotten.

The first is from Covid. Everything was closed, parks, tracks, every route I knew. I waited a few weeks, convinced I could manage without. Then one morning I just barged out. Covid or no covid, I needed to run.

I ended up on the roads around Hyderabad university campus. Lush green stretches, morning light, long empty roads. The air was clean and cold in a way city air rarely gets to be. Happy and slightly strange at the same time, that specific feeling of what is this thing that I genuinely cannot do without. I ran that route many mornings during those months. Me and a road that was used to carrying thousands of people and was suddenly carrying almost none. A quiet that felt borrowed.

Now when I pass through the same stretch, all the hustle back, horns and crowds and the full noise of a city that forgot it was ever still, I always notice. Not in a sad way. More like passing someone you once had a long, private conversation with.

The second is more recent. An evening run, botanical park, somewhere on the fourth kilometre. Warm up long done, pace picking up, fully in my own world. Then I hear something behind me. Close, keeping pace. I assume another runner. It keeps along. I slow slightly and a young guy appears flanking me, step to step, grinning. Introduces himself as Ryan. Asks if he can run along. Sure, why not.

Over the next two laps we talked. He ran a startup out of Hyderabad, had moved there with his family two years ago, still finding his feet in the city. Then my turn. By the time we stopped for cooling down stretches we had covered careers, cities, life. We exchanged numbers with the kind of easy faith you do not manufacture in a networking event.

We are still in touch.

Running does that. No titles, no agendas, no calendar invites. Just a road, a pace, and whoever shows up alongside you.

I do not photograph my runs. There is nothing to show.

That is exactly the point.