running up that hill...

Yesterday I ran 11 kms. At Nehru Park in Chanakya Puri. Which is this gorgeous public park with a 2.75 km running loop. I ran 4 rounds of it.

Barely.

I always forget how killing those tiny little climbs can be. The Nehru Park trail has these three little hills. They are really quite little. Till you try running up them 5 kms into your run and then suddenly they seem like Mount Everest.

All around me Very Important People are walking. Since the Park is bang in the middle of the very high security diplomatic enclave of New Delhi, a high percentage of those who come here are Important Government and International Functionaries. With very important looking machine gun toting body guards. The less important ones have body guards who simply shuffle behind their fitness oriented wards without any visible guns. But the funniest are those that actually clutch madam's cellphone as she walks. How handy for madam, to not have to lug around her 25gm cellphone as she powerwalks her way to the body beautiful.

But back to the hills. Everytime I huff and puff past some Important Person and his Important Entourage, I always notice that the Important Person is far too busy managing the universe to even look anywhere except straight ahead. But sometimes, a member of the Entourage looks my way as I grunt past in the opposite direction and gives me a tiny hint of encouragement. Just a tiny sympathetic smile. Just a little twitch of go for it, its ok.

Which I absolutely adore. Because if there's one thing I dread more than the hillocks turned Mount Everests of Nehru Park, it is being twitched at by a machine gun toting security guard. Before I know it, my aching legs and bursting lungs have powered me past not just the range of machine gun fire but over the hills and far away.

Security does have its uses.