As Creedence Clearwater Revival tells me to run through the jungle, I carve a path through this concrete one. It rained a few hours back; the cold wind tickles my face as my shoes catch the grime and splashes of a post-rain Mumbai.

Perhaps Pheidippides, in his legendary marathon, had his own puddles to contend with. Maybe a splash of muddy water struck him mid-run, and he thought, I’m doing all this for a bunch of Athenians who won’t even invent coffee for another thousand years.

It’s my 24th birthday today, and I intend to run 24 kilometers. For the past few years, this has been my rite of passage into a new year. While I’m not sure how long this trend will hold, doing 50 kilometers at 50 would be pretty nifty. The original plan for the 24th was to run 1 kilometer an hour, but the logistics of it were far too cumbersome to fit into the day—maybe a challenge for a quieter year.

The first couple of kilometers go by easy; the legs are fresh, and there’s an enthusiasm that comes with starting a run. But by kilometer four, my legs revolt—heavy and sluggish, as though carved from stone. The body, it seems, takes its time to adapt. It’s burning through glycogen, gasping for oxygen, and leaving me in a fog of lactic acid. But running teaches patience: by the next kilometer, the rhythm settles, the breath evens out, and the body finally catches up.

From this point on, the next 10 kilometers are contemplative. Your body has the energy, all your muscles have thawed, and they’re working full steam ahead. There’s a moment—somewhere in the rhythm of the steps and the measured breaths—when a mythical runner’s high sneaks up on you. It’s subtle at first, like a shift in the wind. The fatigue that weighed you down begins to lift, replaced by a sense of lightness that feels almost supernatural. Endorphins flood your system, dulling pain and sharpening focus. The discomfort fades into the background, and what remains is pure movement—effortless and free. You feel as though you could run forever, carried not by your legs but by something bigger, something unspoken that connects you to the road, the air, and yourself.

What do people think about on long runs? The simple answer is: everything and nothing. You start with the checklist—work deadlines, dinner plans, the existential dread of an unread email. Then you move on to the deep cuts: regrets, old conversations that didn’t end well, the name of that kid from third grade who sat next to you but vanished into life. A few kilometers later, you’re somewhere else entirely. A kind of trance takes over—a rhythm of feet on pavement and breath in lungs. You’re no longer thinking; you’re unraveling. Life simplifies itself into forward motion: left foot, right foot, repeat. And in that simplicity, there’s clarity—a fleeting, almost sacred moment where the noise dies down and you’re just out there, alone, running toward nothing in particular but somehow still going somewhere.

Then the body turns mutinous. A knee twinges, the shoulder stiffens, and some invisible itch drives me mad. Slowing down feels harder than speeding up. Murphy’s Law sets in—an uneasy growl in my gut, the sting of sweat in my eyes. The bliss is gone, replaced by sheer, unromantic agony.

We are now entering the last leg, beaten upwards by the concrete but with a hope that the end is nigh. The mind settles into a quiet kind of resignation. The body is tired, sure, but it’s a good kind of tired—earned, honest, like the ache after a day of hard work. Thoughts, once chaotic and sprawling, shrink down to the basics: water, rest, a cool breeze on your face. You think about the shower that waits, the first bite of something salty, the satisfying weight of stopping. And yet, as you slow to a walk, there’s a strange reluctance to let it end. The road has taken something from you—sweat, pain, the miles—but it’s given something back too: a sense of completion, of quiet triumph. You leave behind a version of yourself out there on the asphalt, and you walk away a little emptier, a little lighter, and somehow, a little more whole.

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!