Day 44… Such An Opportunity (July 30)

For most of us when we look back at our childhood we are reminded that summer represented back then the ultimate freedom from a long year of school. Days when you could sleep in, go out and play any time you wanted, and perhaps take a family vacation.

It is obvious that this kind of luxury is not available to the runners of the 3100 mile race for even the briefest of moments. Time is simply too precious and the challenge of making the distance too great. At the same time I wanted to tempt Surasa with a silly proposition. Did she ever imagine herself, instead of being in the humid sweat box of New York, pounding out miles on the hardest sidewalk in Queens, rather instead sitting down for a leisurely cup of coffee with cake in Vienna.

“It is a difficult question. Somehow yes and somehow no. Because I know it is such an opportunity to run here.”

Surasa says that each time she comes she somehow forgets just how difficult it is. “I forget that the weather here in New York gets so very hot, and it can rain very heavily. Everything you get here.”

“Now I am thinking more and more what a miracle this race is. We are all so exhausted, but still we all are running from 6am to 12pm. For such a long time, it is really a miracle. So you have to believe in a higher force, because the energy of the body is very limited. Only spiritual energy is unlimited.”

“The whole universe is full of energy, and it is so beautiful, if you think this.” She says there will be time enough for coffee and cake after the race.

She is trying to think now about meeting the finish line. This morning she starts her day with 2588 miles. “When I think, 8 days more, not so much. “But when I think, 500 to 600 more miles then I think it is not nothing.”

“But in this race you never know what happens until the last day. Right now things are getting better and better in my body. You just have to stay positive and looking forward.”