When your vantage point on the race, is from the safety of the side lines, sometimes you see things you just don’t really want to see. At 6 am this morning the air is still, bright and promising. But somewhere in the background of the sky you can feel a tension slowly building hour by hour. The weather maps for days have been thick with gloomy predictions, but as we all know too well here, Summer was sooner or later really going pay its respects to Queens.
In the camp there is the usual chaotic stir of activity as the runners gather shoes and clothes and supplements in the fragment of time before they have to start off for the day. I dart back and forth between the resting runners as they lounge luxuriantly, but o so briefly on the their plastic chairs. What I sense though is that the great hot wave of summer, with all its gluey humidity is now just a short way off from us. If it steams into the city as predicted by midday, it will make the lives of all who run here excruciatingly difficult.
This morning as I was walking here I was enjoying the still peace when I unexpectedly heard a car horn toot. I looked over and saw Arpan waving me over to take a ride with him. It is just a short walk for me but I really can’t imagine what it must be like for him to drive back and forth, morning and night, and then run all day.
Somehow he has time to tell me a short story about his last 3100 mile race in 2004. He describes how during the late stages of the race he was having a really tough time. On one night in particular it became really difficult for him. It was late and he had been running for weeks and covered thousands of miles. Dark thoughts come and go all the time for all of us but for Arpan on this night the mental barrier he was confronting was exceedingly stubborn and refused to be dislodged no matter how hard he tried. He just felt like he could not go on. He was desperate and in this moment of true crisis he resorted to the only strategy that he felt he had left, and that was to pray.
A brief time passes and he is running on the far side of the course by the Grand Central. It is by now past 10pm at night and it is hot and dark and he is running all alone when he starts to here light footsteps moving up from behind. He doesn’t look back, but notices that they must be being created by a small child in light plastic sandals. There is a light but rapid snapping sound as the sandals rapidly slap slap the hard sidewalk. In a short time suddenly a little Indian girl appears at his side running. Her hair is long and brown and swings back and forth behind her. She smiles up at him with all the sweetness and purity of youth and says, “I am helping you.”
At the right hand turn on 168th street she continues along straight just as Arpan makes the sharp right hand turn. In an instant his cares and burdens were gone and he ran contently on until the cut off at midnight.
Vasu continues to astonish and amaze though yesterday perhaps with not quite the pizzazz of running over 80 miles. Instead on his 3rd day he ran 72 miles or 133 laps.
Baladev has run with clock like efficiency 114 laps every day
Pushkar and Grahak are side by side on the board and in the camp.
Start Day 4
“Usually when I was a small boy I lived in a village and my job was to herd cows.” His performance at the 3100 mile race is not quite a surprise because he has shown enormous potential in his earlier multi day races. Yet Vasu runs with such poise and strength it is astounding none the less. He runs with peace and with harmony. From the moment he started he seemed to be comfortable with everything even though quite obviously this hectic world that he is currently inhabiting is light years from the village in the Ukraine in which he was born and once so simply lived.
“I liked to swim and play, yeah it was the best time, for everybody,” we both laugh as the sound of traffic on the Grand Central thunders near by. “No problems, everything good. But sometimes if a cow goes to a not nice place. My Mother (makes spanking gesture) a little bit.”
“It was while he was in a technical high school that he really discovered sports when a coach there invited him to be part of the cross country ski team. In their off season they were encouraged to take up running to keep up their fitness for the winter. He confesses that at the time, “I like to ski but I did not like to run.” Of his coach at the time he is still very grateful to him. “He taught me how to run and how to ski and how to self transcend.”
Just a month ago he was running the 10 day race in Flushing meadow. He says however that there is a great difference from being there than here. For him being in this race is like being in paradise. He really doesn’t know what will happen, when after 10 days here he will have run further than he has ever run before. He describes that when he was in the earlier race he felt inner energy come and help him. “Here maybe it may even more powerfully work.”
He describes his successful start as all due to grace, and, “my friends inspire me.” He describes how he had visited a few places in Russia before coming here, and everywhere he went he was showered with love, affection and concern. “They give me so much energy, and every time I feel it inside my heart.”
He says that he was first inspired to come when Stutisheel ran here for the first time and started to write books about his experiences. After reading them, “many people wanted to be here.” On a very deep and personal level he really sincerely feels that he himself is not personally doing the race. He feels that by the Supreme’s grace he is only acting as an instrument.
Click to Play Russian greeting
Click to Play interview
“My best start yet, 8 miles in one hour.” The day is starting well for Arpan and his enthusiasm and energy is in full view in his face and in his legs, which are moving nicely this morning. The guy who ran here yesterday however seemed to be some kind of phony impostor. Looked like Arpan but really couldn’t have been. That runner had one very stiff and tight day, ran only 50 miles and packed up early and left the course.
Most days though he says that in the beginning, “Usually I am like moping along the first hour, walking, jogging, loosening up, wakening up. I had a rough day yesterday, went home early last night.” He describes having tight legs and his feet hurt, which would be normal for anyone who has just run 185 miles but over his very long running career Arpan has always made it look easy.
“I was a little hot, and probably a little dehydrated. I was being careful with the heat.” Then he describes how a friend came over and gave him a really good massage. “He got the lactic acid out of my legs. Just relaxed my legs and feet. Then I was able to get a good sleep. On other nights, I was so cramped up it was hard to get a good sleep. This morning I felt good and fresh.”
He describes that being here 8 years ago in 2004 as a remote memory. “Actually I am more prepared this time. But I am a little older so I have to be more careful. Actually being here is fun as long as your body cooperates. You don’t have to move to fast you just have to move. If you have a good background in long distance running, and you are prepared for this. I mean it is no joke. I wouldn’t recommend it to too many runners, even experienced runners. It is also a mental set and there is also a spiritual dimension.”
“Physically it is challenging in the sense that every day you have to come back and go around. Go around on the concrete, go around the loop. Some people can’t take that, physically or mentally. But if you take the right attitude toward it it is really quite thrilling. Because the whole race belongs to everyone. It is contained in a small area. So everyone who comes here is part of the race. So you don’t feel alone on the road. Rather you are in an event, that everyone is taking part in, not just the runners. It includes the helpers and everyone who comes here to watch. So it is exciting in that way because you get other peoples energy.”
“There is a saying be here now. Living in the moment you really have to do that because the mind does freak out, because you start thinking about too big of a time and a distance in your head. But if you are in the moment and trying to be peaceful and happy. If you keep moving in the moment. Time passes and you are going then the numbers start to add up. You don’t look at all at once. You look at each moment and do something to move forward. That is basically what the whole universe is doing, going around and around in circles. That is how we keep time and that is how we function, just energy. So you get into that and don’t think so much about the logical sequence of things.”
Click to play interview
 click to play poem of the day poem |
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Enthusiasm Awakeners
Click to Play
Sincere prayers can produce
divine results
In many ways.
Your prayers for mankind
Are definitely helping you,
Not to speak of helping others.
Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 96, Agni Press, 1984.
May the runners be blessed with cool Canadian air swooping down from the north.
Go Arpan go!!!!!