April 19th…..The Longest Journey

“One hour at a time, one day at a time, one lap at a time.  Enjoy the journey.  Find your highest capacity.  We hope to give as much as we can to help you get through this.”…..Part of pre race speech by Sahishnu.

https://vimeo.com/163476918

Giving out numbers prior to the start

Achim Heukemes from Rottendorf Germany has returned to the race for the first time since running in 2008.  He ran 700 miles at the time.

Making some highly technical adjustments to the counting shed.

Some last minute photos

Budjargal taking a deep look at things

cooks making lunch

A lemon which has been invited out to lunch

Achim with Gabby

Race director Rupantar

Giribhu resting her feet

Karteek

Karnayati and friends

Kobi Oren is a 44 year old runner from Tel Aviv.  A very experienced athlete this will be his 2nd 10 day race.

Nipura checking the helpers list

One last adjustment to the tent

Priyavadin has 4 more days to wait.

Taking it easy

“I am a combination of excited and scared.”  58 year old Richard Takata from Canada is running his first 10 day race.

“I am excited because it is my first 10 day and for the very same reason I am kind of scared.  It is kind of the unknown.”

Richard did a 6 day race last year in Icarus Florida in November.  It is a little different environment.  It was very hot and humid.  We did most of our running at night because of the heat and humidity.”  He did 207 miles.  He was happy with the result.

He feels that his doing the 10 day race is a kind of logical progression for him.  “I started running 20 years ago with 5kms  and then went up to the marathon.  It has been a kind of evolution.”

“Running has been a wonderful compass for me.  It has just pointed me in the right directions.  It has enabled me to travel and to meet wonderful people.  Come to great venues with great volunteers.  It is more of a holistic thing for me.  I love everything about it.  I even enjoyed the road trip down here.”

“I am not looking forward to packing up and going.”

“When I started running I was very over weight.  I was 200 pounds.”

“The running community is very accepting.  When you look across that starting line everybody is in shorts and running shoes.  You don’t know if they are the vice president of some big company or me.  A guy from Etobicoke.  I love how running equalizes everything out there.  The community I found, even when I was over weight never laughed at me.  They were very accepting.”

“That is the part of the community that I want to be part of.”

“I have a goal but it is aggressive.    I have learned from these multi day events that you should have multiple goals.  I have an optimistic and one and maybe a more realistic one.”

“The one thing about these multi day events is that you never dnf.  I could do one lap and I would not dnf.  In a lot of ways that is a good thing for me.  I am just going to go out there and do my best.”

Click to Play:

Richard Takata

“They better put in a traffic light here, or else I will never get across here.”