Day 35… My Life Is Here (July 21)

Kobi Oren, after several thousand miles and 34 days of running continues to surprise and amaze me. His focused efforts in the hours he is running on the course is always swift and always powerful. At the same time he is able to give a clear and delicate interpretation to the mystical side of the race. A balance of the inner and outer that is extraordinary for someone who is taking part in the Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race for the first time.

“It is hard work. There are various seconds that I enjoy. My eldest son arrived recently so with that I had a lot of seconds of joy. His coming to the race was a very important moment for me.”

Kobi has a quota of mileage he wants to accomplish each day. Yesterday he ran 66 miles. “It is very hard to be here. It is a hard world being here.” At the same time after completing 2300 miles this morning he says the finish line is becoming just a little more clear for him.

He describes that his life has become so immersed in the race that, “I don’t remember what was before. It is like that I have been here all my life. So I don’t know what will be after this. This experience consumes everything. My entire life is here. I know that there is a lot of me out there. But I am not living that now. So I really don’t know what will happen at the end. The end is something that I wish for and something that I desire for, but I can’t imagine what will be there the day after.”

“This is more than the here and now. This event has its own life. Before the race I thought it was going to be a journey, a quest, a voyage. Like in mythology when the hero goes to find a golden feather and then he gets the Kingdom. But now I know that this is something completely different. This is something like a pilgrimage.”

“You need to do things here in a certain manner. There won’t be any golden feather here. There won’t be a kingdom. It is a ritual. A very very long ritual to find out who you are.”