Author: utpal

If we lived in a world which was inhabited by Super heroes than what goes on here around a small block in Queens might be appear quite ordinary, if not darn right monotonous.  That last time I looked up in the sky however I saw plenty of birds and planes but not one caped crusader streaking across the skies.  The 11 runners here are not fighting crime, bending steel with their bare hands, but yet they are doing something seemingly impossible nonetheless.

A week ago I spoke with my 90 year old father about what was taking place here.  He was genuinely shocked at the mileage the runners were able to complete every day.  He asked whether or not the world’s media was clamoring to cover the event.  He was further surprised to know that only a few came and only  from time to time.

Abichal wrote a comment a few days ago about one of my posts.  He has run this race quite a few times and knows a whole lot more about the 3100 than I will ever know.  He countered a comment I had made and said that this race was for the masses.  I of course agree with him wholeheartedly.

The world is more than hungry for fictional superheroes to leap out in 3D from movie screens but have not dared to look to the real source of all true greatness.  Furthermore they cannot believe that in fact all of us can be true champions of one kind or another.  Most of us simply do not dare look within ourselves for the unbelievable strength and capacities that sit dormant within us.  It is within each and everyone of us that our true inner capacities exist and they far out shine the puny dimensions of our minds and bodies.

The 11 runners demonstrate this each and every day.  I have used more adjectives than the runners go through shoes in trying to describe what goes on here.  Ultimately even if one is not a runner, or in fact much interested in sports at all, the 3100 can manage to still speak to their hearts and touch all, in a profound and meaningful way.  The 11 runners all have a goal they are trying to accomplish, every day right here.  The rest of us just have to find our own goals, and try to make our own journeys happen as well.

Continue reading “A New Goal”

A small case of World Cup fever broke out at the race on Tuesday night.  It was predicted that his would happen sooner or later some weeks ago.  There is no real cure for this and the Center for Disease Control advises everyone who catches it to remain calm, despite the obvious dramatic impulses that sometimes comes over people stricken by it.  One moment you can be quite suddenly deliriously happy and a short while later suddenly wish to burst into tears.  The fever is not life threatening and over the course of a month it will work its way through the system.  With hopefully no life threatening or long term consequences.

In the case of the outbreak last night at the 3100 mile race, Sundar Dalton, a local barber, has been identified as the principle carrier.  He has been passing out scores from matches on a regular basis throughout the past few days.  Usually his method of transmission is a phone call, but he has been known to show up unannounced with both tragic and joyous news.

No noticeable side effects have been exhibited by any of the runners who may have come into contact with the contagion.  Mileage numbers to date have not been effected.  It is hoped that at best it will inspire the runners to reach new heights.  On the other hand no one is anticipated to be so depressed that they will drop out of the race and fly home.

An International incident was diverted when the game between New Zealand and Slovakia ended in a tie.  Nandana was able to act as an intermediary between the opposing factions  but wants to remain as neutral as possible as she has a full time job being a helper, cook, and full time mom.

Continue reading “No Return Point”

This morning there was a celebration of sorts before the start of the race.  It would never ever appear on the radar of typical big time New York parties  but it still  meant a lot to those who are part of the 3100 mile race family.  Purna-Samarpan turned 33 today and all those who were there took a moment to wish him a happy birthday.

At the best of times, time itself is a precious commodity.  Perhaps nobody is compelled to examine the passage of time quite like the 11 who run here.  How, in an ironic fashion, you can be both a slave and a master of time simultaneously. The tiniest details gather such incomprehensible importance as the days and miles past.  Simple things like rest breaks that slip on just a fraction too long.  Taking extra steps to grab a hat or change a faulty shoe.  The most insignificant elements that add up to a missing lap here and there over the months long journey.

This is Purna-Samarpan’s second time at the race and the experience and training he gained here last year he feels was an invaluable preparation in order to transcend his effort  here this year.

Last year he was unable to complete the full distance but still had a powerful and transcendent experience.

Many would think in unimaginable to spend a birthday here doing such an impossible task.  For the 11 however the ultimate goal they strive for is far beyond the realm of cakes and party hats.  Though a birthday cake will show up at the race soon.  The ultimate gift that he seeks he cannot get today.  Where his dream takes him is to be able to simply go the distance this year.  To challenge impossibility and then reach beyond.

Continue reading “I Am Happy I Did”

The parades, parties, and fanfare are now officially over.  The joyous crowd that accumulated, just before the start on the first day, are nowhere to be found.  On this overcast but pleasant Monday morning the cheering fans have evaporated away like a night’s mist.  It has now come down to just the 11 runners, and the handful of crew that builds the site up each day.  The crew’s faces will change like clockwork throughout the day.  The running 11 will be the one and only singular constant of this place.

The sound of the start of the race

Their expressions of course changing like the sky.  From overcast to bright and clear.  Yet no matter the mood or the miles they will remain here.  It is home.

In appearance it is a place that is so plain and simple it hardly rates the distinction to be even  called a camp.  Not without character, but certainly not a place one would seek out unless you truly felt the inner call to be there.

Yet beneath the meager blue plastic tarps there is a magnificence not easily  perceived.    The runners of course are oblivious to their humble shelters.  They are so rarely stationary any way.  They are a whirl of almost constant motion, today, tomorrow, and on and on throughout the long New York summer.

The results of their first day upon the course is now captured on the score boards left over from the night before. In a few minutes they will shift into gear and be transformed by every new lap and mile.  For now though they reflect clearly the efforts of all full day of running by the 11.  Ashprihanal, the veteran put in a typical stellar day.  Surasa the new girl on the course demonstrated her talent and tenacity with 68 miles.  The rest showed that they are all ready and willing to continue onto towards their goals, both outer and inner.

Continue reading “I Was Born Here”

For a few visitors to New York City Saturday night most likely was a restless one.  After months of anticipation and training, for the 11 runners in the world’s longest race, it was all now swiftly draining down until the scant few hours before they would actually start the Self Transcendence 3100 mile race.  Even for the veterans, who have toed the line many times, the race marks a most significant and challenging undertaking.  Each step forward in turn accumulates then into laps and then again into miles until somehow miraculously the journey has been completed.

Eventually the summer and the distance will seemingly have swept by in no time at all. In comparison to their entire life’s journeys but a heart beat in time.   Paradoxically, at the end of the road, after running 3100 long hard miles, the runner physically finds themselves in precisely the same spot from which they began months earlier, and yet within they have traveled far far beyond their expectations.

As they move forward plastic numbers temporarily show the measure of their efforts.  To the runners they are as ephemeral and illusive as fireflies dancing in the air.  They go up and down with a tell tale rip of Velcro.  The clipboards at the counting tables tell a more permanent measure of their journeys but in the end they are but mere pencil jottings on paper.

Something happens here that cannot be measured or marked or photographed or questioned or reasoned with in any way.  There are days in which you could be standing right beside it and be blind to it.  On other days you could be on the far side of the world and yet still  feel the inner thrill of what is taking place here and be as much a part of it as if you were entered in the race as well.

The 3100 is not for the masses.  It is just for those who believe that life is not just about muscle and mind.  It speaks clearly to those who believe in the unlimited capacity of heart and spirit and who believe that Self-Transcendence is not just for 11 brave runners.  Self-Transcendence is the inevitable destiny of us all.

Continue reading “The Hour Has Come”

There are many things and events that clearly mark the change of seasons for us.  Nobody has quite the same fervid appreciation of  nature’s transformation as do school children and farmers.  Kids see the great freedom of summer vacation inching enticingly closer as the days of June fall away.  For Agriculturists their livelihoods depend on the arch of the sun climbing up higher and longer into the sky.  Astronomers of course know precisely when the great solstice will take place as do school children who know so well the date when the last chains of the school year will at last slip away.

Queens NY, like all places north of the Equator, is as familiar with the tell tale signs of the advent of summer as any place.  The whine of air conditioners in windows, fire flies dancing in the still night air, dreams of summer vacations at last morphing into tickets, reservations, and packed bags.  But for one tiny area of Queens nothing spells summer quite like the beginning of the Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race.  It is about to begin for the 14th summer on June 13 and will continue on breathlessly until all the runners have completed the race, or 52 days, which ever comes first.

Over the last week the 11 participants have been arriving from 8 different countries.  For 9 of them it is like coming home.  They are returning to an event that is for them not only the focus of their years but also very much the focus of their lives.

For a few hectic days they become almost full time shoppers.  Collecting all the little things that will sustain them over the coming months. Generally this means buying shoes and still more shoes.  It is but a brief period of chaotic freedom that they all gladly surrender in order to embark upon the great journey.  At 6 am on June 13 everything changes.  From then until midnight, each and every day it becomes all about completing the laps.  Taking a brief rest and then coming back for more.

The Self-Transcendence 3100 race is gruelingly difficult.  The reward at the end of which, is outwardly infinitesimal in comparison to the effort and sacrifice necessary in order to achieve it. People will walk and drive by the course each day most often oblivious to what is taking place on the block on which the race is being staged.  For a few however, who slow or stop, it becomes the most wonderful secret hidden in plain sight.  A miracle that clearly demonstrates the boundless capacity of what people can accomplish when they look for strength and courage within.  Each day turning their backs on the imaginary constraints of impossibility and search within themselves instead for the limitless beyond.

Continue reading “Now It Is Summer At Last”