Category: 6 & 10 Day Race 2014

10 days from now these 53 people will have accomplished something momentous and truly great.  For now the space besides their names remains blank, for they have yet to set out upon their way, to take their first eager steps, to begin a journey that so few have taken and yet now lies unavoidably before each one of these courageous runners.

We all who support, encourage, and in any small way aid them hope that their journeys be fine, bright, and fulfilling.  But a 10 day race is not a sporting event that does not allow a runner not to be shaken, molded, or left untouched in ways both simple and profound.  Even if you are torn down while doing the task, be assured, that once again you will arise up anew.  To be rebuilt and transformed in some way that is all simply an unavoidable part of our personal growth and self transcendence.

Not all will look upon the 10 days yet to come as a spiritual journey.  Nor each will feel that each step and mile is a test or battle.  Numbers will accumulate beside each name.  Some in abundant and glorious fashion and others struggled for each one.

No matter your training, no matter your fitness, and no matter the buoyant brightness of your dreams that compelled them all to come here.  Whatever the outcome,  it will all be worth it in the end.

Pain, fatigue, and suffering with different faces will come calling and be dismissed, fought, and every once in a while surrendered to.

But there is already victory here.  Just to stand up and step forward even one step from the line is its own great achievement and reward.  The numbers by each name will come gradually and accumulate each and every day.  By this time, 10 days from now, they will be put aside though.  The great green board, the village, and all the trappings of this 10 day race will vanish.

What will remain in the hearts and minds, and within the very fiber of each and every runner, is something that is not so easily lost or found.  It will be the inner experience, the change, and transformation that will push and guide each one to the next great challenge in their lives beyond.

Continue reading “6 & 10 Day Race….First Day”

For 355 days a year this little piece of Flushing Meadow Park doesn’t look like very much.  But for 10 days, and perhaps just a little more, each April it becomes something quite wonderful.  All that planes that soar in and out of LaGuardia airport close by, just might see out of the ordinary, is a momentary puzzling flash of blue and white plastic tarpaulin as they cross over this fragment of a New York City park.

Depending on how kindly you look down upon it, there is a wide assortment of landscaping here even at the best of times.  Some tired patches of dirt, crumpled roadway, great swaths of lawn, and trees spreading their towering canopies across the pathways.   Depending upon where you sit in a plane that crosses over, you just might catch a brief glimpse of it all.

But how is it possible, when you are soaring past, can you really tell at all what it is that you are seeing just beneath your window, and more importantly, know at all about the marvelous things that happen here over those 10 sweet hard days each Spring.

A few days ago the construction of the 6 and 10 day village began in earnest

To see how it all comes together is a miracle in and of itself… Bipin is the main manager of the building and Rupantar the Captain of the Sri Chinmoy marathon team.

Continue reading “6 & 10 Day Race…..Setting Up”