Perfection Journey
The Ten Day board after 5 days
Budjargal leads the 10 Day Men
Makula leads the 10 Day women
The Six Day board after 1 Day
Joe leads in the six day
Susan leads in the 6 day
Continue reading “Day 6 Ten Day Race/ Day 2 Six Day Race 2019: Let Us Go Forward”
The Start of the 6 Day race begins at noon
The Board after 4 Days
John Geesler and Joe Feles arriving for the 6 Day race
Saranyu registering
Nikolaus running for the first time along with veteran Joe Cleary
Annabel Hepworth, Australian ultra runner of the year
Susan Marshall
Sahishnu introduces the runners
Continue reading “Day 5 Ten Day / Day 1 Six Day Race 2019: A Higher Power”
The Board after 72 hours
Budjargal remains the overall leader with 276 miles
He ran 76 miles on his 3rd day
Mahasatya is tied with Takasumi for 2nd with 220 miles
Feet still looking good
Vinati is in 2nd place in the women with 182 miles
Tomorrow the 6 day race starts
The Board after 48 hours
Budjargal is leading overall with 200 miles his goal
Makula taking a break leads the women with 140 miles
Fernando is in 2nd with 167 miles
Giribhu is 2nd with 125 miles
Georgs who won the first 10 day race in 1996 with 721 miles. He is 76
Flower
Continue reading “Day Three, 10 Day Race 2019: An Inner Experience”
The Board for the 10 Day Runners after 24 hours
Budjargal leads the men with 110 miles
Mahakula leads the women with 80 miles
Andrea Marcato
Takasumi is 2nd
Giribhu is 2nd
Anna
Continue reading “Day Two, 10 Day Race 2019: Do Good Things”
The board of course at the start of the day is empty
Budjargal will be wearing number 1
I had a chance to talk with him before the start
Tents are still going up
The phone never stops ringing
Continue reading “Start 10 Day Race 2019: I Must Challenge Myself”
A view of the camp with 24 hours to go before the start
Runners are arriving
Welcome back Huang Lan Yang and Wei Ming Lo and
The building of the camp is on schedule
Daulot
Vasuprada’s tent
Continue reading “Day Before 10 Day Race 2019: Tomorrow’s Perfection Will Come”
Continue reading “6 and 10 Day Race 2019 Constructing the Village: Start With New Enthusiasm”
“I am happy,” Kaneenika tells me this morning.
It is hard to imagine that it is even remotely possible for Kaneenika to be happy and yet she is. She starts once again another hot and brutal day pounding along a Queens NYC sidewalk with 59 hard miles still ahead of her. Yet in the whispering moments before midnight she will have reached her goal and run 3100 miles here once again.
I make a statement that I wonder how she will respond. That the race asks of the runners more than they can imagine and yet gives back more than they could ever dream. “Yes, I think that is a very true statement, and I think this race proved it to me more than any race I have run before.”
“I have had hard races even before I started running the 3100, but maybe because this one is so long. I really wanted to finish. This race was pretty hard.”
Kaneenika had told me that she had been working on staying happy and says that like in all things, “there is always room for improvement for everything in life.”
“What I have received from this is that I feel closer to my source. With each step I feel as though I was getting closer and closer. Yesterday it was so hot and humid, and I was trying to push so that I could finish.”
“But there was a part of the day when I felt like there was nothing left in me. So I felt that the Supreme was trying to show me that this race is not about the physical. It is actually more than 100% the Supreme’s grace that we are able to do this race.”
“This morning I had 106 laps to go. I have just done 6 so there is just 100 more to go. Today though I can really see the finish line. Yesterday was really hard for me. It wasn’t that I was doubting that I would make it but it was certainly hard for me to imagine it. To run 2 more days in conditions like this, and really having to push.”
“It is all the Supreme’s grace.”
The Board at the Start of Day 52….*Note the totals may not be accurate…Magic number is 3,039*
“It’s coming close to the end.” I don’t think I have ever seen Sopan this happy in the past 51 days. This morning however he has a great reason to be having such joy that it can bring additional light up into the sky. He is just a few laps away from 3,000 miles and now less than 2 days from completing the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race.
It is never a foregone conclusion that this would happen nor is it ever so for even the most gifted of runners. The race will always challenge you, and humble you, and nurture you in ways you could never dream.
It was 13 years ago as a young person of 25 that he set the record for the youngest runner to ever run the race. In the great gap in between he has not always been granted the gift of completing the distance.
Tomorrow however it will most certainly be his personal victory. A victory over adversity which dogged his heels for many days and yet could not contain his will to succeed. Or perhaps it is just the light within declaring that this summit of transcendence he has justly earned. A goal he surrendered all of himself, to the higher force within, in order to attain.
When asked if he was ever worried, “you never know until the end. Anything can happen. But you have to have faith in order to make it. You cannot doubt yourself all the time and make it.”
“You have to believe. You have to believe that you can make it. That is your very first step.”
“I have gotten physically stronger. It is possible because as you grow spiritually stronger it also makes you physically stronger. I had some difficulties about 10 days ago and I felt that this made me stronger.”
“Even on the worst days everything just worked out. That is the whole magic about the race. It feels as though there is always a guiding and protecting force. Things just work out one way or another.”
Sopan is happy of course that the finish line is getting very close. He hopes to try and continue and maintain the inner experience that he felt here this year. He wants to build upon it.
He says disconnecting from the race is unavoidable. “But the inner cry always remains. For me this race is all about the transformation of nature. This remains, it doesn’t go away.”
When asked about Sri Chinmoy, the founder of the race, Sopan says, “I don’t feel his physical presence. But I feel that he is spiritually present here. His spiritual force is more alive than ever. The spiritual force, the inner presence, for me is much more important than the physical.”
