“It is perfect. The sun is shining and a runner is running,” says Sopan to me this morning, as he jogs with light shuffling steps beside me.
It is very early on a quiet bright Saturday morning, the 21st of June. It is a date that smacks of special significance for most of us. For it is the day with the most hours of sunshine of the entire year. (Southern Hemisphere people you will get your chance again in 6 months time)
But in what has to be a strange irony, just now as the days gradually grow just a little shorter, and offer up less and less of their light, the race itself has barely just begun. The colossal distance still remainging in front of the 14 runners here feels almost like completing it will take an eternity.
In his first 6 days here, Sopan from Bulgaria has run well. He has managed to complete 385 miles, which in most runners logs books would be an impressive number. But when you still have 2800 more miles to go, in the grand scheme of things, for Sopan, as well as all the others, they still have an unbelievably long distance yet to run.
Sopan is a young man, at 33 he is the youngest runner in the race and yet what is even more incredible is that he first ran the race in 2005 and again in 2006.
When he completed the race in 2005 he was just 24 and set a still undefeated mark of being the youngest to ever accomplish this feat. For good measure he came back the following year, and by running the race in 50 days and 13 hours took more than a full day off his own record.
Now if Sopan had been the sole author of his own life, from those two victorious years until now, no doubt he would have authored a great and glowing adventure for himself. One whose plot included coming back each and every year and championing the distance, and improving his performance each time.
Give any of us the opportunity to direct the events and course of our lives and than no one would ever write into their script such things as disappointment, injury, and struggles of any kind.

The mortal in all of us is more than accustomed to suffering and hardship. It is a condition though that very few of us would deliberately care to seek out, and then ascribe ourselves to rounds of any kind of torment. I am not trying to describe any of those conditions to Sopan or what happened in any of the times he attempted the race in the intervening years.
But last year he achieved a special kind of victory in that he was able to stay the entire time at the race and managed to complete 2831 miles in 52 days. A performance that amply demonstrated not just his dedication to the Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race, but also showed just how much heart and courage he really has. To not give up in a situation where clearly completing the full distance was not going to be attainable.
On the sidelines we can clearly see the miles, but runners like Sopan are seeking out something much more significant than just a long tally of numerals on the board. “I come to make progress here. This is the reason I came back after last year because I felt I made so much progress inwardly.”
“But there is one thing that drives me to push myself. I really want to finish at least one more time. I have waited for so long.”

Sri Chinmoy: Self-discipline is of paramount importance. Self-transcendence comes into existence only by virtue of self-discipline and meditation. In our day-to-day life we like to derive happiness from what we do and from what we are. Here, although outwardly these four runners are completely tired and exhausted, they feel that this is a new way to make themselves happy and to make themselves proud of their own lives.
Sri Chinmoy, Sri Chinmoy answers, part 12, Agni Press, 1999