It is only in a photograph that you can really stop and adequately capture the speeding world around us. Time never stops, nor life, nor the race nor really anything that is part and parcel of creation. Just as one footstep continually follows another, thoughts tumble one past another. All experiences, so powerful and real for an instant are then continually being replaced by hopefully higher ones. But int that instant the photo was taken you can at least attempt to reveal and comprehend a precious moment of a life in constant movement.
As someone who takes hundreds of pictures each day I am continually surprised at the little personal glimpses of life I can see taking place in the faces of those who are running here. There are some who are almost always constantly serene. They somehow cast the appearance of a living breathing tranquility. One that has to be obviously in stark opposition, to the heroic encounter with suffering that they are surely being forced to willingly bear.
Ashprihanal’s face is a nonstop playground of expressions just as his arms and legs seem to twirl and spin in their own unique unscripted and unrepeatable choreography. In one instant you might believe you see unbearable agony and in the next he will exhibit such radiant bliss you might not see anything similar unless you gazed up at paintings of holy figures in a place of worship.
He is of course both human and divine and seemingly unstoppable now as he forges his way onwards towards a personal best in the 3100. The finish line now appears ever so clearly in front of him. Just 500 miles away and it looks simply as though Sunday will be the day. Time will not stop but his race on this his 11th year here surely will. Many photographs will freeze the instant of celebration, and then he will simply run past and continue on with life.