“I love it, of course I always loved it when they would sing when I was running.” Sunday morning I caught up with Suprabha after she had been singing with the Enthusiasm Awakeners singing group. “It brightens the morning for the runners.”
Suprabha has a phenomenal history here at the Self-Transcendence 3100 mile race. She ran and completed the first 13 races accumulating a total of 40,300 miles on the course. Then if you add the first 2,700 mile race in 1996, well you can do the math. The circumference of the earth is just 24,901 miles.
Asked if she had any doubts going into that first big race. “I guess I never ever thought whether or not it was possible to do it. I had enough inspiration and direction from Sri Chinmoy. He taught how to do one step at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time.”
Interviewed during her 10th race in 2006, she said, “There are always new surprises in each race.” She took delight in the sheer volume of miles she was collecting over her many, many ultra races.
Ted Corbitt in 2005 was amazed that she kept coming back to the race. “It is amazing, just amazing.”
Suprabha, besides singing with the girls singing group, had also done a couple of shifts counting. “I felt I was here to be part of the race again. It invokes all kinds of feelings. That this is really my home and once you come back it feels as though you never left. I just felt the power of the race.”
She says that for her to be at the race, “This is real life, and this is Sri Chinmoy’s world. Everything else is kind of an illusion.”
My heart runs
The world’s longest race,
And not my mind.
My Lord runs ahead of me;
My breath runs behind.
6 August 2005
New York
Sri Chinmoy, My Race-Prayers, part 2, Agni Press, 2006
