Great Finnish, by Utpal
August 4
On Saturday morning when Ashprihanal arrived at the race he stepped up on the edge of the curb and stretched his calves, just as he has done every day here. He was directly in front of the numbers board as he did this. I could see that he was looking at the mileage he still had left to do. Speaking to no one in particular, he said, “the old Ashprihanal could do that”.
What it showed was that he had 65 miles or 119 more laps to go. A number he had not met in more than 3 weeks. In my mind, the person I was looking at was just a slightly diminished version, of one of the greatest multi day runners of all time, Ashprihanal. One who was incredibly talented, certainly still capable of majestic flying around the course, and probably the guy who would not finish until sometime the next day. I was wrong.
