Day 30…Still Learning (July 17 )
Last night after running here every day for 4 weeks and a day Andrey Andreev went home having completed 1600 miles. A not insignificant number and one which is about 1000 miles further than he has ever run before.
With 3 weeks and a day left to continue his task he will run many more miles yet. Reaching 3100 is unlikely but this fact is one that is irrelevant to Andrey and to the others who are quickly shaping new goals as their fortunes shift and change.
He has spent the last 10 years shaping and molding himself into a distance runner. He is an eternal optimist, one who seems to find new experiences and new inner and outer achievement with each lap. And more importantly knows that his personal finish line is not a mark made here on the sidewalk. But rather one which continues to call to him in his eternal race towards his own self transcendence.
When asked how he is doing he says simply, “amazing.”
Hoping for a little more I ask him specifically about his body and what it has gone through. “It looks as though I am still learning how to listen to my body better. I am also learning to love my body. To be able to listen to it clearly and not be confused by it.”
When asked about his mind, I joke that he perhaps left it back in Russia. “In order to do this race I had no choice but to leave my mind back there. Otherwise I wasn’t even considering doing this race.”
