Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

Interview with Asprihanal right before his finish

I was caught in the rain, I tried to get shelter under a tree. Can you imagine: thunderstorm around, this tree is useless. And out of the blue, a car stopped behind me, through the opened window a hand gave me a plastic raincoat, – Take it, boy. Take it. I said, – Thank, you. But while I tried to figure out how to put it on, the rain was over and certainly I got soaked to the skin. People happen to be kind here.

Archived – click Post Title to view all. 44th day. At 6 am it was 63 miles to cover for Asprihanal to get the finish point. He is going to do it around 10 pm. Closer to the end, I’ll try to get this flying Finn to talk and I am going to interview him. Today is Parvati’s singing group anniversary. When Sri Chinmoy gave them a new name, it was Enthusiasm awakeners. As I’ve already told you, they get together and sang for runners every day at 6.40. It is the second day in a row that Parvaty has been celebrating this jubilee. And they prepared gifts for each runner. Today we got a wonderful hat with a sign “3100 mile runner powered by grace and enthusiasm”, a beautiful running T-shirt and a lot of tasty things. It’s a real holiday. Yesterday New York reminded us what thunderstorms are like. In the afternoon we had two strong thunderstorms here – everything was flooded with water, branches were broken by wind. And it lasted for 5 min. Once I was running along a highway and suddenly I realized that I didn’t see anything ahead of me, kind of a void. Then I understood that it was a rain wall and it moved towards me. I just thought that there was no place to hide and was overwhelmed. We got that fierce storm for the first time, but it was a warm thunderstorm though. It was fun, but I was wet from top to toe. Then one hour later, another thunderstorm burst once again. 5 minutes and it was over, sun was shining, just we were wet to the skin. Another story was…

Stutisheel is talking to Suprabha about her previous races, the secret how she can keep her milage all days so stable, about her xperiences with Sri Chinmoy and many other things. To listern interview click the link

43d day. 7.30 am. 135 miles to go for Aprihanal before today’s start. Definitely hе is going to finish tomorrow! Yesterday was a very good day, pretty nice speed; I set a new record – 131 laps, 71.8 miles. I was surprised today when discovered that I was a leader of the day. I feel wonderful, the speed is excellent, the flight is going on! Yesterday Suprabha had a tough day. Pradan failed to remove pain from her spine and she walked for most of the day and had to even take painkillers. She left earlier yesterday, but today she says that she feels better, but needs a few more days to recover to her normal condition. In spite of physical pain, she smiles, cuts jokes and laughs incredibly. It is just great to run with her.

Archived – click Post Title to view all. 41st day, 10pm. Today Purna-Samarpan dropped out of the race. Yesterday he left for home earlier. When Pradan examined him, he said that he believed it would be better to quit the race. This morning Purna Samarpan came to the starting line together with all of us, walked a few laps, but the pain in his spine came back and he took a decision. He hasn’t given up though and is determined to participate next year. Yesterday was a tough day. I published a post on my blog in the morning, and then it was raining from 2 pm till night. It got really tough in the evening. For the last 5 or 6 miles, I was not able to run, so I just walked. Only due to the high speed during the day, I managed to do 65 miles. But this morning when I checked results of the previous day, I saw that it was tough for everybody. Only Asprihanal did 70 miles, the rest of runners didn’t get to this point. By the way, Asprihanal, our firstborn, is going to finish very soon. He said that if he did not surrender to ignorance, it would happen on Monday night. He has been following the schedule of his fourth personal result now. Then one by one others will finish too. I had a nice day today. The weather indulges us amazingly this time. It was 28-29C today, with a cool morning and evening. The only problem I had somewhere between 3 and 4pm, closer to my first break time, was an upset stomach. Probably I had eaten something…