Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

7 JULY

“It is one of my favorite places to run.” As Suprabha says this, the dawn is greeting us with an incredible gentle glow.  The 12 runners have already just set off and she has obliged me this morning to do a lap of the course with me.  Of course she doesn’t get to New York that often as she lives in the DC area.  So one can naturally assume that she doesn’t get to run here that often.  At least not now. But it wasn’t that many years ago in which this was not just her favorite place to run but in many ways the very epicenter of her life’s journey.  13 summers she spent circling this block and when I dare to even comprehend just how many laps and miles she ran here my mind shuts down.  Latter using a small calculator, it spat out a gigantic trail of numbers.  As I look at her lightly jogging along now, it all just seemed so unbelievable.  How was it possible that this petite little woman could have run so many miles here. (40,300) Read all

They are all saints of the road.  Can you not believe it?  I will tell you a secret, even sometimes they do not believe it to be true. How is it possible to have 12 saints in one place, doing this one same thing, when the rest of the world sometimes seems empty of saints? Read all

“We have to come out of our comfort zone.  When we do that we call it austerity.  What it does is moves us closer to God.  The goal of life is God realization and we have to constantly think like that.  We have to have God realization in this lifetime.”  Swami Paramesha Ananda used to be a familiar site in the early morning hours here on the course.   Read all  

It is probably one of life’s most fundamental questions, but most certainly it is not one that I would dare ask of this very tired group of runners.  Yet Baladev got inspired to ask each one running here, ‘Who are you?” Read all

“It was the toughest day of the race for me.”  Not just for Sopan but for quite a few other runners Tuesday’s humidity, created a challenge for them that some simply could not adapt or adjust to easily.  In our minds we can easily make the assumption that it has to be hard to go so far with so little sleep.  But until you have been absorbed in the steamy embrace of a New York summer’s day, you simply do not know how daunting the weather can be as well to your performance.  How this additional burden can adversely affect not just muscles but also how it can strain minds. Read all