Stories from the Marathon in Chico
recounted by Sri Chinmoy
the day after he ran the race for the second time
Before the start of the Chico Marathon I was talking with Joe Henderson, the running author. When they called for the runners who were going to run thirteen miles, he ran to the starting line. He told our boys that he would come and greet me when I finished 26.2 miles.
At the one-mile point in the Chico Marathon I heard the time: 7:46. I said to myself, “It’s too fast.” Then it went on, went on. At every mile when I heard my time, I felt it was too fast.
I had told Sharon and Una to give me water and ERG every second mile, but twice it happened that I didn’t get it from them. At the two-mile mark the cup was very small. It was like the cups with mayonnaise or something that they give in restaurants. Instead of entering into my mouth, the water entered into my nose.
At the fourth mile Sharon didn’t come at all. Finally she came at four and a half miles to give me a tiny cup of water, but it didn’t quench my thirst. At the fifth mile I began screaming that I was dying of thirst. Then they brought the thermos cup, which is bigger. So I was satisfied. From then on I was drinking like anything, but for the first five or six miles I was quite thirsty.
ERG powder I took many times. It helped, but the best was water. As soon as I drank water, I got energy. Before the race I didn’t have to drink tea or coffee; water was enough.
Around six miles somebody far behind me shouted: “Guru, you are doing well, quite well.”
Now, I had requested the disciples not to run this particular marathon since I was running, so I was wondering who this could be. Finally I saw that it was somebody who had “Reno” written on his T-shirt. His wife is our disciple, and he has been planning for the last three years to become a disciple. Still he is in the planning stage. He is a lawyer.
Another gentleman runner recognised me and said I was doing extremely well. He also called me “Guru.”
At the seven-mile mark a young man came up to me and grabbed my hands, saying, “My name is Mike. You don’t know me, but I know you.”
He wanted to shake hands.
Just before thirteen miles an old man was running faster than me. Whether he was encouraging me or discouraging me, God alone knows. Then he recognised me and said: “Sri Chinmoy, all your races are terrific. I am going to run your marathon in Davis, California, next month.”
After thirteen miles those who were only running a half-marathon were finishing, but the rest had to go two more rounds. At that time my entire being was longing for a half-marathon.
Later, there were two or three runners who recognised me and started encouraging me to run faster. Saumitra was taking movies. One of them wanted to be with me in the picture, so he slowed down. He said, “You are a great man. It is good to be beside you.” Saumitra took our picture.
Around fourteen, fifteen or sixteen miles, a young man was running ahead of me. All of a sudden he turned around and asked, “Do you recognise me? Last year I was at your place.”
Immediately I recognised him. It was the great runner Jay Helgerson, who ran a marathon every week for one year in 1979. He was on his last loop, but he stopped to chat with me. At first he didn’t smile, but then he started smiling at me.
A few minutes after I saw Jay Helgerson, Joan Ullyot passed me. She said, “Keep on going.”
Then she turned around just for a fleeting second, and Una and Sharon recognised her. She is the famous running doctor from California, an excellent runner.
At around seventeen miles my friends, cramps, came. At the end of seventeen miles my left calf cramped up. Then later my right leg cramped, and then again my left. At least two or three times every mile Nirvik had to massage me. So what kind of time could I expect? Nirvik and Doug were behind me on bicycles. I would run a few hundred metres, and then Nirvik would massage me. When I ran, it was a nine-minute pace, but I would lose three or four minutes each mile when he massaged me.
A little boy ten or eleven years old also had cramp problems. His hamstrings were bothering him. He felt miserable. He finally said to me, “How I wish somebody could massage me.”
Then he and I became good friends. When I ran, he walked. When he ran, I walked. When I was getting massaged, at that time he would run two or three hundred metres ahead of me. Then he would stop and walk. In this way we were together until twenty-three miles. Then my dying spirit got new inspiration and the poor boy fell behind. I didn’t see him anymore.
The course was excellent, and the weather was really ideal. Only in two or three places they hadn’t swept the course and there were big stones and pebbles. And there was one extremely steep hill, three or four metres long. It was so difficult after the third loop to go down it.
On the third loop Garima was running ahead of me to inspire me. When she ran down that very steep, short hill, I said, “How am I going to make it?” I didn’t dare to even walk down it, it was so steep. But that was the course. In at least four places it could have been a little more flat.
Altogether there were four loops. It seemed that every time I came near the finish line, they played my flute music over the loudspeaker. When I was finishing, at least three hundred metres before I crossed the finish line, they were playing “Phire Chalo.” It was absolutely the correct song to play: the soul was going back to its heavenly home. The last three hundred metres I ran hearing only my “Phire Chalo” on the flute.
The race directors were very nice people. After I finished, one of the officials came up to me and said, “It was very nice of you to run.”
I have the same fate as my disciples. Once my disciples descend in their aspiration, they find it very difficult to ascend. Similarly, since I have descended in my running, I haven’t been able to ascend again. Still I am staying at the foot of the tree.
As I have not given up hope that any disciples who have descended will once again go up in their spiritual life, my disciples should not give up faith that I will again go up in my running. There has to be mutual faith.
In California we held a race especially for the military. Unfortunately, they heard about it only at the eleventh hour, so there were hardly ten runners. Our runners joined them.
The race began at seven o’clock in the morning. Around five-thirty I got inspiration to compose a song on the military. I didn’t know that there were women in the military. Later I saw that four or five women soldiers were there.
One of the high-ranking officers came over to me and said, “This time we have very few people, but next time it won’t be like this. We deeply admire your races.” He took off his jacket and showed me one of our T-shirts. He said, “I run all of your races.”
Published in Run and Become, Become and Run, part 5
Sri Chinmoy training at an indoor movie theatre in New York.