About the author:
Rupantar has been the race director of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team since 1985, having been asked by Sri Chinmoy to serve in that capacity. As well as working on the big races the US Marathon Team organise each year - the 3100 Mile Race and the Six and 10 Day Race - he also spends a considerable amount of time archiving the Marathon Team's 40 year history on this website.
At the end of Day 12, Andrea Marcato maintains his lead at the front of the pack with 863 miles. In second place, Aspirhanal Aalto is getting closer and really getting into a good rhythm with a few days of 70+ miles. Loe Wei Ming in 3rd place maintains a very consistent pace of around 62-63 miles. Vasu has also had a good consistent week. Huang Lan Yang leads the female runners with 740 miles, with Susan Marshall just a few miles behind. All runners are in good spirits and cheerfully adapting to the challenges and events of this great race.
Race Director's Snippets from Day 12: When the morning crew arrived at the race on Wednesday, Day 11, one of the handlers noticed on the daily print out of the runner’s mileage that Andrea had only done 53 miles the previous day, Tuesday. We all thought that there must have been some typo. Since the start of the race, Andrea did not take even one break! We tried contacting Medur, who is in charge of the daily mileage results but there was no reply. Arpan, Andrea’s main helper, was out of town for 3 days, but, low and behold, he arrived at the race around 7 am Wednesday morning. It turns out that Andrea was feeling very sluggish on Tuesday, as he was on his own most of the day. Andrea did not want to bother Arpan about his problem as he knew he was out of town, so he reached out to some of his friends around the world, literally. As it turned out, these friends contacted Arpan about Andrea’s sluggishness. Arpan immediately called Andrea and told him not to worry about his mileage and be happy, exactly the same advice Guru had given Arpan in one of his two attempts at 3100 miles. So Arpan returned to Queens late that night, and gave Andrea another pep talk, some calcium and magnesium, and a thorough massage of his legs.
Andrea was back on the course the next day (Wednesday) as good as new.
When we are having a bad day there is no scoreboard that reflects our struggle, that everyone can see. But for the runners, their bad day is there for the whole world to examine, as was the case with Andrea. The Master’s advice: not to worry and be happy.
Rupantar, Wednesday, 14 September
Day Eleven photos by Alakananda
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