Every year the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team International organizes a 12-Hour-Walk in the United States, namely in the Queens area of New York. The race takes place on the 12th of April and starts - depending on the weekday, at 6 am or at 7 pm.
In April 1996 a view hours before the start I spontaneously decided to take part to the race, I never participated to such an event before. I was capable of running, because, after quitting with the yearlong lasting vice of smoking, as a compensation for the addiction I started to keep my body busy with running. The misery became a virtue and I started to appreciate more and more the satisfaction resulting from the daily jogging. At that time I started again to feel more my body, to increasingly feel more comfortable in it, this of course was showing reaction upon my soul condition too. Didn't already the ancient Greeks know that "only in a healthy body can reside a healthy mind"? The jogging on a regular basis helped me also to being more intensively in touch with nature, thus I experienced the different seasons more deeply, and they all have their beauty and offer their own charm. Even a cold and wet jogging day has something good in it: only after a run in the cold can you truly value the cosy warmth in the flat.
This way I started in this "Walk" and quite fast copied from the faster walkers the strange looking way of walking, which according to the rules, that at every time one foot must touch the ground, was more a waddle then a walk. The speed was so high that some joggers occasionally passing by could not keep up with. Possibly the circumstance that in the daily life I am constantly under time pressure and have to move around with a fast walking was giving me an advantage, thus I was able to keep up with the race leaders. As I was hoping at the beginning to have a more relaxed situation compared to a marathon or an ultramarathon, I had to acknowledge that at a walk-race you have to deal with the same "enemies" of long distance races: pain, lack of motivation, the thought "Why am I torturing myself after all, if at the same time I could enjoy a nice meal in a restaurant?", tiredness etc.
Thank God the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team does all imaginable things to keep the participants in a good mood and inspire them. This is not achieved just by placing food tables regularly distributed around the track, but also a tent for medical care and free massage was provided. My thoughts were often getting back to the massage table, but my ambition would not allow me to engage such a "waste of time". Further there are as usual for all the events of the SCMT different, also quite enthusiastic small groups of helpers placed along the perhaps three kilometres long track, which divert the race participants in different ways from destructive thoughts and switch them for a few seconds to positive feelings/thoughts while they are passing by. There is singing going on playing music, others recite inspiring poems (by the way you can find all around the track small boards with uplifting writings) and others again cheer the participants just with cheer ups and clapping. At ultra events of the SCMT you see sometimes also single people trying on a very creative way to drive away the monotonous feeling that can enter the participant during the long hours of the race. So they are doing all kind of "Larifari", doing a headstand, joggling, monobike driving and so on. The cheerfulness of organizers and helpers had a contagious effect.
During the course of the race I made an interesting experience that once more illustrated to me the close connection between body and spirit: many hours after the start, at a time when my inspiration was drawing near zero and the sinews and muscles of my legs were unpleasantly hard demanding my attention, somebody with whom I am connected by a deep inner connection appeared on the track. Suddenly my attention was pointed to uplifting feelings and thoughts and I was no longer feeling my legs. I was just spooling down one round after the other and lost the feeling of time, there was just this uplifted feeling and the lightness connected with this feeling. In addition I got a very pleasant message that again gave me inspiration. The push coming from this message let my speed increase - without getting aware of it - in a way that I soon found myself in the leading group. Although nowadays many coaches put ever more attention on the inner preparation of the athletes before the race, I believe the deciding strength of the right consciousness of the athletes during the race is still being underestimated.
In the leading group I could recognize mainly one big opponent. Unluckily he was strongly determined to bring home again the victory he already conquered once. Initially I entered the race with no expectations, thus really enjoying it also for big parts. But now the obsessive ambition or let us formulate it more positive, the fighting spirit of my college was infecting me, unnoticed I found myself on an emotional level where I wonted to defeat the other by all means. The chance to be the best was within my grasp and this should be a reason to rejoice. But gone was my inner happiness, my inner peace and this in one strike; now I found myself on the battlefield. And I had bad luck or to be more accurate, I had the weaker fitness. My opponent, with whom I accomplished a number of loops at an awful speed side by side, suddenly got ahead of me with a seemingly superhuman act of strength. First I tried to follow right behind by mobilizing all my strength - meanwhile our speed was so high, you could only call it sprint, we were repeatedly letting behind us participants trying to keep up with us. Then my lost consciousness came back to my rescue. I could again accept the idea not to be the best one and was satisfied just by doing my best. And again I could go my own speed in a cheerful mood and my positive feelings came back. The "outdoing the other one" - I thought - is acting like a poison, that is taking away ones happiness and is bringing back in mind the physical pain and mental tensions. Interestingly later I came to learn that my opponent had to go to the medical tent before the race ended and lost so much time there, that he could not finish among the first three.
The beautiful thing about sport challenges is not only the fact, that you experience satisfaction and happiness in body and spirit after a physical performance, but also that you get the opportunity to grow inwardly, to become a more mature person. The results at the races play a minor role for me, indeed usually at the evening of the race I have long forgotten my race results.