Return of the zombie
Giuseppe from Austria sent this to me today with the caption “return of the zombie” that forms the title of this post. This is my finish at the Self Transcendence Marathon in Rockland State Park in New York, which took place on August 25th. Basically, I looked up at the clock, decided 3:06 wasn’t going to turn into 3:07 anytime soon, and slowed down to a walk two metres before the finish line.
It looks like I had a pretty tough race; I did. (In fact, I decided not to publish some of my mid-race pictures in order to preserve the delicate aesthetic balance on this site.) Some of the toughness was actually quite a nice spiritual experience - you somehow realise that a lot of the pain is just you fighting and resisting and complaining inside, and as soon as you give all that up and just surrender to the experience, things get a whole lot better. I remember Suprabha Beckjord, one of the foremost women’s ultrarunners in the world and the only person to complete every edition of the world’s longest race, the 3100 mile Self-Transcendence Race, saying how ultrarunning “was a first-hand experience of God’s Grace and Compassion”. True that. It’s something you can very tangibly feel, when you let go of all the mental baggage; something reeling you in like a fisherman towards the finish line, something ‘closer to you than your own neck vein’, as the Koran would put it. In daily life, we live in the mental world, where all of these ideas - the soul, God, bliss - float around, capable neither of being proved nor disproved. It’s only when you take the plunge and do something outside the realm of the mind that some direct experience of these things can make itself available to you.
Very good you luck like a toy that needs to be wound up.
Seriously, congratulations on finishing the marathon.