Practice Marathons

The first mile of the Philadelphia Marathon was no good. The road went up into the sky. After two or three hundred metres it went up, up, up-like a building! As soon as I started the race, I had no life energy.
 
I am very tricky. I just run the course and if I don't complete it, I call it practice. Otherwise, if I take it too seriously, I suffer. I think, "Oh, I have to complete it." But this way I don't have to worry. I just start and do as many miles as I can.
 
-12 November 1981  
   
 
 
[Source: "Practice Marathons" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 8, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1982.]