The Embarrassing Run

Today I ran four miles with Pahar in Flushing Meadow Park. So many silly and embarrassing things happened! Before I started, I put on heavy clothes-shorts, trousers, plus the thick rubber belt I use to support my back. The first mile, as usual, was at my bullock-cart speed: 9:25. My timing for the next two miles was 8:18 and 7:40.
 
After the third mile I said, "Now I want to run a fast mile-seven minutes or under." I took off the rubber belt so that I could breathe more deeply. After two hundred metres, what happened? My trousers began falling off on my right side.
 
First I tried holding them up with my right hand, while I was still pumping with my left hand. Then they started falling down on my left side also. So I had to hold my trousers up with both hands. Whenever I let go, for a few seconds they would stay up and then they would fall down again. Because of this I could not run fast, so my timing was 7:50. Easily I could have gone faster! I forgot that I had on shorts underneath. I should have stopped and taken off my trousers.
 
-20 October 1981  
 
  
 
 [Source: "The Embarrassing Run" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 8, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1982.]