Jogging with the Mayor

Just before the start of the race in Oregon, the Mayor of that town came up to me and said, "I am the Mayor here. I am so happy and honoured that you are here, Sri Chinmoy."
 
Three or four minutes later the race started. I started jogging, and the Mayor also started jogging with me. He was quite fat. I wanted to go at a ten-minute pace, and he ran with me. We were last. After eight hundred metres, the Mayor said, "I am now going home." Eight hundred metres was enough for him. Also, the eight-hundred metre mark was right in front of his home.
 
-19 October 1980 
 
 

[Source: "Jogging with the Mayor" in Sri Chinmoy,  Run and Become, Become and Run, Part 4, Agni Press/Aum Publications, Jamaica, New York, 1981.]