Since it was Saturday and all the schools were closed, we had an easy-going day in front of us with little running and few meetings. We had split up the team to divide the miles ahead of us, as we left Liverpool.

The leaves were already changing their colours, announcing autumn’s arrival.

The running went very smoothly and before we knew it we had finished the day’s mileage.

Along the way we found ourselves in the middle of a local cycling race. It was a time-trial, so about every five minutes a cyclist whizzed past us. We caught one of them on film.

At three o'clock we paid a visit to a local hospital in Lancaster, arranged by our friend Amit, who works there. Originally we were supposed to visit the children’s ward, but unfortunately, or rather fortunately (!), there were almost no children there, except for Saskia and Anasthasia, featured on the picture below.

The children of the ward, despite being absent, had made a nice banner and visual presentation to welcome us.

We then visited several other wards as well and passed our harmony torch around to the patients.

It was very touching to see that some of the patients were moved to tears when they held the torch. It must have given them a tangible sense of hope that people in the outside world, from which they are temporarily cut off, are trying to do good things. All the people we met there really valued and appreciated what we were doing. And for us it was great to be able to give some positive energy back to them, hoping it will give them some hope and encouragement in their healing process.

It’s no fun having to stay in a hospital, especially not for any long stretch of time. We hope and pray that all of them will be better soon.

After our visit to the hospital we drove up to the famous Lake District, which is considered one of the most scenic and beautiful parts of England. According to us, the area definitely lived up to its reputation. How charming and beautiful!

We saw a deer! (or was it a doe?)

We stayed in a nice youth hostel and met up with the other team, who had covered the remaining distance. The rest of that evening we spent in the company of friends from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team from various parts of the country, who had come up to join us for the weekend.

Our English coordinator Balavan is leaving us for a few days as we are moving into Scotland and Ireland. He has done an excellent job so far and we hope to see him again as we return to Wales. Thanks Balavan!

The Lakeside youth hostel had been kind enough to give us discount on our lodgings, for which we are sincerely grateful.

---

Team Members:
Amit Dawar (England), Arthur (Poland), Balavan Thomas (England), Nurari Merry (England),Erika Pongracz (Hungary), Abhinabha Tangerman (Holland), Miroslav Pospisek (Czech Republic), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), Annemijn Schuringa (Holland), Robert Senovsky (Czech Republic), Bakul Keaney (Ireland), Mark Schrader (Germany).

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

< England 22 September

Scotland 24 September >