Video of the first month in USA

The morning team met with Julie, a friend living in Minneapolis, who ran with Julian (in July). They covered about five miles around Lake Harriet and down a very nice path out of the park along the Minnehaha Parkway. It is thrilling to be able to share the Torch with local runners who are inspired to carry the messages of Harmony as they get their daily run in at the same time.

Meanwhile, my team of Salil, Francesco, Dr. Meghabhuti Roth, and I went to see a very good physical therapist who is a good friend of Dr. Roth. Jim Olson, who has his own clinic in a town nearby, was very kind and generous as he has been in the past to offer his expert services to some of our runners. He diagnosed and successfully solved a problem I have been having for some weeks now with my whole left pelvic area.

Francesco had the same revealing and at the same time relieving experience with Jim. His metatarsals were improperly aligned and needed some therapy. Jim diagnosed it right away and fixed the problem with advice for us on how to treat it again. We also had the pleasure of meeting his son Chris and his daughter Erin, who also work in the clinic.

Later in the day, our team ran to the Southland YMCA in Minneapolis where we met with a group of young children.

Emily and Ashley, counselors there, joined us with the children in a small ceremony and run around the gym with the Torch.

We are grateful to Brent for organizing the event for us.

Erik and his team were having a different experience further down the route. Erik explains:

“It was a nice experience to be running in Minnesota because I used to live here and I have family in the area. We started our run in Cottage Grove where we met with a man named Al who lives there. He is a great athlete at the age of 68 and has known Yuyudhan for 20 years, they met each other through canoeing competitions. Al ran a solid 5 miles with us in the 90 F heat, he was really sweating but he was feeling great.

“Also along the route my Uncle Chuck pulled over to say hello because he lives in the area and was passing by. It was nice to be able to share the torch with him and to spread the message of harmony.

“At 3:00 we met with a summer group of kids at the Hastings High School.

We had a great meeting, sharing our ideas and our song and of course running with the children.

They were really great and had made some harmony artwork to share with us.

The kids loved it when they were able to learn the Hula, a very soulful and harmonious Hawaiian dance taught by our Hawaiian runner, Bangshidhar.

“Today I ran some miles with Yuyudhan, south of Hastings. The area is mostly farmland but the town is quite big with about 80,000 inhabitants. He's a great runner and a veteran Harmony (and Peace) runner. He'll be with us for a few days. We also ran through Red Wing, a great river town with a nice downtown area. I used to drive through these cities many times when I went to college in the area. At the end of our run we met with Cody, a newspaper reporter from the Red Wing Republican Eagle daily newspaper and he took some photos and said we would be in the paper the next day.

“We then headed back to the Rosewood Inn where we spend the night at one of the most unique places we stayed at during the whole run. It's a bed and breakfast with a real authentic and royal feel to it. We were very warmly welcomed by Pam Thoreson, owner of this historic building which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Dick, her husband, was busy renovating another historic building they own not far from here. We are very fortunate to be guests at this very historic, warm and homey accommodations for the night.”

Arpan, Erik and the team

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