The 300-metre mark⁹

Always people stop me at the 300-metre mark of our race course in Flushing Meadow Park. Yesterday, before the Runners are Smilers race, somebody stopped me at that mark and said, “Can you tell me how to get to the train station?”

Then today it happened again. I was warming up before the start of our five-mile race. At about my second mile, which was at the 300-metre mark on the course, a runner came up to say hello. “Do you have the time?” he asked.

I said, “I have no watch, so I am not sure. It is around seven-thirty. The race has not started, so you will not miss it.”

He said, “But I want to practise.”

Then he went to one of the disciples to ask the time. That disciple told him, “It is exactly seven-thirty.” Then the runner was reassured and he went to practise. Every time I go to the 300-metre mark, somebody comes and asks me for something. That is the place!