Grahak Cunningham

[1] Cunningham grew up in Busselton, south of Perth, he did very little running.

It was only when he was about 16 and stressed with school exams that his mother took him along to a meditation class.

At university, he began attending classes at a Sri Chinmoy center.

He adopted the name Grahak from Sri Chinmoy (a Sanskrit word meaning "eagerness").

Already running marathons and longer distances and getting ever more deeply involved in Chinmoy's teachings, Cunningham first witnessed the New York race in 2003.