Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

Day 32, 9pm. It’s been a tough day for me, as I’ve been mostly walking. I got diarrhea yesterday because the food had been sitting out in the sun. I had a hard time at night too. In the morning after 10 laps I had no strength. I even took a break just after 1.5 hour running and haven’t been able to run since. Looks like I am going to have the least mileage this year compared with my previous races. It’s OK. These things happen. Today we’ve got another 3 walkers – Ananda-Lahari, Atmavir and Purna-Samarpan. This must be the aftereffects of the heat. Today it was moderately hot, even nice, there was a little breeze, but we haven’t been able to run. Later in the day we had a rain with gusts and then there was a double rainbow. So beautiful! The Supreme’s Smile! Everybody was glowing, even the ones having a hard time. Later in the day another surprise was in store for us. Dr.Kaushal has come all the way from Italy. He’s already on the course taking measures and I hope he’ll help me to increase my mileage and survive my old friend, the full moon. I have become 7.6 kg lighter :-)

Every time I try and write a little story about the 3100 mile race I hope to open up the door to some new aspect of the event. On one level it can be seen as being monotonously repetitive and that nothing new rarely happens. Fortunately I have observed that it is in the runners themselves that new lights are constantly being switched on and illuminations are being revealed all the time here. Something which is incredibly significant and personal to each one individually but also something that can move and inspire me as well. Read more

Author: Utpal This morning after I left the race I went for a run nearby in a local park. Quite by accident I happened to pick up a fragment of conversation that 2 runners were having as they passed by me going in the opposite direction. What I heard one of them say was, “If I could kill my enemies, the whole world would have more peace.” For some reason those few words crept into a little corner of my mind and just refused to vacate the premises. Read more

Archived – click Post Title to view all. After yesterday’s hot and sultry day , when it was around 32-34 with high humidity which we survived, someone successfully, and some not so (Atmavir and Ananda Lahari, for example, walked all day, I managed to keep running) today is a different picture. Ashprihanal and Igor, as if nothing happened, have been running at their usual pace. Sarvagata slowed down, but almost everybody has been running today – including Ananda Lahari, Pradeep, and Atmavir. Pradeep, incidentally, is very stable and it looks like he is gaining momentum. He is a growing fast runner. As it turned out, he was at my house in Kiev in 2001 with the European World Harmony Run team. When they were in Kiev, they stayed with me, and I absolutely do not remember it. But he remembers:) Purna-Samarpan is a trendsetter today – he cut off his T-shirt, so as to leave a well-ventilated top with the stomach, and rushed in the morning, because the day was supposed to be hot. It was hot and we were saved only due to the wind. So throughout the day he’s been running in his vest in which he put ice bags and looked like a terminator. It’s a special vest, which makes one a few pounds heavier, but it cools very well. So he has developed a policy – he runs fast in the morning, walks in the afternoon and runs fast at nighttime. He’s got good mileage, too. I had a good morning, much better than yesterday, and in…

Archived – click Post Title to view all.  Yesterday something very unusual happened. To begin with, Sarvagata ran 80.6 miles (147 laps) and I’d say this is the level of  Madupran, the world record holder. Of course, only he could run more than anybody else, but Sarvagata is a rookie! Think of that! Wow, amazing. Yesterday most of us had a good day.  Shrasa surprised us all – she did 115 laps (63 miles) for the first time and at 11pm went home to rest.  Pradeep did 66 miles and Purna-Samarpan did 65 miles. In general, everybody rocks! I had quite a decent mileage, but since Independence Day I haven’t been able to pick up the pace to do 120 laps. We’ll wait and see. This morning, let’s face it, it has been hard, and I see that my pace is slow, and everybody is moving slowly. I even started looking for the gun to finish these torments:) … And here we meet with Igor, and he says: ‘Stutisheel, I can no more. I’m tired of bearing it. “And when I said that he had only 2 weeks to go, he said, ‘This is too much. I’ll die sooner than that. ” Igor, well, bad news is that at 3,100-mile race nobody has died. So in your case, the only way to stop running is to finish.  We smirked a little and then I took a book of jokes, and we were cracking.  Igor remembered a joke about a moose:) A moose walking in the woods gets wounded by hunters….