Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

Archived – click Post Title to view all. The 12th day of the race, 8.06 pm, June 23. Today’s weather is fine – since morning we have been swimming in a thick fog. A few times it started to rain, but not seriously, it has been cloudy all day long. And even now I am running in a long-sleeved shirt – the weather is a perfect fit. Not all of us are running . Ananda -Lahari speeded up yesterday, especially by the evening and finished with 67 miles. We all know his principle: if he runs fast at night, the next day he will walk. It’s peculiar that he himself doesn’t notice this regularity. Atmavir has also been walking all day long  and very slowly for this matter. In the morning he said that something was wrong with his stomach and as a result he would have fewer laps. Purna-Samarpan is also having a tough time. Many of us caught a cold on the first day of the race (because of low temperature). Most of us  have already recovered or their colds do not interfere with the running. Purna-Samarpan though couldn’t fall asleep last night because of cough and he looks sick. It’s 14 hours after the start and about half of the time he spent in the bed under the blanket. So, we are hitching our wagon to a star. All others are mincing, some are mincing fast, and some people are even flying. Our Ukrainian rocket, Igor Mudrik, is the one who is flying. Yesterday he asked me…

The 11^th day of race, 8 pm. To begin with, I’d like to tell some words about the results after 10 days. I have realized more than once that the 3,100 race standard is very high and very good. The first 4 guys – Ashprihanal, Pranjal, Atmavir and Igor Mudrik – have transcended the result of this year’s 10-day race winner (678 miles). With my mileage (633 miles), which is quite good for the 3,100 race, I would get the 3^rd place in the 10-day race. We have already run 10 days happily and we’ll be keeping it up. Today the temperature (23-25 C) is moderate with 100% humidity. Everybody is running though. No one is suffering too much. Tomorrow we will see how it tells on the miles. I saw Ashprihanal at 10 am and the next time at 7 pm an hour ago. We must have been hiding from each other. It happens sometimes –  we can be running on the same track but do not see each other.

The 10^th day of the race, 7.40 pm. It hasn’t been hot today, +25 C  but it’s very humid and some of our runners are a little bit “battered” by these conditions. Purna-Samarpan has just started running, before he was either walking or lying in the car. Atmavir has the third hard day in a row. Since the early morning he has been walking and said that he felt weak but later started running. All our runners including myself have reached 600 miles and at the end of the day we will have more. Sarvagata has already improved his personal result of 10day race  which was 605 miles. He is already gone beyond to the unknown area. My 4^th day is going at good speed. Earlier I told about my night sleep schedule.  All these years I have had the following schedule:  6 am is the start and 7 hours of running after that. The first break is at 1 pm. Sometimes I look at the number of laps and my break may depend on those. Then I make a break for 20-25 min (including feet treatment). The second 20-25 min break I have at about 6 pm. The third break for 10 min at 9 or 9.30 pm. This one is only to lie down and give my legs some rest before the final part of 10-13 loops. My day finishes at 11.20-11.30 now.

Ashprihanal confessed that he has a psychological issue which he calls a “speech defect”. For 11 years that he has been in the 3,100 race and 1.5 months of running every year he has developed  a habit to talk while moving. When he is in Helsinki, he often catch himself asking his friend to have a cup of coffee together passing by him. Only afterwards he realizes that he didn’t get the answer.