Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race

Author:  Utpal 13 July A few days ago an American baseball player named Derek Jeter reached a major milestone in his career.  This New York Yankee short stop managed to complete his 3,000th career hit as a professional baseball player.  This is an exceptional achievement for a player.   He will be only the 28th person to accomplish this feat in the history of the game.  I am not much of a fan of the sport but when ever I hear numbers like 3000 I am compelled to take notice.  It does sound a lot like 3100 miles after all.  Read more

Author: Utpal 11 July It is a place where anything can happen.  The moment you get even the tiniest bit complacent than of course that is precisely the moment you will find yourself being suprised.  Taking any aspect of the race for granted is never recommended at any time, not even up until the very last lap on the last day.  There are never certainties,  not for the runners nor as well for those of us keen observers of all its ebbs and flows.  I like to think that a miracle can happen here in a heartbeat, that in an instant the sleeping giant will awake or the champion can potentially tumble off his peak.  Read more

Archived – click Post Title to view all. Day 35. 8:34 a.m. A few words about the previous day. It’s midsummer and it’s full moon. In the morning it was quite hard, I hard stomach problems and went to rest before my regular break time. After the break I wasn’t able to run at all. Some time later Kaushal came, looked at me and said that my liver was shutting down. He tried to fix it, but I still couldn’t’t run and walked up to the end of the day. He came in the evening again and was very surprised to find out that practically all my internal organs were shut down – liver, kidneys, stomach. And whichever medicine he tested, all of them fit, as if each organ was crying: “Me too, me too!”. He ended up giving me a shot in the liver. 40 miles on day 35 is ok. Life is life. As usual, the fool moon took its toll on me. According to Kauhal, I will be feeling better now that the moon is waning. Maybe it has the same effect on me in the regular life, but I don’t have to run 100 km a day there. Igor also had problems with his liver and he did fewer miles than usual. Sarvagata had issues with his knees but he managed to do his daily norm. Even Galya, who is not running the race, was feeling bad and didn’t come to cheer us up. Ukrainians had a bad day. Today it’s just the other way round. I feel good and hope that everything will be back to normal. I…

Author: Utpal 14 July Last night a rainbow boldly painted itself across the sky above the Self Transcendence race. There are probably quite a few boring technical and scientific reasons of why and how it was formed, but still in the brief time it glowed up in the sky, it was magical. For the runners it was particularly significant for it was for them a totally unexpected visit of nature’s beauty. They have been every which way around the course over the past month now and yet this was something totally unique and new. No one could recall every seeing something quite as spectacular as this ever on the course. Read more