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Sahishnu Szczesiul, Associate Race Director and also our race statistician and historian, has been hard at work on compiling accounts of some of the more compelling moments in the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team's 40 year history. Recently he has published two remarkable accounts in PDF form - the very first 3100 mile race in 1997, as well as its immediate precessor, the first and only 2700 mile race in 1996.

The 2700 Mile race was a giant leap forward in Sri Chinmoy's vision of what athletes could achieve with their indomitable inner spirit; it was more than double the length of the previous longest race in the Marathon Team's repertoire (1300 miles).​ In Sahishnu's words: "This event was a steppingstone to new achievement that somehow would be revealed. The runners ignited the search for athletic and inner perfection at the same time. The words 'self-transcendence' had become mainstream in the conscioiusness of the athletic world, and remarkable in the spiritual realm."

Read in PDF form:

• 6 runners chase a legend - the full story of the 2700 Mile Race
• Follow Your Dreams - the story of the very first 3100 Mile race in 1997

Related

• 3,100 Mile race homepage

 

 

In December, Shamita Achenbach-Konig set out from her home in Vienna to run all the way to her birthplace of Bregenz, in the very west. This 640km journey took her 7 days of running, 16 hours of days, through all kinds of wintry weather. Austria is also famous for its hills and mountains, and Shamita had to ascend and descend over 4000m in her journey.

A professional cellist by profession, Shamita has been running ultra-distance races with the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team for over 25 years. Earlier this year, she also visited Bregenz, this time to run all around the famous Lake Constance. You can read all about that here...

Samunnati Nataliya Lehonkova from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team represented the Ukraine in the 2016 Olympic marathon in Rio, and has also won marathons in Los Angeles, Dublin, Edinburgh, Belfast and Toulouse. Her most recent win, in the 2017 Dublin marathon, established a personal best of 2:28.

In this video, Samunnati sat down with her friend and 3100 Mile race finisher Jayasalini Abramovskikh and talked about becoming a meditation student of Sri Chinmoy at the age of 12 and how that slowly led to her running longer and longer distances. She also talks a little about her training schedule, and how Sri Chinmoy's philosophy of self-transcendence inspires her to run.

Before she became a professional runner, Samunnati was a regular on the international Peace Run team; she reminices a little about travels all around Europe and Australia carrying a torch for world harmony.

For people who happen to be fans of both the New York Times daily crossword puzzle and the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race (we know you're out there!) the January 17, 2018 puzzle was a double treat.

The Times ran a short article going through some of the clues of that puzzle. The clue for 27 across was 'Marathon leader'. As co-puzzle author (and NYT crossword debutante) Alan Southworth relates, he was wondering if people unfamiliar with ultramarathoning would get the answer (Ultra). Looking into the matter, he came across the the 3,100 Mile Race which has been the subject of much discussion ever since. The photo in the article shows Yolanda Holder en route to completing the race in her inaugural effort in 2017, the first person to do it solely by walking. The Times ran a lengthy profile of Yolanda in July, which you can read here...

For more on the 3100 Mile Race, you can always visit the homepage...

The Sri Chinmoy Marathon, which takes place every August in Rockland State Park in upstate New York, celebrated its 15th birthday this year. We recently put together a short video using footage from the 2016 and 2017 races - we hope you like it!

Sri Chinmoy attended the marathon every year until his passing in 2007, and would often travel around the course offering his inspiration and encouragement to the runners. He made the following remarks following the inaugural marathon in 2002:

The marathon was so beautiful, so peaceful! Mother Nature was so kind to us. There could not be a better, more ideal situation than this one. It was so nice, absolutely! The weather was super-super-excellent. The servers were super-super-excellent. The organisation was super-super-excellent. Everything was super-super-excellent. I was there for six or seven hours, and I was enjoying the panorama of nature’s beauty immensely. There we saw water. Water means life-energy. And there we saw sky-vastness. Everything gave me absolutely unimaginable joy. Again, this joy came mainly from your participation.

More information:

• Sri Chinmoy Marathon event page

Most ultra-runners have to balance training for many hours a day with the demands of their regular life, and Jayasalini Abramovskikh is no exception, working at least 9 hours a day at her job as an economist. Jayasalini has run our 6 and 10 day race many times, and in 2014 became the first Russian woman to complete the 3100 Mile Race. She talks how she keep her really long runs for weekends and public holidays, how she varies her training, and (interestingly) how she prefers to undertrain rather than overtrain.

In her interview, she also talked about how she got into ultrarunning in the first place:

Related

• Running in rhythm with the heart: Jayasalini's book about her 3100 Mile experience
• Video: Jayasalini talks about her 3100 Mile Race experience

Pioneers of ultrarunning at the 1982 race: Stu Mittleman, Sue Medaglia, Ted Corbitt, and Cahit Yeter

The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team started its service to the public by putting on races ranging from 2 mile to the marathon. Only after a few years, did it start entering into the world of ultramarathons. Sahishnu Szczesiul, our associate race director and inveterate statistician, has lovingly compiled a history of our 24 hour race, which ran from 1980 to 1993. This was the very first ultramarathon we put on for the public.

In this 53-page story, Sahishnu details the 50 mile, 100k and 100mile women's world records broken by Marcy Schwam in the very first race, the records set by the immortal Yiannis Kouros in 1984 and 1985 (the latter in the middle of storm force conditions), and Ann Trason's shattering of the 24 hour world record in 1989.

• Read: History of the 24 hour race (pdf)
• You can also read excerpts for the following years: 1993 • 1991 • 1990 • 1989 • 1988 • 1987 • 1986 • 1985 • 1984 • 1983 • 1982 • 1981 • 1980
• 24 hour race page

 

Sri Chinmoy spoke many times about how people could get the most inner joy from doing ultra distance events. The excerpts here come from a talk given at the closing of the 2005 3100 Mile Race, as well as answers to questions asked by Suprabha Beckjord, a 13-time finisher of the 3100 Mile Race.

Special places

Dear runners, when you go around the course, try to discover two or three special places where you feel that you are getting joy. Even on a 400-metre track when you do long distance, there will be a few special places. You do not know why, but when you reach those places you get automatically a new burst of energy. Try to remember where you get energy or joy. At that spot, Mother Nature is helping you.

Keep the mind cheerful

Always try to keep your mind happy and cheerful, cheerful! Cherish all your sweet memories….every day, the way seekers recite from the Upanishads and the Vedas and slokas from the scriptures, you can also do the same by recalling your divine experiences. And if you are a singer, then inwardly sing and outwardly sing. In as many ways as possible, keep yourself happy, happy, happy, happy! Just see in how many ways you can make yourself happy. 

This happiness is of utmost importance. When you are unhappy, no matter how sincere you are, no matter how hard you try to improve your time, you cannot do it. But when you are happy, your timing automatically improves. Happiness is strength, a new supply of energy.

Fool the mind

Every morning, when you are starting to run, you have to feel that this is the only day that you are running. Then, when tomorrow comes, again think that this is the only day. Otherwise, you may lose patience when you have to run more than a month. To try to always maintain dynamism is out of the question. If you try to have dynamism, you will fall down so many times! The best thing for you to do is to fool the mind by saying, "Oh, this race is only for one day." Then you will take rest. When tomorrow comes, again you will think, "This race is only for one day." Always divide it. Every day when you start, if you can convince yourself that it is only for one day, then you will think, "Oh, I can easily do it. Only last year I ran 3,100 miles. Today I cannot run 60 miles? Easily I can do it!" Since quite often the mind is fooling us, we have to use our wisdom to fool the mind.

Enthusiasm and eagerness

Now the question is, what qualities do you need to bring forward from your inner life while you are running? The first one is enthusiasm. Who embodies enthusiasm? A little child. Who can be more enthusiastic than a child? He enters into a garden and runs here and there, here and there, appreciating everything that he sees. Then, in addition to enthusiasm, you need eagerness. Again, who has more eagerness than a little child? If he plays with a toy, he is so eager, his whole world is the toy.

If you can feel that you are a five-year-old or six-year-old child, tiredness will not come into your mind. A child does not know what tiredness is. He knows only enthusiasm and eagerness. Never think of sixty miles or 3,100 miles. Never take the distance in that way — never! Only run for the joy of it.

Enter into the heart

Now, while running 3,100 miles, you have to deal with fatigue — when you are tired, exhausted, dead. As long as you are in the mind, you will always have fatigue, tiredness, weariness and everything. But the moment you enter into the heart, there is no fatigue. What you will find is constant energy.

If you are in the heart, there is a constant supply of energy and sweetness. We all have to develop sweetness. Sweetness is not masculine or feminine. People say that only girls can have sweetness and not men, but sweetness is not something masculine or feminine. Sweetness is a reality which is constantly supplying us with newness and freshness.

Early in the morning when you get up, if you have a sweet feeling inside you, then everything is beautiful. If inside you there is sweetness, the whole world is beautiful.

Running inside your heart garden

While you are running this long distance, you are seeing hundreds of cars passing by and so many people are making noise. But you should feel that you are not running around that big block; you are only running inside your own heart-garden where there are beautiful flowers, plants and trees. If you can not only see but feel that each time you are going around you are only running inside your beautiful heart-garden, then you can bring sweetness into each and every step that you take.

The surface that you run on is solid concrete. I cannot even walk on it. When you are running around, after an hour or two hours or a few days, this solid thing that you feel you are striking against starts striking your mind. You start thinking, "This is so bad. Every day I have to do sixty miles," this and that. But who counts the mileage? It is the mind. The mind is saying, "Oh my God, today I have to do sixty miles, and I have not yet done twenty miles!" Then you are finished! The mind, your worst enemy, is coming to torture you.

But the heart is not counting the mileage. The heart is only running, running, running. Then at the end of that session, the heart says, "Now let me see how many miles I have done." By that time, perhaps you have done forty miles already. The heart does not calculate. The mind calculates from one to two, two to three, three to four and so on. The mind tries to go to the destination by cutting, cutting, cutting. But the heart tries to see and feel the starting point and the end at the same time. For the heart the destination is not somewhere else. Only for the mind is the destination somewhere else. The heart will simply say, "Please take me to my destination."

Do not run with the mind. Even if today you fool the mind, tomorrow the mind will come back with redoubled trickeries to make your life miserable. You should say to the mind, "You stay with your trickeries. I want to play with my heart-toy, not with you. You consider your toys as beautiful, but I don't agree. In those days I was a fool; I enjoyed you. But now I am wise. I want to enjoy my heart-toy. The heart-toy always brings me happiness and newness, newness and happiness."

These excerpts are taken from Sri Chinmoy's books My Golden Children and Run and Smile, Smile and Run

 

For the past 5 years the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has donated the proceeds from their November 5K/10K Race to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, where the race was located. With the kind support of the park administration, we have been organising races in the Park since the mid 1970's, including many of our multi-day races.

It is our hope that this race will inspire the larger race organizers around the New York area to do a similar race for their local Park systems, if they are not doing so already. In Flushing Meadows, we also organise a 5k/half marathon/relay race in May, our October 'Heart-Garden' 2-mile race, and a 1-mile/4-miler in December, as well as our 6 and 10 Day race which has been taking place in Flushing Meadows for many years. We have also recently started doing races in two other parks around New York - a 5k/10k in nearby Alley Pond Park in September as well as a March 5k/7-mile race in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

Tejvan Pettinger has been racing for the Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team for many years, winning many time trials and hill climb races around Britain. After many years of trying, Tejvan won the UK National Hill-Climb championship in 2013. In the video, he relates how he trained really hard to reclaim the title in 2014. He ended up finishing fourth, but the important thing was the experience of detachment and being 'in the moment' that he felt during the race itself.

Related article: Reflections on 4th place by Tejvan

Ashrita Furman has been breaking Guinness World records for nearly 40 years; he currently holds over 200 Guinness Records, more than any other person. He recently appeared on the Czech TV station DVTV, wearing the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team T-shirt he invariably wears during his record attempts, to set another record - bursting the most balloons within a minute, using only his teeth.

His goal was to surpass his own previous record of 35 balloons, but he ended up bursting 51 balloons, and was only stopped by the fact that there were no more balloons on the table to burst!

After the record, he explained why he spends his life attempting these records: “I've been studying meditation with a teacher, his name is Sri Chinmoy. I’ve been studying my whole life with him, and his philosophy is that we all have unlimited strength and capacity within ourselves, and when we practise meditation we have a way to use that unlimited capacity. People can do it in very positive ways…in my case, I try to break Guinness records!”

• View video on DVTV (mainly in English, with Czech subtitles)

A cellist by profession, Shamita Achenbach-König has been a pioneer ultra-runner for the last 25 years, competing for the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in distances from the marathon right up to the 3100 Mile Race.

This summer, she took some time out to return to the Austrian town of Bergenz, where she was born, and run the entire circumference of Lake Constance (called the Bodensee in German), a 167-kilometer journey that took her 23 hours and 35 minutes. Her father was inspired to tell the local media about it and as a result, a very nice article appeared in Vorarlberger Nachrichten, the local newspaper and one of the leading regional papers in Austria.

In the article, Shamita talks about how, through running, she is able to connect to a deeper state of being. "When we run, we connect with a higher world, with a divine consciousness that is the same as meditation. For me, running is meditation, or a long prayer in which thoughts become still…one gains access to levels of consciousness that bring light, joy, peace, and happiness."

• Link to article (German, subscription-only)

Nataliya Samunnati Lehonkova, a member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team who competed for her native Ukraine in last year's Olympics in Rio, won the woman's elite field in the Dublin SSE Airtricity Marathon. On a rainy windy day, she finished in a personal best time of 2:28:57.

 

Picture below: Samunnati with friends from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Dublin after the awards ceremony. Samunnati has won the Dublin Marathon before, as well as winning the Edinburgh, Tolouse and Los Angeles Marathon

Nataliya Samunnati Lehonkova at Awards Ceremony

Related

• News item on Ukrainian TV (in Ukrainian)

Photo top: Nataliya Lehonkova in 2015 Dublin Marathon. Photo William Murphy CC SA

Pradeep Hoogakker, a member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and a 2011 Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3,100-Mile Race finisher, was interviewed on KBS Kyoto Radio, Japan on October 22.

The 10 minute program has been aired for 15 years, and is the first of its kind in Japan specifically dedicated to lay runners.

The runner-radio host Ms. Junko Wakabayashi (aka Waka), a well-known figure in the running world, dedicated the whole program for this interview. 

Transcript of interview (English translation):

Waka:I interviewed Mr. Pradeep Hoogakker from the Netherlands, who completed this race in 53 days and 9 hours in 2011. About the race:

• Started by Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in New York in 1997, continuing for 20 years.
• 3100 miles = 4989km (approximately 5000km)
• Race Track: 5649 laps of a 880m-long loop
• Cut-off: 52 days (To complete, the runner has to run at the pace of 95.9km per day.)
• Note: In the year Mr. Pradeep did the race, the cut-off was extended to 54 days due to the extreme heat.
• 39 runners completed in the 20 years
• The race track was open every day from 7am to 12 midnight.
• 7000 to 10000kcal must be consumed each day, equivalent of one week’s food intake for a person with normal activities.
• The kitchen crew cooks customized food for each runner.
• The runners use up 10 to 12 pairs of shoes.
• Average temperature: 30C, Humidity: 80-95%

Waka: What brought you to the race?

Pradeep: One day, while I was meditating after having a good run, the idea of running the 3100 mile race spontaneously came to my heart and I felt an inner thrill. I had been to the race a few times as a helper before. I got advice from the runners then, and trained myself for 6 years. I trained to run long distances, starting from 10km a day, 40km once a week, and up to 100km once a month. I also practised how to eat while running, as well as trying different running outfits and shoes.

Waka: And the actual race came. Didn’t you get bored running 5649 laps?

Pradeep: Everybody asks that question! Actually, many ultra races have loops instead of a straight route. It actually makes a lot of sense since you can have your own table where you can put your belongings such as shoes and supplements. Also, you feel everybody is running together—from the fastest to the slowest ones in the race. We can inspire each other, and we feel oneness, which is really good.

Waka: Still, it’s sooo long. How did you keep your motivation?

Pradeep: We told different jokes to each other!

Waka: What was most difficult?

Pradeep: The first 10 days were really difficult. My feet were not used to running on concrete; at night, my whole body ached and could not sleep. My mind started thinking, “How can I run tomorrow being like this?,” which made me sleepless. But as weeks went by, I learned that I could run even if I had not been able to sleep the night before. Something within myself recovered with renewed energy.

Waka: What was most moving?

Pradeep: There were many things. I felt oneness, and one morning, as I watched the sun rise, I felt as if the sun was rising inside my own heart. And I felt: This is life…!

Waka: You experienced Life…yet, your feet must have been…?

Pradeep: All blisters! Can I say something gross?

Waka: No thank you! Did you discover something new about yourself?

Pradeep: I realized I had a tendency to feel sorry for myself. So I had to conquer that. I could not complete the race unless I could truly feel I could do it. The process of overcoming my weaknesses became a valuable experience.

Waka: Has your life perspective changed after the race?

Pradeep: Yes. The wonderful experiences during the race stay inside myself even after the race finished. I feel that happiness means progress; going forward. In ordinary life, many times we think we are going forward but are actually going round and round in the same place. But in this race, though we were running round and round, I felt I was going forward. Those are what I learned through the race. My weaknesses unavoidably came forward so I had no choice but to conquer them, which led to joy and happiness.

Waka: What is your goal now?

Pradeep: There are many. Everybody needs a new goal. My first aim is to improve my marathon time, from 3 hours 4 minutes to under 3 hours. I also want to write a book about my 3100 race experiences. Most importantly, I feel Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy “Self-Transcendence” is wonderful. No matter what field you are in, the important thing is to transcend yourself.

Waka: You have said so much today that resonate with our souls: ‘Continuous self-transcendence,’ ‘Importance of feeling inner thrill in your heart’, and ‘Happiness means progress’.

Dear listeners, are you doing something that thrills your heart? Are you trying to transcend yourself now? Yes, you can start today! I was so moved to meet Mr. Pradeep. Thank you so much!

• Transcript of interview on KBS radio (Japanese)...
• 3100 Mile race website...

Our members consider sports, and running in particular, to be an integral part of their inner life, along with more traditional spiritual disciplines such as meditation. Vasudha, who helps to organise our Marathon Team events in San Diego, speaks eloquently about how the role that running plays in her own life, and how running and meditation complement each other.

From her interview: "Running is my church - its just absolutely where I can go and feel a sense of connecting to something higher. My spiritual life helps my running and my running helps my spiritual life - for myself, I can't separate the two. It's so much a part of who I am."

Sri Chinmoy spoke often on the inner benefits of running - including an answer which Vasudha refers to in the video:

While you run, each breath that you take is connected with a higher reality. While you are jogging, if you are in a good consciousness, your breath is being blessed by a higher inner breath. Of course, while you are jogging if you are chatting with one of your friends about mundane things, then this will not apply. But if you are in a good consciousness while you are running, each breath will connect you with a higher, deeper, inner reality. (source)