About the author:
Tejvan organises short-distance running and cycling races for the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in his home city of Oxford. He is also a very good cyclist, having won the National hill climb championships in 2013 and finished 3rd in the National 100 Mile Time Trials in 2014.
No walls, just tunnels
Marathon runners talk ruefully of hitting the wall: the point where it all becomes too hard, and the pace you had planned is simply no longer possible. Fuel stores are depleted, cramp may be setting in, and there is no time to replenish anything in a hurry. Pressing on to the finish at a reduced, sometimes painful pace is all you can do.
You can also pick up an injury, and then a judgement has to be made about whether to push on and risk further damage, or stop. For most, stopping is not an option.
In a long ultra, or a multi-day race like the 3,100, there are no walls to hit. All the runners experience low energy or minor aches and pains, but time is on their side. Unlike in a marathon, there is time to take a breath, work out what is going on, and come up with a solution.
Occasionally a runner will hit something more serious, something that really does feel like a wall. Multi-day runners know that for them there are no walls — but there are tunnels to travel through.
Nayaja has been in a tunnel for the last four days.
On Monday she had the joy of reaching 1,000 miles for the first time, setting a new Italian record. The following day she began to feel pain in her shins which, as the day went on, steadily worsened and eventually reduced her to a walk.
She was seen by the race medics and took advice from her helpers and from other experienced multi-day runners in the Sri Chinmoy team, several of them 3,100-mile finishers. Stretches, tape, ice packs, the traditional cabbage-leaf dressing, and no end of good old tender loving care to keep her spirits up.
In short, although there were moments when her race felt under threat, there was no need to panic. She had been running well up to that point and had a good cushion above the mythical cut-off line.
The experienced 3,100 runners offered the wisdom that a test like this is all part of the experience. Any notion that covering 3,100 miles would be easy is soon banished. This is one of the world's most extreme physical challenges — some would say it goes well beyond the physical — and difficulties like these will happen. They are something to be faced head-on and dealt with.
The collective advice was that two or three days of easy walking at reduced mileage should let the shin settle, heal a little, and allow running to be resumed gradually.
Some medics and physiotherapists reading this may be horrified, since total rest, or at most non-weight-bearing exercise, is the usual prescription for a serious shin problem. But multi-day runners are a different breed, and will always look for a way to persevere through the tunnel.
Now, on Friday, Nayaja is clearly coming out the other side and running again.
There is no need for her to panic about falling behind the red line. We are "only" on day 20, and there is plenty of time to make up ground once the shin is fully better.
3,100-mile runners often find that when problems arise, if you accept them as part of the race, stay cheerful, and surrender to the experience, magic can and does happen.
All will be well.
Every problem is different, and the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team would always recommend that a runner seek advice from the race medical team if they have a serious physical or medical issue.
DAILY MILESTONES (all TBC)
- Andrea Marcato — 1,400 miles in 19 days, 6 hrs, 56 min, 12 sec, and 2,300 km in 19 days, 14 hrs, 39 min, 4 sec
- Radu Budan — 1,300 miles in 19 days, 4 hrs, 16 min, 19 sec, and 2,100 km in 19 days, 5 hrs, 21 min, 32 sec
- Annabel Hepworth — 2,000 km in 19 days, 5 hrs, 0 min, 9 sec
- Wei Ming Lo — 2,000 km in 19 days, 8 hrs, 48 min, 26 sec
- Vasu Duzhiy — 1,200 miles in 19 days, 13 hrs, 40 min, 12 sec
- Nayaja Perugini — 1,900 km in 19 days, 15 hrs, 6 min, 41 sec
- Nina Huang-Lan — 1,700 km in 19 days, 10 hrs, 45 min, 45 sec
- Ananda-Lahari Zuscin — 1,600 km in 19 days, 16 hrs, 22 min, 35 sec
DAILY STATS (all TBC)
- Andrea Marcato again topped the daily rankings, going through 1,400 miles and 2,300 km on the way to a cumulative total of 1,441.2 miles.
- Radu Budan ran another solid 68.0 miles, the second-highest total of the day, for a cumulative 1,350.7 miles.
- Annabel Hepworth ran yet another 62.5-mile day, closing on 1,284.9 miles.
- Wei Ming Lo closed out the day with a fabulous 65.8 miles, finishing on a cumulative total of 1,271.7.
- Vasu Duzhiy continues to hit 60, recording 60.8 miles today for a cumulative total of 1,249.8.
- Nayaja Perugini, as described above, is running again, and lifted her daily total to 53.1 miles to finish the day on 1,188.9.
- Nina Huang-Lan continued to battle through her own problems and finished with 60.8 miles, her best since day 3. That improves her total to 1,071.0 miles.
- Ananda-Lahari Zuscin, with a 44.4-mile day, improved his total to 998.0 miles.
- Stutisheel Lebedev finished with 51.0 miles for a cumulative total of 985.4. He is once again closing in on Ananda-Lahari.
"Faith has the capacity
To pass through
The darkest tunnels."
— Sri Chinmoy
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At first glance, the 3,100-mile course looks fairly flat. Certainly, there are no steep hills. Nevertheless, within the course there are gentle gradients and a total height gain of 3.14 metres per lap. To a casual observer walking along the course, this is the kind of height gain you might not give much attention to.
Also over the weekend, a Spanish couple, Ramon Lopez Mendizabal and his wife, went out of their way to visit the race, and they too chatted with Radu.
As for the overall 1,000-mile road record, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has led the way in creating opportunities to attempt it. The legendary Greek runner Yiannis Kouros holds the best recorded time for the distance, a phenomenal 10 days, 10 hrs, 30 min, 36 sec, set in the Sri Chinmoy 1,000 Mile Race in Flushing Meadows Park, New York, in 1988 — an event that doubled as that year's IAU World Championship.
The race has its own in-house messaging system, and friends — and even unknown admirers — can send messages through the race website. One of the long-time joint race directors, Sahisnu, receives them all. It falls to him to print them off as they arrive and bring them down to the course for the intended recipients.
One side of the rectangular course around Thomas Edison High School and its playing fields runs alongside the Grand Central Parkway, a busy highway carrying commuters and residents to and from Long Island.
How they feel at that point can dictate whether they stay on their current cruise control or raise the pace, almost imperceptibly, to eke out an extra lap or three in the evening session before going home at a time of their choosing.
Annabel started the Sri Chinmoy 3,100 Mile Race in 2024 but had to withdraw on medical advice, with a bad foot problem, shortly after reaching 2,000 miles.
Today I watched Nayaja and her helper Roxanna take five minutes at a "pit stop" to care for her feet. It looked like a well-drilled operation, every task carried out in order and with precision.
Many runners brought out their neck bandanas and added ice to them before wrapping them around their necks. Small bags of ice were also provided to put under caps.
Runners in the 3,100, especially in the early days, don't obsess too much about milestones. Three hundred miles, in the scheme of things, is not such a big deal. As the race progresses, however, major milestones such as 1,000 kilometres, 1,000 miles and beyond do become a focus and can provide a small psychological boost.
At around 7.30 on Wednesday evening, Stutisheel, who lies 9th in the field of nine runners, ran through the 200-mile barrier. A few minutes later, race leader Andrea Marcato breezed through 300 miles. The interesting statistic here is that already, on day 4, there are 100 miles between first and last place. Who knows how the race will unfold, or what gap will eventually separate first from last? Usually it is a matter of several days.
