Featured stories from around the world

 

The Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100-Mile Race was highlighted as one of '5 extremely extreme races' in the December 2015 issue of British Airways' 'High Life' inflight magazine.

 

Nirbhasa Magee from Ireland recently finished the 3100 mile Self-Transcendence Race on his first attempt. He became the first Irishman to finish the world's longest certified race - a unique race founded by spiritual Teacher Sri Chinmoy as one of the ultimate tests of physical, mental and spiritual self-transcendence. Nirbhasa recently spoke to the Daily Telegraph about what it takes to finish the race within the 52 day time limit, about using up 11 pairs of shoes, and whether he will go back and do the race again.

"If you possess a low pain threshold, get bored easily and need more than four hours' sleep a night, the 3100 Mile Race is probably not for you." Read more on the Daily Telegraph website »

The following video, made by Utpal Marshall, shows a short interview with Nirbhasa on the last day of the race, where he remains in a cheerful and positive frame of mind, despite the accumulation of deep fatigue by this point.The video is taken on this final day - hence Nirbhasa pretending to sprint out of the blocks.

Before entering the 3100 mile Self-Transcendence race, Nirbhasa had some experience in running multidays. He has finished two 10 day races, including an impressive 702 miles in the 2014 Ten Day Race. This performance indicated long-distance running capacity. However, nothing can really prepare a runner for the ordeal of completing the 3100 mile Race. To complete the race requires an average of just under 60 miles for 52 consecutive days. The remarkable thing about Nirbhasa's race was that he finished on the last day, with just a few hours spare. It was so close, that in the last few weeks, every minute became precious as he eked out mile after mile. 

Some other articles about Nirbhasa and the 3100 Mile Race:

• Irish Examiner - Meath man finishes world's longest race
• Interview with the Irish Voice, the leading paper for the Irish diaspora in America
• The Path to Self Transcendence begins with 3100 Miles, by Outside Magazine 

On Sunday November 15th the Impossibility Challenger record festival took place in Berlin, Germany.

The event was founded by Sri Chinmoy in 1982, Impossibility Challenger invites people from all over the world to challenge themselves by setting records in various disciplines, from strength to speed to humour. 14 record breakers from 9 different countries came to Berlin to perform a total of 23 records. Among them were the fastest mile running while wearing swim-fins, the most jokes told in one hour, going up and down a set of stairs carrying 20 eggs on spoons and lifting a 130 kg weight with the teeth.

 
Karteek Clark from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Scotland told 587 jokes by heart in one hour.

 
Rainer Schröder from Germany lifted two people with a total weight of 130 kg with his teeth.

 
Radek Rosa from the Czech Republic pulled a bus full of people weighing 13,257 kg a distance of 20 meters.


Samalya Schäfer from the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team in Berlin completed 1 mile in 5 minutes and 33 seconds wearing swim-fins.

 

Related

 

• Results from 2015

 

After 33 years at Palmer Street, the successful running shop Run and Become has moved to a new location in the heart of Victoria, London. To celebrate the move to Ecclestone Street, many customers, suppliers and long-time supporters were invited to an evening function to mark the occasion. In addition, Ashrita Furman, the world’s most prolific Guinness World Record holder record, came over from New York to attempt a new Guinness World Record.

Run and Become was founded in 1982, by Ongkar and Vinodini Smith - after their spiritual Teacher Sri Chinmoy suggested they open an enterprise for sporting goods. 1982 was one year after the first London marathon and, in those years, running was very much a minority sport - with no specialist running shop retailers. Over the past 33 years, Run and Become has played an important role in the London and British running community - serving runners with independent service and advice.

Run and Become, also have branches in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the current manager, Shankara Smith spoke about the aims of Run and Become, and how it is inspired by the philosophy of Sri Chinmoy. Sri Chinmoy himself was a keen runner, completing many marathons and ultra-marathons during his running career. Sri Chinmoy also taught how meditation and the philosophy of self-transcendence could play a beneficial role in helping the outer running. Throughout the store, there are several photos of Sri Chinmoy, including photos of meeting great running heroes, such as Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis.

The new store

The new store is set on Ecclestone Street, just off Buckingham Palace road - and a few minutes from Victoria train station. A team of talented architects from Czech Sri Chinmoy Centres have helped create a beautiful, light and spacious environment to display the running shoes and clothes.

Within the store, there is also a mini running track - ideal for testing out spikes and running shoes. All shop assistants have been carefully trained to help customers find the best running shoes for their needs. In the downstairs floor, the store will also hold related workshops and personal physiotherapy services for runners seeking to prevent and deal with injuries.

Guinness World Record Attempt

Ashrita Furman sought to break the Guinness World Record for blowing over the most number of eggs in a cup, in a minute. Ashrita was on great form, blowing over 61 eggs within a minute. (the record is yet to be confirmed by Guinness)

After Ashrita’s successful record attempt, those spectating had a go for themselves - learning that it was much more difficult than it looked. Some, including the author of this article, took a good few minutes before successfully flipping over one egg.

Run and Become photos

 

Welcome

Run and Become

Your Running Goal?

Run and Become
Become and run.

Run to succeed
in the outer world.

Become to proceed
in the inner world.

- Sri Chinmoy

Dipika and Shakara Smith.

 

A Corinthian Endeavour by Paul Jones tells the story of the UK National hill climb Championship from 1944 to 2014. The championship holds a unique place in the UK cycling calendar, always being held in the last weekend in October, marking the end of the domestic time trial season. It is a race that has, over the years, attracted some of the top professionals, such as Tour de France riders like Chris Boardman, Brian Robinson, and Malcolm Elliot - but also a breed of specialist hill climbers, such as Granville Sydney and Jim Henderson - riders who are ideally built for racing up steep hills.

In this book, the author Paul Jones, takes us on a humorous and informed journey through the diverse and sometimes quirky nature of the British hill climb season. As the title suggests, Jones is also interested in the amateur ethos and the fact that the race embodies some of the finest qualities of cycle racing.

For the uninitiated, Jones explains some of the fascinating aspects which go into a successful hill climber - a high power to weigh ratio, an ability to do repetitive, lung bursting hill climb intervals, meticulous attention to stripping weight from his bike, and the ability to ride at the very limit of physical and mental endurance.

The Stang

Within the book, Jones devotes a chapter to Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team rider, Tejvan Pettinger. Pettinger won the event in 2013 - after ten years of trying and near misses. Jones examines those 10 years of near misses that characterised Tejvan’s previous attempts to win the title, but also has a look at the spiritual aspect of Tejvan’s cycling.

Writing in the book:

“And yet, there is another layer of spirituality to Pettinger. He doesn't hide it, it's emblazoned across the jersey of the 'club' he rides for, Sri Chinmoy CC (sic):” “p253

Quoting Pettinger in the book, he says:

“The spiritual life has to come first, but fortunately, cycling is very complimentary. (though) I never race on wednesday evenings because of meditation. I could never be a professional.”

“I’m not the kind of person who needs to win for my self-esteem. I just enjoy cycling and I enjoy cycling hard. The motivation to try to win the championship - it's more than an ego thing, it's an opportunity to achieve something; there is an inner element to it. Sri Chinmoy's philosophy is that a big thing is self-transcendence, trying to go beyond your limits, spiritually, mentally, physically. Trying to go faster is part of spirituality, of meditation. If you can be happy, in a good consciousness, you can bring a lot of energy to the fore. When you're abut to race it can be easy to be nervous or think about your competitors. That's an important challenge: to be in a better consciousness." p.254

Talking about the mental aspect of racing:

"Often when I'm doing a race," he says, "I'm trying to keep my mind quiet and not think. To help that I repeat a mantra, like 'Supreme'. It's just a mantra I use in meditation. I don't want any thoughts going through my mind, only the mantra, inwardly. The best experience is when you're in the zone, you've not got that 'did I go off too hard, too early, that spectator's looking at me funny.' You're absorbed in the effort. That's the real buzz of hill climbs; you can get into this state which you very rarely get into; you're so beyond the limit, you're way beyond your ordinary experience and it has some parallels to meditation, because in meditation you're trying to get away from your mind and the thought, everyday world, and here you're doing it in a very real way because you're pushing yourself so much. And it's torture physically, but you get some kind of joy from it, and you look back and you think, 'Wow, that was a real three minutes. I really lived in that three minutes. I don't quite know what went on but I was on the edge and experiencing something different.'

Related

• A Corinthian Endeavour at Amazon.com
• A Corinthian Endeavour at Amazon.co.uk
• Read Tejvan's review of A Corinthian Endeavour on his cycling website

On Monday 26 October, Samunnati Nataliya Lehonkova won the Dublin Marathon in blustery conditions in a time of 2:31 - a personal best. Over 15,000 runners turned out for this year's event, including 4,800 runners from abroad. 

Samunnati is the fastest female marathon runner of Sri Chinmoy's students around the wold. Over the past few years she has won a string of European marathons including Belfast, Edinburgh and Toulouse. She has also frequently participated in the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run - the world's largest peace torch relay - and has toured Australia and Europe with the international team. After her victory in Dublin, she said in a post race interview "I didn't think about it; I just tried to run faster. I just tried to do my best."

More: Coverage of Dublin Marathon on RTE news - video 

Tejvan Pettinger of Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team finished in 6th placed in the UK national hill climb championship. The former national champion (2013) finished in 6th place out of a field of 240. His time of 4.25 was just 3 seconds off a podium place.

Photo Dan Monaghan cadenceimages.co.uk/ @13images

The championship was held at Jackson Bridge, West Yorkshire on a steep 0.9 mile course, which averages 11% and reached 20% in some places. This year the level of competition was very high with seven men within seven seconds of third place.

Photo James Allen

Results top 10 Men

Pos Rider Club Split Time

1 Richard Bussell RST Sport/Aero-Coach 1:54 4:15.6

2 Dan Evans Team Elite/Paul Bethall Electrical 1:51 4:20.5

3 Joseph Clark Team Envelopemaster 1:56 4:21.9

4 James Lowden Neon Velo 2:02 4:23.3

5 Tom Bell Fluid Fin Race Team 2:02 4:23.9

6 Tejvan Pettinger Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team 2:06 4:25.1

7 Matt Clinton Mike Vaughan Cycles 1:58 4:27.3

8 Adam Kenway SportGrub Kuota Cycling Team 1:51 4:27.8

9 Edmund Bradbury NFTO Pro Cycling 1:53 4:28.5

10 Kieran Savage Yorkshire Road Club 2:05 4:28.8

Photo Bob Askwith

It caps a successful 2015 for the Sri Chinmoy CT rider, who placed 7th in the British Time Trial Championship and won over 12 races during the year.

The Sri Chinmoy Cycling Team

• Full results for 2015

Channel Swimmer Vasanti Niemz participates in this year's swim, and gives the following report:

44 solo swimmers and 18 relay teams representing 18 nations headed off early on Sunday morning of July 26, 2015, in Rapperswil, Switzerland, to conquer the length of Lake Zurich (26,4 km) in the 28th annual international Self-Transcendence Marathon-Schwimmen organized by the Swiss Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team (SCMT).

Solo swimmers - without and with swimsuit - started at 7 am, followed by the relay teams  at 7:15 am, each swimmer or team accompanied by either a rowing, sailing or motor boat (trying to find your boat or your swimmer is always the first challenge!). Weather conditions were excellent. Although there were storm warnings on the lake the evening before, it calmed down and the lake was incredibly peaceful most of the way (maybe because it had been rededicated as a Peace Lake just a few weeks before?), with just a tiny bit of chop for some time after Meilen, the halfway cutoff point. The water was a comfortable 24°C and the air 23°C (not good for training for the English Channel!). The morning was sunny, later it became nicely overcast with the sun peeking out here and there again. Only close to the cutoff at 12 hours the usual bit of rain came, so helpers of the slower swimmers also got a bit wet. Only three soloist did not make the 6 hour cutoff at Meilen and had to stop.

The fastest finishing times were 6 h 14 for the relays (Uusschwümme :), CH), 6 h 52 (Felix Lenz, GER) for the wetsuit men, 7 h 40 for non-wetsuit (bioprene) men (John Zemaitis, USA), a new woman`s wetsuit masters record with 7 h 53 (Frederike Wachs, GER), and the fastest woman sans wetsuit was 8 h 21(Jo Yetman, GB).

SCMT members participating (again) were: Abhejali Bernadova (CZ), solo, 3rd place women main category (8 h 39)

 

Vasanti Niemz (GER), 2nd place women masters (10 h 19)

Pataka Spacek (CZ, 11 h 15, wetsuit)

 

And our boys relay: Kallol, Harkara, Sukinkar (GER, 10 h 41).

All the finisher faces were beaming as usual, every finisher received a medal and a flower garland. The huge buffet with Chi and tofu sponsored by the Secrets of Perfection Flames (http://www.soyana.ch) was amazing as always. Knowing there is some great food waiting always helps to make it across the last almost never-ending stretch from Küsnacht to the finish!

Gratitude to all the organisers and helpers and congratulations to all the finishers! For all the results and photos visit: http://ch.srichinmoyraces.org/zürichsee-schwimmen-marathon-swim/previous-results/2015/    Maybe we will see you in Zurich August 7th 2016, for the next Lake Zurich Swim!

 

 

 

Third fastest legs in the world

I wrote earlier about the marathon career of my father (http://www.stutisheel.org/press/my-father-the-marathon-runner/). I wanted to share an update, as the last two years have been particularly bright in his sport life.

Following his principle, my father always selects one significant race to start the year, training for it and performing at his maximum. At other times, he occasionally participates in various short races – varying from 5 to 21 km in length.

In 2014, he chose the marathon at the European Masters Games in Turkey (age category 70- 74). As usual, he trained hardest in the last month before the race, running up to 155 km per week. Previously, my father’s only supplement was a multivitamin. Recently, however, I was able to introduce some useful supplements into his diet to help him recover faster after his runs. I tested out all these supplements at my 3100-mile race performances.

When my father arrived in Izmir, Turkey, a few days before the start of the race, he was stricken by the heat - 36 degrees Celsius. He was not prepared for that and I had no time to figure out a way to help him cope with it. According to the story my father told me after the race, the marathon went pretty well up to 35 km, when due to the great heat and dehydration, he started having cramps. He tried to cope with them by pricks of pins, which he salvaged from around his bib number … One cramp was pretty severe just in sight of the finish line… Can you imagine: you see the finish line but can hardly move! He managed to finish and overtook the second runner by 90 seconds. At the age of 73 my father, Dmytro Lebedev, became European champion with a time of 3:40:22.

2015. World Masters Athletics Championship in Lyon, France. 

I convinced my father to pay more attention to his heart rate during training and competition, so he bought a Garmin watch. By uploading his workouts to the internet he also gave me the opportunity to adjust the volume of his running and his nutrition regime. In previous years, he had counted the workout time based on the given distance and the approximate pace. Now the watch was measuring the distance and pace, and it turned out that he was running slower than he thought. As a result of the watch he was able to adjust his pace and run about 530 km in the last month of preparation. 

As the weather was hot in Lyon, we decided to make a special drink for the marathon, which contained salt, minerals and other components to support performance in the extreme heat. But on the day of the start, the temperature decreased to 23C, and weather conditions were pretty good for the race. My father finished third in his age group M70-74 with a time of 3:25:39. As he joked later - the third fastest legs in the world.

When he came to New York last August and we all met together it was especially touching to see how he inspires and encourages his granddaughter Alakananda in training for her first marathon. 

Photos:

1. Three generations: Dmytro Lebedev, Stutisheel, Alakananda. After 2 mile race, New York City.

2. Finishing Lyon Marathon

 

 

 

Brett Wilkins from DigitalJournal.com profiles Marathon Team founder Sri Chinmoy:

"Meditation has long been associated with spiritual awakening and deep relaxation, but we uncover the roots of a particular mode of meditation launched by Sri Chinmoy, an Indian spiritual guru whose meditative theories extended into the athletic world....These days, there is a lot of buzz around meditation and how it can improve a practitioner's quality of life. As mindfulness and other meditation-based practices have gone mainstream throughout the Western world, the meditative arts have crossed over from the realm of spirituality into countless other areas, including sports and physical fitness."

Read the full article on digitaljournal.com »

On August 18, 2015, Abhejali Bernadova (age 39) from Zlin, Czech Republic, became the first member of our international Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and first Czech swimmer overall to achieve the “Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming”. Starting around midnight and swimming through the night from Catalina Island to California mainland, she conquered the Catalina Channel faster than expected in 9 hours 46 min. - after swimming the English Channel solo in 2011 and successfully swimming around Manhattan Island (MIMS) in 2012 (always without a wetsuit). Having crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 2013, she now also has three of the “Oceans Seven” swims in her pocket. (⇒ Oceans Seven Openwaterpedia)

She said it was a very nice and peaceful swim for her, easier than expected, with calm and unusually warm waters (EL Niño!), lots of bioluminescence and even dolphins accompanying her for some time. She was supported by a great team inlcuding her good friend Harita Davies from New Zealand and Jennifer Cluck from San Diego, as well as the experienced crew on Outrider, the pilot boat.

Catalina Channel Swimming Federation observer Monica Bender reported: “Abhejali and her team were wonderful to team up with across the channel. We had smooth waters for most of the journey except a little chop in the middle. The water was mostly 70/71°F (21°C) the entire way. Huge pods of dolphins were spotted near the finish, and they swam around her for a small portion of the swim. The phosphorescence was beautiful." (see more photos here)

Abhejali – like most of our team members – has been a vegetarian since she started practicing meditation over 20 years ago. Her daily meditation practice, she feels, not only helps her in training by increasing focus and improving regeneration, but also it helps to keep the mind calm and positive during the swim, allowing her to experience the peace and beauty of open water swimming on an even deeper level.

Abhejali is not only an accomplished swimmer, but also a great runner with multiday experience (10 day race New York). She also loves to carry the Peace Run torch across many parts of this world.

Surasa Mairer, from Vienna, Austria, set a new women's record, breaking the old record that was set in 1998 by Suprabha Beckjord. Surasa finished in a stellar time of 49 days, 7 hours, 52 minutes and 1 second. She was crowned with the victory wreath by Suprabha herself in a joyous ceremony at the exciting finish. Stutisheel passed the 3000 mile mark earlier in the day and is poised to finish tomorrow afternoon.  Just before midnight Nirbhasa reached the 3000 mile mark as well with a small crowd of enthusiastic supporters to cheer him on.

Click on the arrows above to see some photos from this eventful day. Below are a few short videos to give you a taste of the day's excitement.

Surasa's finish

Nirbhasa's 3000 Mile mark

Alison Mann from RedBull.com interviewed new 3100 Mile Race world record holder Asprihanal Aalto:

"Imagine running 3,100 miles — that’s New York to San Francisco with a few miles to spare. It’s a long way, but perhaps it's made bearable by the varied scenery captured along the way, right? But what if you ran that distance by completing 5,649 laps of the same 0.55-mile route in Queens, New York, running for 18 hours a day? That’s what Ashprihanal Aalto just did, and he managed it in a record-breaking 40 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes and 21 seconds. Oh, and did we mention that this is the eighth time he’s won the event, known as the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race? That’s a lot of running around the block! We spoke to him to find out what drives a man to go to such lengths."...

Read complete article on redbull.com >> 

 

The following article appeared in the online website Ultra168 and is about Australian ultra runner Martin Fryer's experience in the 2013 Self-Transcendence 6 and 10 Day Races held in Flushing, New York. Ultra168 is a group of Sydney-based ultra marathon runners who share a passion for running on trails, as well as reporting on what’s happening in the world of trail and ultra running.

Martin Fryer is for me, and for many others one of the Godfather’s of Australian ultra-running. The respect I have for this man is huge. He gets on with his business with little or no fanfare on Facebook, and delivers time and time again with quite staggering results that you really do have to read twice to get a grasp of what he’s just achieved. None more so than his recent effort at the Sri Chinmoy 10 Day race that was recently held in New York where he amassed over 1,100kms over 10 days!

For the complete article...