Self-Transcendence
By Jan Larson (08/07/06)
It is likely that few readers have ever heard of Suprabha Beckjord and Madhupran Wolfgang Schwerk. Beckjord and Schwerk have done something that to most people seems absolutely insane. They are just two of a relative handful of people that have completed the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race. [1] That’s right, a three thousand one hundred mile race.
The race is run annually with 2006 marking the tenth edition. You might think that a 3100-mile race would extend cross-country, say from Boston to San Francisco, but this one is run on a slightly more than half-mile course on the sidewalks around a high school and park in Jamaica, Queens, New York.
Running between 6:07 a.m. and midnight day after day, Schwerk won this year’s race, finishing with a new record of 41 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes and 29 seconds. Yes, they measure the time it takes to run 3100 miles down to the second. Schwerk averaged an astonishing 75 miles per day in stifling heat and humidity, rain and wind.
Beckjord, the only woman in the race, has not yet finished as of this writing. She is expected to finish on August 9 and, if she does complete her journey, will be the last place finisher. What is so special about the last place finisher in a race? This would mark the tenth straight year that she has finished the 3100 miles – a feat that seems incomprehensible to the mortals among us. Not only that, but she completed the 2700 mile version of the race in 1996 before the additional 400 miles were added.
What drives people to spend nearly two months of the year running laps around a school? Prize money? Nope. There is none. Fame? Well, to some degree, but no one is likely to confuse Madhupran Wolfgang Schwerk for Tiger Woods or Suprabha Beckjord for Anna Kournikova. The desire for suffering and pain? Maybe, since that is something that every runner experiences.
What drives people to do anything over and above that required for living our daily lives? The real answer is within each of us. The answer is the desire to prove to ourselves that we can exceed our self-imposed limits. Some challenge their limits. Others do not.
If someone had told me just four or five years ago that I would complete a marathon, I would have asked them if I was going to run that marathon before or after I returned from the moon. Running a marathon was, at that time, as out-of-the-question for me as just about anything you could think of. However, since that time, I’ve completed two marathons and am now training for a third.
What happened during that time? I came to realize that many of the limits that we place on ourselves are really artificial. Some of the limits we live within are set externally but many are solely the result of our own self-doubt, our lack of motivation or a fear of pain or failure.
We cannot always overcome our external limitations, that is, I know I’m not smart enough to be the next Einstein and I don’t have the physical ability to play major league baseball no matter how much I may want to or how hard I try.
We can, however, overcome our self-imposed internal limitations, not just with respect to running marathons or 3100-mile races, but with respect to the way we live our lives in general. That is the kind of spirit that has been the hallmark of American ingenuity and accomplishment since the founding of the nation - people not realizing that something can’t be done and then doing it.
A lot of people look upon those that would run 18 hours per day for 40, 50 or 60 days and say they were crazy. But I offer that a lot of those same people don’t realize that if they would overcome some of the same self-imposed limitations as have those runners, they just might accomplish great things as well. Things that they don’t presently believe can be accomplished.
Running a mile, a marathon or 3100 miles isn’t really about getting from here to there. It is about accomplishing what was once thought impossible. It is about proving to ourselves that we can succeed no matter how much others, or worse yet, ourselves, may have told us that we can’t.
[1] http://www.srichinmoyraces.org/3100/
Copyright ©2006 Jan A. Larson All rights reserved.
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