Sri Chinmoy Races Blog @ allaboutrunning.net

There is an old saying that a marathon only really begins around the twenty mile mark. The truth is, no matter how long the distance, there are races where you have problems right from the beginning of a race. From the outset, our body doesn't seem to be moving as well as it should, and you begin wondering how you are going to make it through the next few miles, never mind the end of the race!

The problem is that we identify ourselves with the messages our mind gives us and mistake it for what is actually happening. While you are running and this happens, you need to challenge the negative picture your mind is giving you. With a few races under your belt, you will come to have experiences where the whole feeling in your body will change as a result of some mental realisation - for example, you suddenly feel much better once you realise you are almost home. These experiences make you realise how dependent your bodily state is dependent on our mental state. So don't take the fears of your mind as the last word.
Locate where exactly this bad feeling you are getting is coming from; the chances are it is not so much to so with any bodily pain as a resistance in the emotional part of your being, located around your stomach area. This emotional part of our being is a notoriously bad guide to how we are actually doing, even worse than the mind, and the best attitude to take towards it is to pretend that it doesn't even exist.

Remind yourself of the training you have put in. If you ran twenty miles only three weeks ago, you are most certainly not going to pull out of the halfway stage of a marathon! A favourite trick to play on your mind is to imagine that instead of running the full race distance, you are actually running only half or quarter of that distance and just focus on getting to that point. In this way you can break up the race into stages and just focus on getting to the next stage rather than indimidating yourself with the total length you have to run. Another trick is to focus on the person in front of you and imagine that he is like a magnet just towing you along.

Visualisations can be very useful to focus the mind away from the body on the experience of running. There is a very good visualisation in Danny Dreyer's book ChiRunning in which he asks the runner to visualise a bungee cord attached to his head, pulling him along the road. Danny uses this visualisation to demonstrate his particular technique, but it can also be used to imagine that there is a cord linking you and the finishing line, which is inevitably reeling you in towards it.

Founded in 1977 by Indian-born advocate for world harmony Sri Chinmoy, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has now grown into the leading long-distance running organisation in the world. They organise sporting events in over 20 countries including the USA, Canada, the UK, Russia, Germany, France and Japan. Although races of all lengths from two miles upwards are organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, their speciality is ultradistance races, or races of greater length than the marathon. The racetrack assistance and attention to runners at the races organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team have been credited with raising the general standard of ultradistance races.

The races organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team have grown in size and scope over the years. They currently organise the world's longest road race, the 3100 Mile Self-Transcendence Race, which is held in New York over a period of two months. The 6 and 10 day races in New York have been a staple on the American running calendar for many years. In almost every country where they are organised, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team put on a 24 hour race which in many cases double up as the national championships for their country.

The World Harmony Run, which is organised by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, is a global torch relay run which visits over 80 countries in the world. The slogan of the Run is very simple - Harmony begins with me - but these few words encapsulate a novel approach to the vexed question of world harmony; that we can each make a difference to world harmony by aiming to increase the harmony in our own lives. Like ripples in a pond, these efforts affect the community around us, and spread throughout the world. On their way from country to country, the runners meet visit schools, sporting organisations and dignitaries, inspiring them with this simple message. The flaming torch that the runners carry and pass from one person to another is a powerful metaphor for the world united in friendship and understanding that we all aspire towards, and every year it is held by over one million people, as they offer their goodwill and resolve to work for a better world.

In addition to organising races, the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team has produced its fair share of runners over the years. Dipali Cunningham is one of the world's best female ultrarunners and has held the women's world record for 6-day racing. Suprabha Beckjord from Washington, USA, is the only competitor to finish the 3100 Mile Self-Transcendence race every year since its inception. Over the years the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team members have also branched out into other disciplines. In 1985, Vasanti Niemz from Heidelberg, Germany became the first SCMT member to swim the English Channel. Almost forty channel crossings have now been made by the team members, the most crossings by any team. Eight of those crossings were made by Karteek Clarke of Scotland. The team also has a few cyclists - one member, Richard Pettinger has become one of the UK's leading amateur cyclists - as well as mountain climbers: in 2002, a four man team ascended Cho Oyu on the Tibetan border, the sixth highest mountain in the world. However, the most well-known SCMT member of all can't really be put into any category - Ashrita Furman hails from New York, and his speciality is breaking Guinness World Records! Ashrita currently holds over fifty records, and indeed for many years has held the Guinness 'versatility' record for holding the most records. His records include the fastest five miles on stilts (a record previously not broken for 100 years), the fastest crawling mile and the longest distance walked whilst balancing a pool cue on his finger.

Similarly, the events organised by the SCMT have also expanded in scope over the years. There are now swimming events organised in Switzerland, and triathlons in Canada. One particularly noteble triathlon is the Triple-Tri, held every year on the outskirts of Canberra, in which the participants, either individually or in teams have to do a triathlon three times - nine distinct legs in all. They are even about to branch into skiing, with a ski race due to be held in Australia this year. Every year, in the German city of Munich, the SCMT organise the 'Impossibility-Challenger' festival, inviting potential record-breakers from all around the world to try their luck at breaking world records in any discipline.

Related links:

- About Sri Chinmoy
- Sri Chinmoy's running philosophy