Vegan runner joins elite 3,100 mile finisher club

Vegan runner draws on his inner strength to fuel 5,000 km run

Many of us will never even run a standard 26.2 mile marathon but for others that isn’t nearly challenging enough. Enter the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence race, a 3100 mile (4989 km) challenge held in New York. Unlike the New York marathon, which takes place on one day, the Sri Chinmoy challenge takes place over 52 days, meaning runners must average 59.6 miles (95.9 km) per day in order to finish in the allotted time. Also, unlike the New York marathon, the Sri Chinmoy doesn’t take you on an interesting tour of the Big Apple, but has you running seemingly infinite loops around a half-mile city block in Queens during the heat of the summer.

Over the previous 27 years fewer than a few dozen determined competitors have completed it. Vegan runner Budjargal Byambaa just became the 55th. But not content with stopping at 3,100 km, he carried on to complete 5000 km.

Mongolian Budjargal currently lives in the US and loves extreme distances. He’s won the 10-day Sri Chinmoy race and has the Mongolian record for 24 hour running. He’s been the world champion for 48 hour running too.

Budjargal has been vegan since January 2019, initially for health reasons, and eats primarily raw food. Budjargal feels there is a strong spiritual aspect to distance running, particularly the extreme distances.

“Long distance running is different than any other type of running. It needs not only physical strength, it needs my inner strength. My thought about inner strength is, it is so powerful and it can give me much much more strength than the physical strength.”

Content sourced and adapted, with permission, from Great Vegan Athletes.