Footprints

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on July 25, 200

Around and Around They Go

“We're on a carousel
A crazy carousel
And now we go around
Again we go around
And now we spin around
We're high above the ground
And down again around
And up again around
So high above the ground
We feel we've got to yell
We're on a carousel
A crazy carousel.” – Jacques Brel

The world will take little note of a strange event of enormous proportions taking place in New York City this summer. This is the eleventh annual running of a race there. While it continues for almost half the summer, few New Yorkers even know of its existence. It is the longest footrace in the world. It spans a distance equal to the mileage from Los Angeles to New York. This year, twelve athletes from nine countries started running on June 17 around a paved concrete course, just over one half mile in length. To finish, they must complete 5,649 loops around this course for a total of 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers). As of the date of this publication, these endurance athletes will have been running for 39 continuous days (with breaks for sleep and personal needs) with the winner of the race likely to be 4 to 5 days from finishing. For all its difficulty and uniqueness, few will ever hear that it is taking place.

This odd race of epic magnitude is called the Self Transcendence 3100 Mile Race and is organized by the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, a group that has put on several hundred distance races around the world over the past 23 years. As of the writing of this column, Asprihanal Pekka Alto, 36, of Finland has more than a 150 mile lead over the second place runner, Ayojan Stojanovich, 44, of Serbia-Montenegro. Try to imagine what it takes to continue to run for the first 32 days of the race averaging over 66 miles per day, every day, and still be more than 150 miles behind the leader, a veritable machine who is averaging over 71 miles a day.

Only one runner has dropped from the race this year after running just 719 miles. That has left Suprabha Beckford as the trailing runner of the event. Beckford, 51, a gift shop owner in Washington D.C., is the only American running and also the only woman runner. She is also the only women runner ever to enter the event; however, she has entered it in every year it has been held. She is the only athlete to have completed all of the ten prior races. Although she trails Pekka Alto by over 550 miles to date, she is on a pace to complete the event in around 56 days. That would be 7 days faster than her time in 2005 when temperatures held in the upper 90’s and lower 100’s and humidity was high. At this time, averaging more than 53 miles a day, she is the picture of consistency. She has spent every summer of the last eleven years running around a half mile square in New York City and if she finishes this year, she will have run over 34,000 miles of concrete there.

Marveling at these athletes’ stubborn desire and amazing fortitude, I can’t help but contrast that with what Barry Bonds is about to accomplish. His soon to be historical breaking of Henry Aaron’s career home run record, considered perhaps the most difficult record in all of baseball to hold, involves a tremendous amount of skill, power, and career endurance. Bonds has approached the record with an air of arrogance and a distain for the media and for many of the fans. His fame is growing and he has earned an incredible amount of money for his efforts. Barry Bonds is a big muscled man, whose physique has changed considerably from the thin, fast, athlete he was while breaking into the major league 21 years ago. Ms. Beckford is a small frail looking woman whose streak has been accomplished at a more senior age than Mr. Bonds, without the use of steroids, in anonymity, without reward or even the remote possibility of winning the events. She does it for the challenge and self discovery. Which of these two athletes is more deserving of our attention?

Rather than celebrate his achievement as Barry Bonds hits that record breaking home run, my thoughts will be with an amazing lady in New York. I will get on the internet and go to this website (http://www.srichinmoyraces.org/3100/3100_07 ) to view her progress. She will be circling around a block day and night doing her best impression of a merry-go-round.

Budd Glassberg is a 23 year resident of Zionsville who works and volunteers in the community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.