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Sanjay Rawal31 October 2019

3100 Miles: The Longest Race On Earth - Sanjay Rawal - #116

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 2

Hot Take

Running was humanity's first religion, not just a fitness function

Rawal argues running is a pathway to self-transformation and the divine, not merely lactate threshold times VO2 max. The Kalahari San bushmen told his film crew that persistence hunting worked not through endurance but through prayer — that cosmology developed before the practice, so running and spirituality were intertwined from the start.

  • Rejects the purely physiological framing of running (VO2 max, running economy)
  • San bushmen credit deep prayer, not endurance, for tracking and catching large game
  • 'They say the cosmology developed before the actual practice developed'
  • Every human carries San DNA markers; they've existed ~125,000 years

“Running was the first religion of humanity.”

Sanjay Rawal
#spirituality#anthropology#running#prayer
Hot Take

Why ultra-distance may be where women close the gap on men

Rawal's moderately controversial take: as races stretch to days and weeks, outcome depends more on mindset than on VO2 max, bone density or testosterone, so women's times will keep improving. At the 3100, a far higher share of women finish than men, and runners like Courtney Dauwalter and Camille Herron are pressing into elite-male territory.

  • ~75-80% of women finish the 3100 vs ~50% of men
  • Endurance = 'the will to continue against a mounting desire to stop' (Alex Hutchinson)
  • Courtney Dauwalter can beat elite men; Camille Herron chases the old men's 24hr record
  • The physiological gap persists but keeps shrinking as more women enter

“Women are just beginning to realize their potential.”

Sanjay Rawal
#women#ultrarunning#physiology#mindset

Explainer· 5

Explainer

The 3100: the world's longest certified footrace, on a half-mile block

The Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race runs entirely around a single half-mile loop by a Queens, NYC high school. Runners must average roughly 59.8 miles a day for 52 straight days, taking place in the brutal June-August heat. It has run every year for over two decades with 10-15 entrants annually.

  • 3,100 miles around a half-mile loop = over 6,200 laps and a million-plus steps
  • Runners average ~60 miles/day for up to 52 days; the men's course record is ~77 miles/day
  • Course open 18 hours a day, 6am start, permits make a park impossible
  • Started by Indian spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy, who was central to NYC's 1970s running boom

“It's a 3,100-mile race that takes place solely around a half-mile loop on a block in New York City.”

Sanjay Rawal
#ultrarunning#3100#endurance#new-york
Explainer

Why pain and ecstasy blur: fear is the deciding variable

Rawal and Williamson explore how the same bodily sensation reads as agony or ecstasy depending on context. Rawal's claim: we experience sensation as pain when fear is involved; without fear it becomes something else entirely — the difference between operating from the mind versus the heart.

  • Sam Harris couldn't tell whether meditation hip pain was agony or ecstasy
  • 'We experience things as pain when fear is involved'
  • Same racing heart rate feels satisfying mid-workout but terrifying if it woke you at night
  • Interpretation of a sensation determines what you can do with it

“I think that we experience things as pain when fear is involved. When fear is not involved, it's an entirely different sensation.”

Sanjay Rawal
#pain#fear#interpretation#meditation
Explainer

Recovering from 3,100 miles can take six months to three years

The rule of thumb is one recovery day per marathon mile; the average 3100 finisher doesn't feel normal for about six months, and some take two or three years. The strain is less hyper-aerobic than endocrine: adrenals and glands overwork while the GI tract processes 10,000+ calories, kidneys clear toxins, and sleep runs to 4.5 hours a night.

  • Marathon rule of thumb: ~26 days to recover, one day per mile
  • 3100 finishers average ~6 months to feel normal; some take 2-3 years
  • Endocrine system, adrenals and glands bear the load, not just aerobic fatigue
  • Rare beasts recover fast — one finisher ran a marathon three weeks later

“The average person doesn't start feeling normal again until about six months.”

Sanjay Rawal
#recovery#physiology#endurance#3100
Explainer

Formula One precision vs the ramen-and-soda school of fueling

Williamson frames two poles: the hyper-engineered 'Formula One' approach behind Kipchoge's sub-two attempt (measured hydration, honed shoes) versus a spit-and-sawdust approach. Rawal notes even Kipchoge trains Spartan but joyful — sugary milk tea, bread — while the 3100's paperboy lives on soda, chocolate and ramen, drawing joy from food as fuel.

  • Race-day regulation is about hitting a specific, near-impossible goal
  • Kipchoge's Kenyan camp is unmeasured: lots of food, sugary tea, bread, joy
  • Aalto's diet is soda, chocolate, ramen; a handler once weaned him off coke for a record
  • Joyful exuberance over rigid optimization can still produce extremes

“He always has like bars of chocolate everywhere. He eats ramen two or three times a day. He just loves it.”

Sanjay Rawal
#nutrition#kipchoge#fueling#training
Explainer

The Backyard Ultra: a last-runner-standing race of attrition

Big's Backyard Ultra runs a 4.1-mile loop in one-hour cycles; finish fast and the leftover time is your rest, miss the hour and you're out. To win you must complete a final solo lap after everyone else drops — if you can't, nobody wins. Rawal ties these unregulated formats back to running as indigenous game and play.

  • 4.1-mile loop, one lap per hour, on the hour, indefinitely
  • Fast laps buy rest; a missed cutoff eliminates you
  • Winner must run one final solo lap alone or no one wins
  • Echoes indigenous team races like carrying a corn bushel with wrestling and strategy

“You have to start at 12 and finish that last lap solo. If you don't make it before one, no one wins the race.”

Chris Williamson
#backyard-ultra#attrition#indigenous#play

Story· 3

Story

A Navajo ultrarunner: running as celebration, teacher, and prayer

Navajo ultramarathoner Shaun Martin reframed running for Rawal on a canyon run. Running is a celebration of nature's energies; a teacher you must listen to for perspective; and a prayer — feet praying to Mother Earth, lungs breathing in Father Sky. He offered it as reality to be tasted, not belief to be argued.

  • Running is a celebration of life and the energies of earth and sky
  • Running is a teacher — you listen rather than talk, gaining perspective
  • Running is a prayer: feet pray to Mother Earth, breath draws in Father Sky
  • 'Take it or leave it, but this is the reality' — likened to tasting sugar after aspartame

“When your feet are running on Mother Earth, they're praying. When you're breathing, you're breathing in Father Sky.”

Sanjay Rawal
#navajo#indigenous#running#prayer
Story

The marathon monks and the thousand-day trek's ultimate price

In central Japan, an elusive sect picks one aspirant every seven years for a thousand-day trek, split into ten hundred-day cycles with escalating daily mileage up to 56 miles a day over a 1,000-meter mountain. The kicker: failing to complete any single day's mileage means they must take their own life — a consequence that, paradoxically, keeps their intent pure.

  • One aspirant every seven years; 1,000 days across ten 100-day cycles
  • Mileage escalates from ~11.6 to 35 to 56 miles/day over a mountain
  • Failure to finish a day's mileage means taking one's own life
  • The lethal stakes keep intent pure rather than inducing fear

“If they don't finish any single day's mileage, they have to take their lives.”

Sanjay Rawal
#japan#monks#buddhism#endurance
Story

The Finnish paperboy who circled the globe 1.5 times on a half-mile loop

The film's star is Ashprihanal Aalto, a diminutive Finnish paper and postal deliverer on his feet 10-12 hours a day. He has run roughly 46,500 miles on the 3100 loop — like 100 miles a week for 8.5 years, circumnavigating the globe over 1.5 times. His edge isn't just being small and light; he loves running more than almost anyone alive.

  • ~46,500 lifetime race miles; set the ~77 miles/day course record in 2015
  • Advantage is loving running the way obsessive gamers love their game
  • Learned to consciously minimize blisters, chafing, heat, indigestion as non-problems
  • Eats ramen, chocolate and soda — says water is boring

“Problems in life shouldn't diminish your potential for achieving happiness.”

Sanjay Rawal
#ashprihanal-aalto#3100#finland#obsession

Tool· 1

Tool

Breathing into the heart to release the anxiety that becomes pain

Rawal describes a practical shift from mind to 'spiritual heart': imagine the breath entering not just the nose and mouth but the heart, slow it down, and consciously breathe out anxiety and nervous tension. He frames much racing pain and cramp reflexes as nervous-system driven, so calming that system reduces physical suffering.

  • Imagine breath flowing into the heart, not just nose/mouth
  • Slowing and relaxing the breath reduces the physical pain that enters
  • Collect anxiety and nervous tension and 'breathe it out'
  • Practice it in training so it's available while competing

“We learn to collect that anxiety to breathe it out, that nervous tension which causes pain to breathe it out.”

Sanjay Rawal
#breathwork#meditation#recovery#technique

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway

Run 'dumb': getting the mind out of the way, not mind over matter

Kenyan runners say to run well you must 'run dumb' — soft between the ears. The claim isn't mind over matter but removing the mind entirely, because the mind is the limited part that measures and says two hours is impossible. Kipchoge's belief that humans are unlimited refers to something beyond the measuring mind.

  • 'If you want to run well, you have to run dumb — soft between your ears'
  • The mind is limited: it measures and declares limits; the goal is to get it out of the way
  • Elite Kenyan and Ethiopian runners train into a meditative, silent internal state
  • Matt Fraser cited as an athlete who is not cerebral in performance — preparation is the stage

“It's not a question of like mind over matter, it's getting rid of your mind.”

Sanjay Rawal
#mindset#flow#meditation#elite-running
Takeaway

'Find joy through exertion': the Hopi reframe of suffering

Hopi elder Rex Taliam Tewa gave Rawal a translation of running as 'find joy through exertion.' The instruction is to deny the strength of suffering in painful moments and let joy be the overflowing emotion instead — a mindset that must be trained daily, not summoned at race time.

  • Go beyond letting pain define exertion; let joy overflow instead
  • Can't be conjured at performance level — it must be your everyday mindset
  • If self-transcendence is the training goal, running becomes a spiritual path
  • Contrasts with the glitz of the Olympics as an impurer version of the same drive

“Find joy through exertion.”

Sanjay Rawal
#hopi#mindset#joy#self-transcendence