"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 47 Mile Race - Jamaica - New York - August 27, 2024

Having made a tentative return to ultra-distance running on the trails in 2023 (solo) and 2024 (with a couple of races) I started to ask myself why I had only ever run "The 47" twice. After all, the race was created by Sri Chinmoy as part of his birthday celebrations, which I go to every year, and it's still an integral part of what we do. Initially it was overuse injuries that kept me off the startline of this epic road & track event, then after I had a severe illness in 2012 I planned a slow return to exercise which favoured off-road events and triathlons. But the question just floated up inside me - why don't you do the 47? And I didn't have any answer. So - with my recovery from the massive ordeal of the 14-Peaks behind me and a few weeks of clear training time ahead of me through July, I got out there doing some 20-mile training runs and got myself into some kind of shape for a long road event. The wheels came off a little when I caught a cold / sore throad in early August and only just recovered in time to do the 27 Hours of Cycling event (in which I clocked up 13 hours on mountainous roads through South Wales) but I still arrived in New York in some kind of just-about-readiness.

On the 26th I turned in early, hoping to get a couple of hours of sleep in before the midnight start. I'd set my alarm for 10:30 so I'd have all that time to prep my feet, get my kit and food/drink together and have ample time left to wander over to the start which is only just half a mile or so from my NY basement home-away-from-home. Then I woke up with a start at 11:20 having totally slept through the alarm! Fortunately 3 others from my apartment were also planning to take part so their activity levels had roused me from sleep, but it took a while to get my brain in gear and everything felt rushed and slightly panicked. I did manage to get my feet into their layers of vaseline, toe socks and thin outer-socks and pack a crate full of gels, bars and other random ultra foods. Then I set off, with my bike (as an easy way to get back from race to home after  finishing) only to have to turn back and grab all the items I'd forgotten from the fridge. So I had a bit of a heart rate spike and a very unsettled state of mind when I did finally pick up my race number (actually no number - we all had our names written on a rectangle of tyvek) and check in with my counter for the first shift - good friend Amalendu from Canberra. I managed to settle down and enjoy the high-energy stillness at the start line before we sang the invocation and jogged out into the night. Ahead of around 70-80 runners lay 55 laps of a New York block, the streets around Jamaica High School which we all know well from numerous races over the years & decades.

I was hoping to finish in 9 hours, but the main goal was simply to finish. The cutoff time is 10 hours and with the course hard, undulating and generally unrelenting that is enough of a challeng in itself, so the 9-hour target was just a rough estimate to pace myself against. On the principle that ultra distance is about "starting slow, then getting slower" I was thinking in terms of a 4.30 marathon then a further 4.30 to cover the remaining 21 miles, whether at a walk or a jog or a mix of both. At first I struggled to get below 10 mins per mile - tiredness and running at the unfamiliar time of day/night maybe at the root of that? I was surprised that I didn't warm up well enough to ease into 9-minute miling, but at least I was out there and doing this iconic race, so the slight disappointment over my speed was more than made up for by the gratitude I felt for being part of the event. Going back even a couple of years I would not have imagined I could tackle this big road distance, so just to have started felt pretty immense. I soon settled into a good inner space, my mind very positive and filled with the echoes of the spiritual songs I'd been learning and singing over the preceding week. My lap counter was totally on it, clocking me every time, and there were people singing and reciting poetry out on various parts of the course to lift and inspire the runners. In between those oases it was just the warm, thick New York night with the sound of footfalls ahead and behind, occasional cars (few and far between) and the knowledge of the miles ticking by.

Feeding was my usual pattern, worked out as an easy/simple concept to remember as much as by counting calories or grams of carbs. Gel on the half hour, bar on the hour, repeat until that doesn't feel palatable any more then switch to whatever you can get down. For the first five hours it worked well and I stuck to the plan. My pace never picked up, but I did get through a full marathon in 5 hours (give or take a couple of minutes) which was satisfying and disconcerting at the same time. Soon after that I became aware that my pace was falling - 14 minute mile pace or even worse. Even my tired mind could work out that if I didn't improve I might struggle to hit the 10 hour cutoff. Fortunately, two positive things happened at that stage - Kokila arrived after a short night's sleep to act as my helper and assist with feeding every lap, and I had the mushroom coffee Rasmivan had handed me as I left the apartment a few hours before. He'd previously run an awesome 7.09 for the 47 and described how the drink had given him a boost and also that he'd felt himself "swept along by grace" in the latter stages. If I was going to finish I was going to need both!

My pace picked up again to something between 11 and 12 mins per mile and I started to climb the mountain of miles that lay between marathon and finish. Feeding carried on - baby food, gels, more of the mushroom coffee, cartons of rice pudding. They all went down OK and I remained steady. There was a little pain in my metatarsals, nothing in the plantar fascia area (which I'd felt might be my weak point) and although my stride was shortening as I stiffened up, I was still very much running and only walked briefly when taking a drink or eating. A new music group appeared out by Goose Pond, with some upbeat tunes to lift the runners. Day was breaking and even with the sun low on the horizon you could feel the heat. Suddenly I felt a strange sensation in my left foot and heard a metallic knocking/scraping sound every time it hit the ground, so I realised I had picked up a stone, probably stuck in the grooves of the outsole of my shoe. I tried to scuff the shoe each stride to knock it out but it wasn't shifting. It was still there when I came to the lap point where Kokila was offering me some food, but another helper there pulled a coolbox out for me to sit on and offered to get the stone out. Well, he tried, but the stone turned out to be a screw that was embedded deep in the sole and just wasn't coming out. There can't have been many runners there with a spare pair of shoes but I was one of them, so Kokila grabbed them and I carried on. The road felt very hard under my second choice shoes though, so after a lap I asked Kokila to try and get the original shoes back on the road which she did in the space of one lap - Daulot having produced a pair of pliers and extracted a 3cm (!!) screw from the midsole. Back in my soft shoes, I carried on into the brightening day as runners around me were finishing - taking the Golden Boat flag in hand for their final lap and crossing the line to enthusiastic cheering.

I began to count the laps down - soon there were 10 then 9 then 8 - then I told myself that was only 7 until I took the flag (a mental trick to make the task seem easier) and eventually it was time - Kokila was waiting to hand me the flag and then I set off on that final lap of the 55. Finishing felt amazing - Kokila had thought throughout the race that I was struggling and feeling a bit flat but that had all been on the outside. Inwardly I had had an amazing experience and a pretty joyful one - I'd never hit the kind of inner or outer wall that long races can hit you with and although I'd been anxious at times about my speed I'd felt positive and cheerful throughout. I was immensely grateful to have finished The 47 for only the third time in my life, in a time of 9:14. Out of 34 boys who started I had finished 15th, only 23 had actually crossed the line within the cutoff (and one or two had taken the flag before 10 hours was up, so they had finished too albeit not "officially"). Another race with a unique Sri Chinmoy Races atmosphere and a very special experience.

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