Inner strength unleashed! Vegan runner joins elite 3100 mile finisher club

Budjargal's journey to completing the Sri Chinmoy 5000-kilometre run.

23 October 2024

Leaving the standard marathon far behind the Sri Chinmoy is a 3100 miles (4989 km) challenge held in New York.

Athletes have 52 days, so must average of 59.6 miles (95.9 km) per day.

Over the previous 27 years just a few dozen had completed it. Vegan runner Budjargal Byambaa just became the 55th. He carried on to complete 5000 km.

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

He’s 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.”