Budjargal Byambaa is an ultradistance runner who runs extreme distance events over several days. In doing so he covers enormous distances at impressive speeds. He has several course records and was 2022 World Champion for the 48 hour event.
- Two time winner of the 10-day Sri Chinmoy race
- Course record at the Icarus Florida 6-day race
- National record for 24 hour running
- Winner of the World Championship, 48 hour running
- Winner of the Xiamen 6 day race
In 2013 Budjargal broke the 24 hour national record for his home nation of Mongolia after completing 182 km, and he has completed the 10-day Sri Chinmoy race five times. He won it in 2017 (1189 km) and again in 2019 (1222 km). In 2019 Budjargal completed the Xiamen 6-day race, winning with a distance of 834 km.
Travelling to Florida for the Icarus Florida Ultrafest 2020, Budjargal participated in the 6-day race, taking first place with a run of 787 km. He led second place by 132 km, beating his own record by 17 km (read more here). In 2021 he ran 477 miles at the Live at the Fair running festival, to take Gold (more here). Later that year he took the course record at the six-day Milwaukee 6 Days In the Dome, with a 903 km run (more here).
In 2022 he ran 1111 km in ten days to win the Across the Years ultra (more here). Later that year he ran 400 km to win the Beyond Limits 72-hour ultra and take the course record (more here). He followed this with a win at the Sri Chinmoy six-day race (more here). He also ran in the 48 hour World Championship and covered 333 km to become World Champion (more here).
In 2023 he won the Across the Years ultra for the third time (more here) and the Sri Chinmoy ten day event (here). In early 2024 he won the Save the Daylight 48 hours race, completing 275 km (more here). Soon after he won a ten day race by 74 miles, completing 817.5 miles, or 1315.6 km (more here).
Budjargal entered the Sri Chinmoy 3100 mile event in 2024, joining the elite group of runners who have finished the event. Due to the time limit he had to average 69 miles (96km) per day (more here).
Vegan
Budjargal stopped eating all animal products in January 2019. He was motivated by thoughts of improving his athletic performance.
“I met a doctor “Budjargal explained. “She told me that naturally suited food for human body is not animal related food, it is plant based food. “
Now he eats a lot of raw food, with fruit and nuts making up most of his intake. During the amazing Icarus Florida Ultrafest run he ate a lot of avocados and bananas and some nuts. He also ate coconut meat, grapes, oranges, mandarins, apples, kiwi, berries, pears and mangoes. Instead of water he drank coconut juice from a farm, which he ensured was fresh.
Undertaking events of extreme distance may seem difficult to understand for many of us. The ten-day Sri Chimnoy race saw him run almost 29 standard marathons. It’s clear that Budjargal sees these epic challenges as part of his own spiritual growth.
“Veganism is the right choice for me, it improves my physical strength” he says. “It helps me to transcend my physical self, moving to the next stage of my spiritual development and growth.”
He also focusses on the extreme mental toughness needed to keep the body going in these events.
“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.”
“Becoming vegan helped me to find my inner strength.”
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