Tooting Bec Self-transcendence 24 Hour Race 2009

Less than a week to go before the Self-Transcendence 24 hour race taking place at the Tooting Bec Track in South London. Race director Shankara Smith says that the race has been sold out for weeks despite the recent 24 hour/100km Commonwealth Championships.

So who’s coming? Well, a new crop of 13 or 14 first timers, home-grown experience like Ken Fancett, Carl Sommer, treadmill world record holder Lee Chamberlain and 11 runners from abroad including Reima Hartikainen, Ken Fancett, Per Audun Heskestad, Nitish Zuidema.The race starts at 12 noon on Saturday.

Hopefully this year there will be updates posted on the site during the race. More information will be posted before the start of the race.

Tom Meldrun has a blog called Beyond the Marathon and has posted about his preparations

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The Self-Transcendence 24 hour race was founded in 1989 by Ongkar Tony Smith, the owner of Run and Become who passed away in February 2006 under the auspices of the Sri Chinmoy A.C., the UK branch of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.

Sri Chinmoy was a spiritual teacher who loved sport since his youth and was a decathlete champion at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in India before moving to New York in 1964. He began teaching his philosophy and gathered a small group of students through the 70’s and formed the Sri Chinmoy Marathon team in 1977 which hosted its first marathon and half marathon in 1979. The first 24 hour race took place in Greenwich, CT in the USA and in 1985 the SCMT hosted their first 1000 mile race and later on that same year, a 5 five day race and so began the story of the largest hosts of ultramarathons in the world.