You’ve Come All This Way — Shouldn’t You At Least Get To See A Little More Of The City?

Where running and minimalism meet:

Imagine, for a moment, running 3,100 miles — the distance from Queens to Los Angeles plus an additional 300 miles — all around a single city block in Jamaica Hill. This is how 10 men and one woman are spending part of their summer.

The Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race began June 17, and Asprihanal Aalto of Finland was the first to finish Monday at about 10:30 a.m., completing the race in 43 days, four hours, 26 minutes and 32 seconds of pounding the pavement. Yet he was right back at the race course Tuesday morning to offer encouragement to the other runners.

“My heart is still in the race,” Aalto said, checking a photocopied sheet with each runner’s mileage and laps completed per day. “I saw Smarana [Puntigam, of Austria, currently in fourth place] had a bad day yesterday — he only did 108 laps — so I went to talk to him.”

The remaining 10 are on track to complete 5,657 loops of the block around Thomas Edison Career and Technical High School, bounded by the Grand Central Parkway eastbound service road, 168th Street, 164th Place and 84th Avenue. The man in second place, Ayojan Stojanovich, of Serbia, was expected to finish the race Wednesday on day 45, and most runners take about 51 days. A support team tracks the runners’ laps and mileage, offers encouragement and keeps a supply of water and high-fat, high-calorie snacks on the tables at the finish line.

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The runners stay moving from 6 a.m. to midnight every day, jogging, trudging or walking.

“You can’t do this race looking behind you. You have to look deep inside,” [runner Suprabha] Beckjord said.

Abichal Watkins, of Wales, said he had to drop out the first year he applied for the race because his visa expired before he had completed the 3,100 miles.

“I came back the next year to finish,” he said. “This is the longest certified footrace in the world. It’s an opportunity to self-transcend, do something you’ve never done before.”