Skip to main content

Marathon, and On and On

Less than 1% of Americans have ever run a marathon. Over six weeks Sarvagata Ukrainskyi ran two, occasionally three, a day on his way to winning his second Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race. The event, in its 18th year, is unlike any other: Competitors get 52 days to complete 5,649 laps of a .5488-mile loop around Thomas Edison High in Queens, N.Y., and each day's racing lasts 18 hours, from 6 a.m. to midnight. Last week the 41-year-old Ukrainskyi finished in 798 hours, 58 minutes and 10 seconds, beating his winning 2011 time by nearly six hours. Even then, his day was not done, as the Berdyansk, Ukraine, native ran 13 more laps to reach the 5,000-kilometer milestone. Ukrainskyi deserves a rest, but it won't be a long one. He'll be back in 2015 for his fifth straight race. "I'm kind of addicted to this," he says.

PHOTO

ELLIOT CHESTER/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (UKRAINSKYI)