Vladimir Balatsky stands 2 nd at the Self-Transcendence 10 Day-Race in New York
This guy is always good for a surprise. But this time he surprised himself in the first place. He couldn't count on managing 653 miles in the Self-Transcendence 10 Day-Race. We are talking of Vladimir Balatzky, 34 years young and member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.
With this result he surpassed the last years winner Miroslav Pospisek by 89 miles and was only 12 miles behind the new winner Rimas Jakelaitis, which is absolutely astounding. Thus he left even the experts speechless.
"The race was a revelation for me", Vladimir explains us in a conversation a view days later back in Austria: "I started very carefully, increased my speed as the race was going on."
On the 5 th day Vladimir had conquered all the little pains of the first days. On this day also the start of the 6 Day-Race took place, which goes parallel with the 10 Day-Race.
"As the 6 Day-Race started", Vladimir tells us, "I realized I could keep up very well with the fresh runners. This gave me a big boost. The last view days then I really turned on. I got faster and faster."
Vladimir was for a long time behind Trishul Cherns, an expert ultra runner, on the third place. The Ukrainian "It was an additional motivation for me that the second (Trishul) was only a view miles ahead of me. On the last day run together with Rimas, passed Trishul and reached the second place."
On the last day the student run 73 miles and thus surpassed all his expectation, because he wanted to run an average of 60 miles, which are the criterions for the 3100-Milerace.
And here we are already talking about Vladimirs plans for the future.
"I am convinced I can run this race even faster", the Ukrainian is telling us, "I was too careful at the beginning. If I manage to remain without injuries, I can run 70 miles average, that is 700 miles all together. But my goal is to run the Self-Transcendence 3100 Milerace. This is a distance I have awe of and on the other side I long to manage. You can make so much inner and outer progress hereby. I know that my body is made for multi day races. However at the 3100 Milerace the number of participants is limited. Therefore I have put myself on the waiting list and hope I can run this multi day race next year or the year after. I am looking forward to it."
