Surasa Mairer (born Paula Mairer, March 6, 1959 in St. Justina, Austria ) currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
She is a member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and holds the course record for the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race set in 2015.
Surasa took up running relatively late - aged 28. Despite little background in running, she made rapid progress in ultra distance events. In 1996 and 1997 she won the Sri Chinmoy 700 mile race. In 1999 and 2000 she was winner of the Sri Chinmoy 1,000-mile-run (1600 km) In 2000, Surasa completed the 1000 miler in 14 days 12 hours, the only finisher of that race.
In 2001, she set a new world record at the 1300-Mile-Race (2080 km) in a time of 17 days 21 hours - lowering the 10 year old record of Sandra Barwick from New Zealand by 1 hour 33.
In 2002, Surasa broke two long-standing records for women, setting new world bests at 1000 km (7+16:08:37) and 700 miles (8+15:34:13).
She also holds records for running backwards. Her first marathon backwards was in 2004 at an event called Impossibility Challenger held in Germany near Munich. Her second attempt at a backwards marathon was Iin a time of 6:27:11 in the Munich Mediamarathon in 2005. In 2014 Surasa participated at the 5th World Championship of Retrorunning in Italy and won Gold in the half marathon and bronze in the 100 m.
2015 - Self-Transcendence Race
On 2nd August, 2015, Surasa Mairer broke Suprabha Beckjord’s 17-year old record for 3,100 miles. Her time was 49 days, 7 hours and 52 minutes, averaging around 63 miles per day. She was 56 years old when she broke this record. Speaking after the record she spoke of her gratitude to those who had encouraged her to start and those who had helped put on the race.
“I just want to say that standing here with this record is really hard to believe. It is hard to believe because I had doubts until the beginning of this race. Because I always felt that I was not strong enough. That I am too weak and too tired. But there were always good persons who said, no, no!” “You just have to come to the starting line and everything will be okay. Good that I listened to her. So I registered very very late.” “It is hard to believe because you cannot capture it, because it is all grace. It is all grace, grace, grace, that I could do it at this age (56 years old).
“So what more can I say than gratitude. All gratitude to the great Sri Chinmoy Marathon team, because they are working so hard. Very very hard, and still they are all very nice. I admire this really very much.” (Source) at Perfection Journey
Results
- 1996 and 1997 - Winner of the 700 mile-run
- 1999 and 2000 winner of the 1,000-mile-run (1600 km)
- 2000-2003 winner of the Sri Chinmoy Ultra Trio 1000 Mile Race [1]
- 2007 winner of the 10-day run in New York (595 miles) [1]
- 2011 world records in the reverse running of the distances of 5 km, 10 km, half marathon and marathon
- 2011, 2013, 2015 winner of the women’s Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race. Current women's record holder
- 2016 - Completed 3,021 miles of 3,100 mile race.
Related
