Taiwan's Lo finishes second in world's longest road race

New York, Oct. 23 (CNA) Taiwanese ultra-marathon runner Lo Wei-ming (羅維銘) on Saturday finished second among seven runners in a 52-day road race in New York, becoming the first Asian to have completed the 4,989-km run.

Holding the country's national flag and wearing sandals, Lo was cheered by the crowd as he passed the finish line of the 25th Annual Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race, clocking 48 days, 11 hours, 52 minutes and 1 second.

"Wei-ming has been a real ambassador for the sport of super-long distance running, as well as for his Taiwan heritage and community," according to the organizer in its day 48 online update for the event, which started on Sept. 5.

Lo finished behind Italy's Andrea Marcato -- who completed the race in 42 days, 17 hours, 38 minutes and 38 seconds, and who also won last year's event -- and ranked 25th among participants of all time.

Lo thanked his supporters and said the key for him in finishing the race was the motto of "gratitude, peace, purity and discipline" he learned from the event's initiator Sri Chinmoy.

He said the biggest challenge for him in the competition was to face the unknown, and that he had learned to maintain a peaceful state of mind.

Participants had to run laps for at least 95.9 km every day to complete the race held in a high school in Queens, which organizers say has been certified as the world's longest road race.

The race started at 6 a.m. every day, and runners could run throughout the day until midnight, taking breaks as needed, organizers said.

While it is manageable for ultra-marathon runners to log 100 km per day, to do so for 52 days in a row is not easy, Lo said.

This is why it is important to keep "disciplined," he said, running neither too much nor too little every day.

"I kept a high degree of discipline to manage my performance. I told myself when encountering extreme pain that 'this was my choice and enjoy it' and succeeded," he said.