People who run instinctively know there is more to life than just working, eating and sleeping. Deep within them, each person who runs feels some need to better themselves and go further and deeper into their own capacities, either by directly pushing their capacities through running or using the fitness and vitality gained from a more relaxed running regimen to aid in achieving other life goals. Sometimes it is only when one is truly pushing the boat out in terms of their own capacities that one feels truly alive.

Running brings you in contact with your limitations like very few other disciplines, Especially during a long run, the runner can go through a wide variety of physical, mental and emotional tsts of character, and emerge cheerful at the end. This kind of training has a definite knock-on effect for the your life outside running, as you are better able to keep your equanimity faced by whatever life throws at you.

Unfortunately this philosophy of self-transcendence is often lost when one instead focuses on winning and beating the competition. Naturally there has to be a sense of competition, but one can instead direct this sense of competition towards beating one's own previous standard. When one is rooted in this approach, it can really make life simpler for a runner, as he only has to focus on beating his own capacities as well as contend with the insecurities of wondering how your competitors are getting on.

Also, the very act of transcendence can be a real journey of self-discovery, as you find things about yourself you never knew before. Often, when yyou are up against it, you have to go really deep into the core of your being to go beyond the discomfort and stay the course. Many ultra runners find they can go past the physical and emotional problems and enter into a beautiful space where everything is simplified; just themselves and the road ahead of them. In normal life we have a lot of negative thoughts which we allow to dominate our day, but in long running races you have no choice but to forcefully shut those thoughts out if you want to proceed.

There are quite a few running organisations whose principles express the highest ideals of self-transcendence, among them the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, the worlds largest organiser of long distance races. Many of their races indeed have self-transcendence in the title, including the 3100 Self-Transcendence race, the world's longest road race.