Ultra-long-distance running: Chen Penbin experiences hallucinations
"I made a big mistake," Chen Penbin murmured. In fact, this was the phrase he repeated most after reaching the finish line. When he reached Mirali at the 155-kilometer mark, Chen Penbin had caught up to second place. For the next approximately 70 kilometers, he led the eventual second-place finisher, Finnish runner Sakari Haka, and was even ahead by four hours at one point. But that’s when the "strange things" began to happen.
"At the time, I thought I was already in second place, so I just stood there motionless for about an hour. It wasn’t until the runners behind me caught up that I realized something was wrong and remembered I needed to run. But after passing my opponents, I would stand still again. Sometimes, I thought I should keep going, but my body just wouldn’t move. I don’t know what was happening," Chen Penbin recalled. Later, he uploaded a selfie taken at the finish line on WeChat, with simple text still grappling with this situation.
Statistically speaking, for the 17-kilometer segment from Kalousi to Kallentzi, Chen Penbin took 5 hours and 16 minutes, while Hakatook only 2 hours and 45 minutes; for the 12.4-kilometer segment from Zireka to Poseyna, Chen Penbin took 4 hours and 17 minutes, while Haka took 2 hours and 11 minutes.
Clearly, Chen Penbin experienced hallucinations, one of the accompanying phenomena of ultra-long-distance running. Over two thousand years ago, when the Persian army was at the gates, the Athenians sent the messenger Pheidippides to Sparta, over 200 kilometers away, to seek help. According to the historian Herodotus, Pheidippides was originally a long-distance running expert who once encountered the god Pan—known in Greek mythology as the forest deity with the head and hooves of a goat—while running on Mount Parthenion. Pan called out Pheidippides’ name and complained that the Athenians did not respect him. This is probably the earliest recorded account of athletic hallucination.
But for Chen Penbin, this was the first time he experienced hallucinations during his extreme racing career, which is why he was so puzzled. He also said he met a Greek man in the rainy night who told him the correct route for the long run; when climbing a hillside, he thought he had reached the finish line and wondered, "Why isn’t there an elevator up here?" In the empty wilderness, he asked himself aloud, "What’s wrong with me?"
These "strange" occurrences were indirectly confirmed by Haka. At the finish line next to the ancient Olympia Stadium, the second-place Haka repeatedly asked reporters in limited English, "Where is Chen? How is he?"
Although the race result fell short of expectations, for Chen Penbin, who still identifies as a farmer, this competition added a new highlight to his ultra-marathon career because it was the longest distance he had ever run continuously.
The origins of Chen Penbin’s ultra-marathon career
Chen Penbin’s ultra-marathon journey began with push-ups. It was the year 2000, when a local push-up competition was held in his village. Chen Penbin’s main competitors were several police officers from the local station. The officers managed to do 150 push-ups before giving up and gradually left the competition, unaware that Chen Penbin, heads down, kept going until he reached 438 push-ups—only stopping when bystanders pushed him to the ground, realizing he had no opponents left. Winning this competition earned Chen Penbin a reward of 600 RMB.
"That was the biggest sum of money I’d ever held in my own hands. It felt like a lot back then," Chen Penbin recalled with a smile on his face at a small hotel in Athens.
For nearly 10 years prior to that, Chen Penbin, who dropped out of school at age 13 to join his father’s "company" as a fisherman, was technically a "shareholder," but money matters were always handled by his father. Moreover, the company was losing money every year, so there wasn’t much to claim anyway. That 600 RMB didn’t even stay warm in Chen Penbin’s hands before he handed it over to his parents.
Perhaps it was those years as a young fisherman that forged Chen Penbin’s extraordinary endurance. Chen Penbin said that although he was only a teenager at the time, he knew he was filling in for an adult position in his father’s company and worked especially hard.
"Back then, fishing trips lasted 7 to 12 days at a time. Sometimes we couldn’t sleep for several nights in a row. When I was really exhausted, I’d just sit and doze off for a bit," Chen Penbin recalled.
After learning that winning competitions could earn money, Chen Penbin became enthusiastic about all kinds of events, including long-distance running while carrying buckets of spring water, running marathons in leather shoes, and carrying n
"When I compete abroad, I mainly consider two factors: the difficulty of the race and its prestige," said Chen Penbin.
However, Chen Penbin got injured in his very first overseas race—the 2009 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in France.
"I hadn’t expected the race to be that tough, and the other competitors had trekking poles while I didn’t." Despite lacking trekking poles and having limited experience, Chen Penbin gritted his teeth and finished the race, placing 27th. The injuries he sustained during that race took over two years to fully heal.
Compared to the achievement of finishing the race, the pain eventually became insignificant. "Seeing the five-starred red flag raised at the finish line—my heart was bursting with pride!" Chen Penbin recalled with a sense of honor.
From then on, Chen Penbin’s footprint spread across North America, South America, Oceania, Europe, and Africa. In less than five years, he completed renowned races such as the Marathon des Sables in the Sahara Desert of Morocco, the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run in the U.S., and the 220-kilometer Amazon Jungle Marathon in Brazil.
Chen Penbin’s next goal—go for it
Chen Penbin’s next goal is to participate in and complete the 100-kilometer Antarctic Ice Marathon on November 22 this year. The entire race takes place within the Antarctic Circle, with an average temperature of only minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the possibility of storms makes the environment extremely harsh. Completing this race would mean Chen Penbin has achieved his dream of completing the Seven Continents Ultra-Marathon Grand Slam.
But Chen Penbin won’t stop running because of this. He dreams of running until he’s fifty or sixty years old. Now 36, he is controlling the number of races he enters, planning to run about four high-quality events per year.
For many years, Chen Penbin traveled abroad to compete alone. This young man, who only knew how to say "thank you" and "sorry" in English, tried to communicate with others through his smile; he tried, with the simplicity, humility, and honesty of a runner, to understand the world.
Today, this man from humble beginnings, blessed with talent, no longer needs to run for prize money: the 2012 Athens-Spartathlon and this year’s Delphi-Olympia Ultra-Marathon, both of which he participated in, are non-prize-money sporting events. He craves the challenge of pushing his limits and hopes to prove that "China can do it" in such top-tier competitions. Chen Penbin isn’t good with words, so no one can truly understand all the extremes and hardships he has endured.
"I just want to keep running," he said. Under the streetlights of Athens, his smile was simple and unadorned. He had no photos from his childhood, and the only picture from elementary school was unfortunately lost. All he has are photos taken after he turned 20. When abroad, he often had to take selfies with a small camera, so every photo is incredibly precious to him. "I can’t bear to delete any photos—I keep them all."