All I can say it "ouch":
For the past seven years, Genshin Fujinami has been participating in the 'kaihogyo', a sacred pilgrimage that is also one of the most demanding challenges ever devised. It is so gruelling only 46 men have completed it in the past four centuries. On each of 100 consecutive days, Genshin Fujinami runs more than 80 kilometres along dangerous mountain paths. It is the equivalent of competing in two Olympic marathons each day. He sleeps for just two hours a night, and hardly eats.
Although actually the idea of achieving spiritual awareness by pushing your body past its normal physical endurance is as old as humanity. Pain, physical effort, smoke, drugs, and other things have all been used to this end.
This sort of thing is not very popular in the comfy west where we're obsessed by bodily "health", but they still go on in places in the world. And some have suggested that the current popularity in tattooing and piercing stem from this same "rite of passage" instinct.
Update: Of course I can't vouch for the accuracy (not being a marathon monk myself), but this article give many more specific details about this practice.
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