Athletics: Dumfries man to run for 24 hours

Oct 30 2009 by Our Correspondent, Dumfries Standard Friday

DUMFRIES Running Club member Paul Hart travelled down to London to take part in the Tooting Bec 24-hour track race on the weekend of October 17 and 18.

Following a period of rest after obtaining a Commonwealth championship 100K bronze medal in September as part of the Scottish team, this race represented Paul’s toughest ultra running challenge so far.

For those unfamiliar with how a 24-hour race works, unlike a specified race distance such as a marathon or 100 km where the set distance is done in the fastest time, in a 24-hour race the time is fixed and the distance is variable according to the runner’s performance, the race winner covering the longest distance. For this race, each lap of the course is a 400 metre track with the number of completed laps recorded by a dedicated team of lap recorders so that each runners distance can be calculated exactly.

The starting field for the 2009 Tooting Bec 24-hour race had runners representing five European countries – Germany, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Ireland as well as Australia plus the home countries of England, Scotland and Wales.

The race started at 12:00 on Saturday 17th October with runners adopting a wide variety of tactics and pacing to complete the gruelling 24-hour challenge. After the first nervous hour, all the runners started to settle into their own rhythm and Paul was in sixth place.

The conditions, cool with broken cloud, were perfect. At four hours the runners had the excitement of changing direction and Paul was now in fourth place having covered 29 miles.

Seven hours into the race and there was a change of atmosphere as night fell and Paul continued to run strongly moving into second place reaching 50miles in 7hrs 7mins.

At nine hours Paul was still in second place and passed through the major milestone of 100K.

It was a strange feeling for Paul running through the night knowing that while most of Europe was fast asleep there were 40 runners circling the Tooting Bec track with a strange aura of calm and silence at this time of the morning.

The background buzz of suburban London, prevalent for most of the race, had died away. The temperature also dropped and was very cold but the runners on the move seemed happy enough.

Paul stayed focused during this difficult period of the race to catch and overtake the early race leader Paul Fernandez who was still hanging in there five minutes down as Paul reached 100 miles in 15hrs 34mins.

Incredibly, only a minute separated the first two after 16 hours of running as Richard Quennell of Rugby AC followed close behind Paul.

The runners now changed direction again for the penultimate time. Now is the time in a 24-hour race when not only the obvious fatigue of having run for 100 miles is taking its toll, but sleep deprivation is also being felt.

The runner’s in-built body clocks are subliminally telling them “I should be asleep” and the runners have to fight that natural urge. Everyone looks forward to the break of dawn.

At 18 hours Paul was in second place behind Richard Quennell as he took some walk breaks to preserve energy for the whole 24 hours.

Finally the sky started lightening, there was a heavy dew on the infield, and Paul took on some porridge from the breakfast crew which helped give him renewed energy.

At 20 hours the runners were buzzing with less than four hours to go now, having just gone through the last change in direction, and the newly risen sun glowing on the autumn leaves around the track and warming the runners.

At this stage Paul had consolidated his second place reaching 120miles and he continued to grind out the final miles through the obvious pain and fatigue.

With just under an hour to go, the track was really alive as runners stretched themselves to their limits to reach their final goals.

Paul was delighted to finish in second place with a final distance of 140.95 miles or 226.8km covered in the 24 hours.

This meant he completed an incredible 567 laps of the track!

The race was won by Richard Quennell of Rugby AC with a distance of 145.9 miles or 234.8 km with Norwegian Per Audun Heskestad third with 137 miles or 221.9km.

Paul’s achievement of 140.95 miles in his first serious attempt at the distance, and completed without a support crew, ranks him 35th in the world this year and achieves the Great Britain 24-hour team qualifying standard. He is now putting his feet up for a well deserved rest.