team news

Recently there's been a couple of last minute additions to the England team for the 24hr race in next week's Commonwealth Championships.  The five men are:  Ken Fancett, Chris Finill, Pat Robbins, Jim Rogers and myself.  The five women are:  Sandra Brown, Marie Doke, Sharon Gayter, Vicky Skelton and Ramona Thevenet-Smith.

There are 22 runners in the men's race and 22 in the women's race from the following countries:

Australia (six men and six women)
Canada (three men and four women)
England (five men and five women)
India (one man)
Isle Of Man (one man and one woman)
Kenya (one man)
New Zealand (one man and three women)
Scotland (three men and three women)
Wales (one man)


A few surprises here:   Kenya - hope their guy isn't as good as the top 10k and marathon runners; only four countries have sent men's teams - increasing the likelihood of England being among the medals; no runners from South Africa (none in the 100k race either).

I would guess that the individual favourites would be Martin Fryer and Jonathan Blake (both from Australia) and Sharon Gayter (although Vicky Skelton isn't far behind).  Martin ran a fantastic 48hr race in Surgeres earlier this year to place second on the all time list with 433.686 km - his feet were a real mess afterwards though.  Sharon had a great run at Badwater [hope she's recovered].

Still relaxing lots - no loud music, no late nights, no stress ... and no caffeine.

chasing the distances

All the best to Les Hill, Jim Rogers and John Pares who are running the Basel 24 hr race this weekend no doubt in a bid to get a qualifying distance for the Commonwealth Championships.

As Les is Scottish and John is Welsh their performances won't effect my chances of being selected for England. Jim is English and although he had a bad run at Tooting Bec last October he is definitely capable of passing 225k to join Chris Finill, Ken Fancett and myself with the English qualifying standard.

I hope Les has a better time than his previous 24 hr race (Hull 2008) when he collapsed during the 22nd hour whilst in a good position - I don't think he ran again in that race.

Ramona Thevenet-Smith is also running ... hope she does well too.

Thanks to Nadeem Khan for posting the piece on the IAU website. I feel honoured to have my story on the site of the world governing body (I did find a small mistake when I read it but I think it's just a typo).

I certainly don't feel as if my life has been extra ordinary ... I'm just a lucky guy doing something he loves which he happens to be quite good at.

London entries

Twenty three miles yesterday. The first 20 were at 7:50 per mile and then the last three were at 7:17 per mile ... and it was easy. The whole lot took well under three hours.

Tempo run this afternoon - seven miles in 47 minutes. Not too difficult but the headwind in the last mile and a half didn't help.

In the post this morning came the start list, and other stuff, for the Tooting Bec 24 hr race in London. At first glance a couple of things are noticeable:

1) there are at least three other Englishmen in the field who are capable of running 225k, ie the qualifying distance for next year's Commonwealth Championships. The three are Ken Fancett, Jim Rogers and Chris Finill. I've just re read the selection criteria and it does specify that up to six men will be included.

2) William Sichel isn't listed even though his website is still showing that he's taking part. Obviously there's a mistake somewhere.

3) Sharon Gayter is on the list although she writes on her website that she only starting running again in mid August following a stress fracture.