Feeling fine and ready to have a crack at two long-standing distance records
By William Sichel
(Story dated March 23, 2005)

My season starts this year with my first serious attempt at breaking a British athletic record or two.

Tomorrow, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I’ll be running in the Czech 48 hour Indoor Championships, in Brno, in the eastern part of the Czech Republic.

The records I have decided to go for are the British Age Group 24 hour indoor record of 212.97km/132.3 miles which was set way back in 1988.

I then plan to ‘hang on’ and attempt to surpass the overall British 48 hour indoor best of 351.2kms/218.2 miles.

The latter record is almost 20 years old so has been on the books for a long time now.

My best distance ever over 48 hours is only 158.3 miles/254.8kms. This I did in my debut over 48 hours in Germany in the summer of 2003. I had huge problems in that event which curtailed my performance.

Also the temperature reached 32C which obviously limited performance. The 24 hour record is well within my compass if I can get a trouble free run.

Why have I decided to go for these records now?

Well, firstly I am in fine shape at the moment having wintered well with many months of consistent good training with no injuries and only minor health problems, such as colds etc. Secondly the race in Brno is a good one, very well organised in an excellent venue on the outskirts of the city. Thirdly I feel that I have now learned enough to be able to have a realistic chance of cracking these records.

I’ve been doing long ultras (at least 24 hours) for nearly ten years now and have accumulated a wide experience of these fascinating and ultimately challenging events and all they have to throw at you.

Finally with weather conditions being such an important factor in ultra events and influencing the end results greatly it’s clearly a stabilising factor having an indoor event where climatic conditions will be fairly steady.

I have managed two performances which rank as truly world class over 24 hours and enough good performances to keep me interested and maintain my involvement in the sport.

I have also had a number of disappointing performances and one or two ‘dnfs’ (did not finish) to my name.

The overwhelming number one difficulty I have had is in the eating and drinking plan during these super endurance races. Problems in this area have been the main cause of below par results.

So much happens during these long, long events that post-race analysis often fails to pin-point the cause of problems.

Furthermore, so few races are done per year that it takes considerable time to accumulate enough experience to be able to make a judgement on what is causing problems and then to rectify them.

For years, I followed the accepted wisdom of attempting to take in about 250 calories an hour in my long ultras in an effort to achieve proper fuelling. This always seemed to result in vomiting after several hours and I could never pinpoint the problem.

Over the last couple of years and the last few months in particular, I have discovered that I only need about 100 calories an hour from carbohydrate, protein and fat to properly fuel myself in these marathon endurance efforts.

One hundred calories an hour was my energy intake during my successful completion of the 153 mile Spartathlon from Athens to Sparta last October.

During that event, I lost two packets of Complan liquid meal replacement. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I was able to run on without problems despite the reduced intake. Had I taken the extra Complan it would probably have led to excess consumption and then vomiting.

The balance of energy required is taken from my intramuscular fat deposits which have obviously become very highly adapted with years of training and competition.

The key is to take in what one can assimilate and not try to take in what one is using in terms of energy and fluid.

I have often written of the need for meticulous preparation in the build up for ultra events. Seemingly very minor things can ruin an excellent performance.

Feet are one of the areas that need special care before, during and after races. Recently I had a sore toe and wondered whether it was worth doing anything about it or whether it would go away.

I decided to see my podiatrist, George Rendall, and it turned out that I had a small piece of hair, possibly from our cat, buried in my toe and gradually working it’s way down in to the sensitive soft tissues.

George performed a small operation to scrape away the outer layers of skin and remove the offending bristle.

Such a foreign body would have continued to become infected and could have scuppered a record attempt.

The track in Brno is a circular 250m smooth concrete one, inside a giant exhibition hall.

The various races are all controlled by the ChampionChip system, in which runners have a computer chip on their shoe which counts laps and totals distance covered. So at any time the runners can look at the giant screen and see their distance, position, speed etc.

A multi talented field of about 40 athletes, from 12 countries, will start the 48 hour race at 9am UK time tomorrow, Friday, with eastern European countries being well represented.

The final gun will go at 10am UK time on Sunday  the extra hour allowing for the change of clocks.

I’m keen to make my events more accessible when possible. For the first time my progress in this event will relayed to my web site.

Courtesy of Orcadia Design, in St Margaret’s Hope, and my handler Alan Young, frequent updates will be posted to my site www.williamsichel.co.uk during the two day event. This will allow people to be involved in the event even though they can’t be there in person.

• William Sichel is currently sponsored by dion_networks, Loganair and The Orcadian.