1000 mile contestants accept challenge in their sleep

LondonAthletics is all about facing a challenge – and arguably none come greater than the one which will confront the six competitors who yesterday were named to run or walk a mile every hour for 1000 hours. In a concept devised by the organisers of the London Marathon, the Flora 1000-mile challenge is set to become one of the most high-profile athletics events in Britain next year.

The aim is to reproduce the feat achieved almost 200 years ago by a legendary sportsman and gambler called Captain Robert Barclay, who for a wager, completed the 1000 mile task. But for the six athletes named today, which include Sharon Gayter, Britain's No 1 ultra-distance runner and world no 5, their target is even greater than Barclay’s in 1809.

Their race will end at 8.15am on Sunday 13 April 2003, on the morning of the London Marathon itself, which they will then run to find the winner of a challenge which is set to become an extraordinary event.

As Gayter, 39, who set a personal best when she ran 217.5k in a 24-hour race in Holland in May to earn her world ranking, said: “A mile every hour for 1000 miles and 1000 hours. It means for six weeks, we are not going to get any proper sleep. Do not ask me how we are going to cope with that.”

The idea for the event emerged from a book written about Barclay by Peter Radford, the former world record breaker for 220 yards,  who was the executive-chairman of the now defunct British Athletic Federation, the country’s old national governing body.

David Bedford, the former 10,000m world record holder who is international race director of the marathon, read the publication and "thought ‘Why not, let’s go for it’. And we did. But just think ahead to six weeks (Jan 28) and imagine having broken sleep every day until then.”

The competition will start on March 2 and the athletes will spend the six weeks travelling 18 times around the course that the London marathon is run on. They will live for that period in a special hi-tech bus, where helpers and assistants will be on hand to buy their food and, most importantly, wake them up for their ‘mile-an-hour’. They will receive £6 for every mile they complete, a £1000 bonus for finishing the 1000-miles, an additional £1000 for every athlete who runs the marathon in under seven hours, with £3000 to the first male and female home over the 26.2 miles. Any athlete who fails to complete a mile in an hour is disqualified.

Bedford said: “This is one the most fascinating challenges in our sport that I can remember for a long time because of the sleep deprivation that the athletes have to put themselves through.”

Gayter was named for the event last month but since then the organisers received 170 applications, which they whittled down to five after a series of interviews to choose who might be the most capable of surviving the distance.

The competitors selected are: Rory Coleman, a business manager from Nottingham who has run 349 marathons in his life; Shona Crombie-Hicks, Scotland’s No 2 marathon runner with a personal best time of 2:40.53; David Lake, a lieutenant in the Welsh Fusiliers, the same company that Barclay himself was a member of; Paul Selby, 56, a dual British and South African passport holder who has run 440 marathons during his life; and Lloyd Scott, a former English professional footballer and fireman who this year made headlines across the world by completing the London and New York marathons in five days – because he was wearing a deep sea diver’s costume.

Gayter is spending Christmas by practising over five days for what the challenge will bring. She will run in a fell race on Boxing Day and then attempt to complete a mile an hour before running in a 10k road race. She said: “The key will be our sleep so the plan for most of us will probably be to start one mile near the end of one hour and run the second one straight away in the next to give us a longer chance to rest. But has there ever been a greater athletics challenge?”

By an IAAF Correspondent