Sichel prepares for North Coast 500 mile run
Orkney-based ultra marathon runner, William Sichel has just completed his own ‘boot camp’ in readiness for an attempt to set a fastest known time (FKT) on the North Coast 500 mile tourist route in northern Scotland.
Starting at Inverness Castle on Saturday April 13th at 7am, William will attempt to run this iconic route, solo, in 8 days or less. He has assembled an experienced support crew of 4 full timers plus a possible two additional crew from Orkney who, it is hoped, will be able to support on a part-time basis.
“I completed a recce run on the whole course in November last year when I was driven around the whole route, which is actually 518.7 miles and ran for up to 3 hours a day to get a feel for the area. Following that experience I decided to have a go at running the whole thing.”
William, who has completed 107 ultra marathons since 1994, last competed in the summer of last year, when he ran 2904 miles of the Self Transcendence 3,100 Mile race in New York – the world’s longest certified footrace.
As far as is known no one has previously run the North Coast 500 route although cyclist James McCallum, completed the route in 31 hours in 2016.
“I’m the first to admit that this run is entirely out of my comfort zone. I’ve never done anything like this before, being far more comfortable running multiple laps in parks or on running tracks. After the 3,100 I felt like tackling something completely different and this is what I came up with.”
William will be using the run to raise funds for the cancer support charity CLAN. His fund raising page can be found here: https://www.justgiving.com/william-sichel
==
William is currently persuing his record-setting project called “Journey to 750” in which he is attempting to set 750 running records at World, British and Scottish level, including age-group records. Currently he has set 687 records, including 45 world age-group records and two Guiness World Records. His shortest record is for 30 miles on the track and his longest is an overall British record for 3100 miles/5000km on the road.
NC500 web site: https://www.northcoast500.com/
NC500 wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Coast_500
William’s records – project “Journey to 750”: http://williamsichel.co.uk/journey-to-750/
Be the first to comment