1000km barrier broken in historic win for Orkney's Sichel in Monaco
Orkney-based ultra marathon runner, William Sichel (58) won the “No Finish Line” 8 Day race in Monaco last weekend with a new course record of 622.6 miles/1002kms, breaking the previous record by more than 48 miles and becoming the first person to surpass 1000km on the difficult Monaco course.
William now becomes the most successful runner associated with the ‘No Finish Line’ event, having the won the 6 Day events in 2006 and 2007 and now the full 8 Day event with a massive course record in 2011.
Averaging 77.8 miles a day – that’s almost 3 marathons a day – for 8 days William battled sore feet in the final stages to stay on course and surpass the 1000km barrier for the first time.
“I found it an incredibly hard event, with the narrow twisting course, the cobble stones in some parts and the heavily crowded course at certain times of the day. But this was balanced by the incredible crowd support, perfect weather conditions and the Royal Patronage which is unique in ultra distance running.”
Presented with a special trophy, for passing 1000km, by Albert II Prince of Monaco and Charlene Princess of Monaco. William is grateful to the Hotel Metropole, Monte Carlo for sponsoring the trophy’s transport back to Orkney.
William would like to thank his support crew of Alan Young (Brechin) and Tim Rainey (Manchester) who supported him selflessly throughout the eight days. Also thanks to Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe who was the blog master throughout the event.
William is a member of the Orkney Athletic Club and is currently engaged in Project 60@60 in which he is attempting to have set 60 ultra distance records, at World, British and Scottish level, including age-groups, before his 60th birthday on October 1st 2013. Currently William has set 55 records, including 6 World Age-Group records.
William is grateful to sponsors Loganair and Myprotein.
Full results are available on the No Finish Line website
