Porchfield runner Chris Pritchett ran 104 miles in 24 hours, 51 minutes. Picture by Robin Crossley.
ATHLETICSTO MOST people, running a marathon is a distance too far to even think about.
But for Porchfield resident Chris Pritchett, this is a short jog.
For Chris, 50, of Main Road, has just completed the LDWA 100-mile challenge in Scotland.
The event is aimed a long-distance walkers, but around a fifth of the 500 entrants run the distance. Chris, who has completed the challenge once before and is a member of West Wight Road Runners, came joint second overall.
He finished the course —which actually measured at 104.4 miles — in 24 hours, 51 minutes.
He said: "You run as much of it as you can but you have to pace yourself. I ran everything except uphill, then I walked. I much prefer doing something like this to a marathon. With those, you just turn up, push yourself as fast as you can, then go home.
"With something like this, you go much slower so you have time to talk to the people around you and there are excellent checkpoints every six miles or so where you can get food and drink. Its much more than getting the best time."
Chris’s next challenge comes in September, when he will run the 45-mile Cross-Wales walk, from the inner border of Wales to the coast, at Aberystwyth.
However, 45 miles is not quite enough, so Chris plans to run all the way back to the start.
• Renowned Apse Heath walker Jill Green also completed the challenge, for the 20th time. Jill is now part of an elite band of walkers to have completed so many of the challenges and it is believed she has never dropped out of an event.