Congratulations to Pat Robbins of Zoom Tri Club in Bournemouth for his remarkable run at the Grand Union Canal Race. Not only did he win it but broke the existing course record by some 25 minutes. He completed the course in 27 hours and one minute. For those of you that are not familiar with this event, it's a non-stop 145 mile run along the Grand Union Canal between Birmingham and London.

What makes it even more remarkable is that this is only Pat's second year running ultra distances. Last year he entered the race more in hope than expectation and confessed to some of his racing colleagues that he had only ever completed one marathon some years earlier and that his longest run in training for the event had been 22 miles. This created a good deal of leg-pulling although this soon turned to admiration as he turned in a superb first performance to finish fourth overall in a little over 31 hours.

This year's event has seen Pat put in some more structured training and he has been regularly using the clubs Tuesday and Thursday run sessions as his specific speed work. Pat startted his race really sensibly and covered the first 22 miles in 4 hours 11 minutes, at this stage he was already over an hour behind the initial leaders, through the first half of the race this extended and at one point Pat was over two hours behind the leading runners. Running through the night along the canal he saw a few interesting sites including two men trying to rescue a cow that had decided to go for a swim in the canal! That could have just been a bizarre dream caused by sleep deprivation and far too much energy loss!

With around 50 miles to go Pat hit a purple patch and was really picking his pace up, fuelled by gels, cashew nuts and other assorted goodies provided by his Dad in full support crew mode. He passed the second place runner and pushed on, continuing his momentum. After arriving near Paddington and on the vantage point of a bridge, he spotted the first place runner around 400m ahead, he quickly caught and passed him. Concerned that both chasers might mount a last attempt to wrestle back the lead Pat pushed on again. Even with 133 miles in his legs at that stage he covered the last 12 miles in an amazing 1 hour 45 minutes.