A DAY AT THE RACES

Think a marathon seems like a long way? Think again. Robbie Britton tells Euan Crumley what it takes to last the pace when the race you’re in goes on for 24 hours

ROBBIE BRITTON

The field gets under way at last year’s 24-hour world championships

ROBBIE BRITTON admits it didn’t take long for things to “spiral out of control”. One minute, he was entering his first marathon to stop his friend from winning some bragging rights. No sooner had he completed that, things changed.

“It was 2009 and the London to Brighton ultra-marathon was just a few months later,” he says. “I thought I’d give it a go. I was intrigued about what my body was capable of. From there, as soon as you’ve done one you think: ‘maybe I can go further, maybe I can go faster’. Before I knew it I was doing 100-mile races and then I got asked to run for 24 hours in a circle.”

It turned out he was rather good at it. Britton won bronze at last year’s IAU 24-hour World and European Championships in Turin and was part of the Great Britain men’s line-up which took team gold.

He has the European Championships on the horizon next month, but the big target – the main goal which drives him on – is finishing top of the world pile next year. As he points out, motivation is a huge factor behind even contemplating running for that length of time. Add in the fact that these championships take place either on a standard athletics track or a short loop on public roads and it’s a far from inconsiderable undertaking.

“It is weird,” laughs the 29-year-old of his chosen discipline. “Anyone who does a 24-hour race, it is a fantastic achievement, but I do appreciate that it is also really weird. To not look at the funny side of it — a load of people running round a 400m track, or a loop of a couple of kilometres — you’re kind of missing the point.

“YOU HAVE TO BE VERY SELF-MOTIVATED. WITHOUT THAT DRIVE TO MOVE FORWARD IT CAN SEEM POINTLESS”

“But there’s so much going on that you wouldn’t expect to be happening — there are stories throughout, from the back end of the field to the front, because it’s always a big personal challenge.”