Thames Ring Race 2011

Running 250 miles. Non-stop. In less than 100 hours. Impossible, surely? Apparently not...

Parent Javed Bhatti completed the truly phenomenal challenge, and came an incredible 3rd, at the Thames Ring Race on the 22nd-26th June. Javed ran the entire 250 miles in an amazing 79 hours and 45 minutes beating his time in 2009 by almost 20 hours!  

This race was quite literally ten marathons put together, taking the athletes from Hurley, around West London, up to Milton Keynes, then Northampton, round to Banbury, south to Oxford, down towards Reading and then finally back to Hurley, after 250 consecutive miles, to the finish line! Having completed the first 100 miles in 24 hours Javed was feeling strong and climbing through the rankings on day 2, securing first position - incredibly, without any sleep. At 200 miles he was still feeling confident, however in the early hours of Saturday morning a knee injury meant that Javed needed to reduce his pace and that the runners in 2nd and 3rd place eventually caught up with him.

There were nine checkpoints Javed had to to navigate himself to, one at the end of each marathon, and unfortunately Javed got extremely lost joining the Thames in Oxford, and started to feel the effects of this enormous challenge; the disorientation, the impact on his body not to mention the lack of sleep. Javed had only under an hour and half's rest over the entire three days. 

However, through the wonderful support of friends and family, texting him kind words of encouragement, Javed ran the remainder with renewed determination, and completed the race, in a truly incredible 79 hours and 45 minutes.

Without doubt, the distance covered and level of endurance required in this challenge is one that the majority of us cannot even contemplate yet alone consider and then complete! Please show Javed your support, by sponsoring him whatever you can at uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JavedBhatti