Monday, May 03, 2004

Felow Racewalker walks 101 miles in 24 hours!

Ollie Nanyes, a fellow racewalker and founder of the Ultrawalking Yahoo! Group, competed in the Cornbelt 24 hour track race on May 1 and 2. He finished in 7th place out of 49 (he was the ONLY racewalker)! Interestingly he was in 18th place at the 50 mile split and 14th place at the 100 km split, and from 100 km to 100 miles he had the third fastest time. In this case I guess it's true that "slow and steady wins the race," or at least finishes ahead of many competitors.

Amazingly, this was a "warm up" race for Ollie. His real goal is a 24 hour race in Rotterdam on May 29th. In racewalking there is a designation of "Centurion" for any walker who completes 100 miles in 24 hours. Since this wasn't an official Centurion event Ollie is not yet an official Centurion, but the Rotterdam race is official. Good luck, Ollie!