A few technical hitches with the chip results (Didier disapeared from the screen completely at one point, then the results were working, not working and then working again, and not working again!) have made it hard to give an update exactly to the hour etc but at a little before 120hrs, 5 days into the 6-day / 144hr race, William had slipped back into 3rd place having been overtaken by Sweden’s Christian Ritella.

However, Christian’s lead over William is very slight, only around 3.5km / 2 miles.

Didier Sessegolo in the #1 spot currently leads William by circa 29 km / 19 miles, which is a very decent amount with only 24hrs still to run, but which will leave him unable to relax as it is far from unassailable and either Christian or William could still conceivably catch him.

However, while the exact order is still to be decided, we are almost ceratinly looking at Didier, William & Christian being in the #1, #2 & #3 spots,  and them being their respective age group winners (Didier is M45, William is M55 and Christian is M40). Christine David of France looks sets to be the winner of the Women’s race both overall and of course in her own age category (W55).

At around midday both William & Didier have come off track for a break, most likely their last long break of the race.

Tim Rainey tells me that the 24hr runners have come on to the track, swelling the number of athletes running considerably.

It has been raining on and off throughout the morning, and it rained throughout most of the night, but luckily the temperatures were not too bad and it wasn’t very cold (around 16 C). It would seem that it has been more of a challenge for William to run through the night on an almost unlit track (we’re well used to plenty of rain in Orkney…).

While it is still too early to be sure, it looks likely that there may be PB performances, and possibly records, for several runners (including William who has an age group World Record very much in his sights) – more on this as we move into the final 24hrs of the race….!