As the race continuous into the wee small hours (even smaller and more wee in Finland, which is 2hrs ahead of UK time), there have been a few changes in some of the lead positions.

The top 3 positions in the  Men’s race are currently as follows :

Janne Klasila  (Finland) still holds the #1 spot with a distance of 171.22 km
Jari Soikkeli (Finland) now has the #2 position with 161.47 km
Gjermund Sørstad  has moved into the #3 spot with 160.69 km

Paul Hart of Scotland drops back a little to #6 and currently has 150.16 km.

This leaves him with another approximately 86km to run in the next 8hrs if he is to make the GB selection for the World Games qualifying distance of 235km – so while not totally impossible, this looks to be in doubt at this point.

Mark Cockbain is at #22 with a distance of 135.73 km

William has had a slight relapse, hitting another bad patch and electing to take a 20min break. This has dropped him to the current #29 spot with a distance of 131.83 km, thus at this point leaving him a further approximately 68 km to run in the  8 hrs to break the 200 km mark. William is certainly capable of doing this, but whether he will be able to recover quickly enough to achieve this is unknown at this point. I was with him when he pulled-off a return to the track to complete a similar distance in Perth in order to qualify for the Scottish team in the Commonwealth Championships, so he may well do the same today – as ever time (and distance) will tell.

In the Women’s 24hr

Sumie Inagaki of Japan is still out in front with 169.27 km. She’s currently in a very good position to try to set a new Women’s course record – the current being  212.103 km set by Edit Bérces of Hungary in 2009.

Outi Siimes of Finland holds the Women’s #2 spot with 145.48 and Marjukka Sinisalo also of Finland now has 3rd place with  133.78 km

But with 8hrs of hard running still to come, much could change in either the Men’s or Women’s races.

More news as it comes

Shaun