Orkney-based ultra marathon runner, William Sichel (62) has released details of his race programme for this year.

William will run as short as a standard 26.2 mile road marathon in Orkney and as long as a 6 Day road race in France.

“One of the main features of this year’s races is that I’m going to return to some shorter events over the first half of the year. This is something I haven’t done for a great many years, but things just fell into place this year, so I’m excited to give it a go.”

William will open his racing with the British 100km road running Championships in Perth, Scotland on March 27^th. This will be William’s first 100km race for 14 years. He is a past British (1999) and Scottish (1994) 100km champion.

Following Perth, William will at long last tackle the iconic Comrades Marathon (55 miles) in South Africa on May 29th – the World’s largest ultra marathon with 20,000 starters.

“in some ways I should have done this about 20 years ago but it just didn’t happen. I’m under no illusions about how difficult it will be to do this on a ‘one-off’ basis. It will be a huge challenge.”

On July 3^rd William plans to line up for the first ever marathon in Orkney, the St Magnus Marathon, running from Kirkwall to Birsay.

“I’m pleased and proud to be doing this one and I certainly didn’t want to miss it. It will be a great opportunity for me to compete at home for a change. It will be my first marathon for 17 years.”

At the end of July William will return to longer races for the rest of the year and he begins with a re-arranged 48 Hour race in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

“It’s actually quite a long story as this was supposed to be a 1000 Mile race in February but the whole multi-race event had to be postponed at late notice. As flights could be re-arranged but not cancelled I’ve opted for this compromise.”

On August 12th and 13^th I’ll be involved in a 24 Hour Charity Challenge in Kirkwall raising funds for the CLAN Cancer Support charity.

In September it’s off to Switzerland for the Brugg 24 Hour road race near Zurich and finally it will be the French 6 Day road race in Privas at the end of October.

“It’s certainly a long and busy year but the events are all fitted in nicely with one race building me up for the next one. As I’ve done 97 ultras to date, I’m hoping to complete my 100th this year, health and fitness permitting.”

William has currently set 181 running records at World, British and Scottish level, including age-group records. His shortest record is an age-group one for 30 miles on the track and his longest is an overall British record for 3100 miles/5000km on the road.

William hopes that the current records he has set, which are all meticulously documented on his web site, www.williamsichel.co.uk , will all be broken and will act as goals, motivation and incentives to the current and future generations of runners.