Mansfield Triathlon Club’s Chris Shooter confirmed his place amongst the region’s finest ultra-distance runners with an outstanding performance at the Rasselbock Backyard Ultra race in Sherwood Pines.

The event has a simple but brutal format – every runner starts a 4.19-mile lap on the hour, every hour, until only one runner is left to complete the final lap; the others having dropped out from fatigue.

Chris completed 31 laps in a cumulative time of 23hr 24min 50secs to record a total distance of 129.17 miles, the equivalent of running from Mansfield to Cheltenham. Chris completed each lap in an average time of 45 minutes, giving him just 15 minutes every hour to eat and prepare for the next lap.

He burned over 30,000 calories during the event, fuelled by 12 cans of coke, rice puddings, Pringles, chips, whole-nut chocolate bars, bacon sandwiches, 14 mugs of coffee, and a near endless supply of jam and peanut butter sandwiches.

Meanwhile, in a test of her cross country running and cyclo-cross biking skills, Evie Clifton competed in the XC Staunton Harold Duathlon event (1600m run/4km bike/600m run) to claim second place and confirm her position as one of the sport’s most-talented rising stars.

Mansfield Triathlon Club is currently looking for new members. Adults train together in weekly swimming, running and cycling sessions organised by the club’s adult section coaches. The club’s junior section trains every Saturday morning at the outdoor cycle track at Forest Town Arena, where sessions are run by the club’s team of junior triathlon specialist coaches. Find them at www.mansfieldtri.com