In March, Matthieu Bonne abandoned his world record attempt to run 1,038 kilometers in six days – all of them on a 400-meter track – but in September he will go for another world record attempt. In the run-up to his new world record attempt, he has already broken a Belgian record by running 275.2 kilometers in 24 hours. He did so in a race in Ireland, which he won.
Bonne is in full preparation for his world record attempt, which will take place next month, and used the 24-hour run as a final test. While the previous Belgian record stood at 270 kilometers (Paul Beckers, 2003), Bonne exceeded that by more than five kilometers. By his own admission, the first ten hours went very relaxed and he then kept running around an average speed of five minutes per kilometer. “The world disappeared and I was really in my own zone.”
From hour ten to fifteen, the pace even increased a bit. To get through the lonely night hours, Bonne listened to several podcasts. In the next five hours – that is, from hours fifteen to twenty – Bonne got a little tougher, but managed to keep the pace still steady.
In the last four hours, he realized the record would be broken and so Bonne dropped the pace slightly. In the end, Bonne ran for 24 hours at an average pace of 5:13 minutes per kilometer. “Now we’re going back to the drawing board. It will be September soon,” he looks ahead to his world record attempt.
