VIDEO: New record set in round Island run

Saturday 06 August 2016

Last year’s winner of Jersey’s annual ultra run - Round the Rock - has broken his own record despite getting lost.

New Zealander Paul Martelletti completed the 48-mile course in 5 hours 43 minutes, taking three minutes off the previous best which he set last year. The event is sponsored by change management consultants, Greenlight.

But Mr Martelletti says it wasn’t plain sailing: “I got lost again. The same thing happened last year. Only this time I got lost at a different spot. I think this time it was somewhere near St Brelade’s Bay. At one point I was about five minutes up on the record. I think the slip cost me a couple of minutes.”

According to Mr Martelletti it was also very hot out on the course. “I had to keep taking on fluids. I think that may have cost me some time as well.”

As well as the glory of winning the race Mr Martelletti receives a £2,000 bonus for going below six hours. He plans to come back next year to try and make it three in a row and says he can go faster.

More than 80 runners, some of them taking part in a relay set off from the start point near the steam clock at the Weighbridge at 06:00.

It’s the sixth year the event has been held, and this year local runners were joined by competitors from Guernsey, the UK, and even Norway and Singapore.

The race takes the athletes anti-clockwise around the Island. The finish is at Les Jardins de la Mer.

Athletes are also raising money for two local charities: Autism and Headway.