Otago athletes John Bayne and Val Muskett are set to represent New Zealand at the 24-hour world championships in Italy next year.
Bayne (49) joins Bryan McCorkindale, Wayne Botha and Graeme Butcher in the men's team, while Muskett (60) will run with Kim Allan, Vivian Cheng and Antonia Johnson in the women's.
While April's event in Turin will be the first time Bayne has represented the country in athletics, he was a member of New Zealand's lightweight eights at the 1988 rowing world championships.
He has never run a 24-hour race but was picked on the back of his record-breaking win in the Round the Mountain relay in New Plymouth last month, and the Naseby ultramarathon in August.
Bayne, who owns and manages Serviceman, a Dunedin retail store, took just 15hr 11min 5sec to run the 160km relay in New Plymouth, beating Kiwi team-mate Botha by almost 4hr.
His 16hr 48min 24sec time in the 160km Naseby ultramarathon was more than 2hr faster than second-placed Glenn Sutton, of Dunedin.
Bayne has been building his strength in the gym the past six weeks, and has a plan in place for the world championships.
''I'm going to keep doing [strength work] until the first or second week in January. I will start climbing into some running on January 1, and build it up from then,'' he said.
''With the [160km] runs, I try to roughly run that distance over a Saturday and Sunday.
''So I'm going to take a leaf out of that book and look at doing 24 hours over three days.
''You've got to be careful not to get too tired and dig yourself a hole. I will have a crack at that and see how the body copes. If it copes all right, I will do that two or three times in the build-up.''
Vastly experienced
Muskett is no stranger to representing New Zealand in athletics. April will mark the 13th time she dons the black singlet.
She easily qualified for next year's event by running 193km at the world championships in the Netherlands last year, 8km more than the stan-dard set by Athletics New Zealand.
Muskett has two 11th-place finishes to her name in past events, and is aiming to run about 200km in what will ''definitely'' be the last time she represents the country.
The 60-year-old, who runs for Hill City-University, set an age-group (60+) world record in the 12hr race in the Sri Chinmoy series in Auckland in September.
However, a niggly foot injury has hindered her training since.
''Because of that niggle I've been laying low. I've only just stoked the boiler, so to speak, and started training more.''
The 24-hour race will be held on a 1.4km sealed track in Turin, with support crews on hand to provide food, water and any other help runners may need.
The championships, which start on April 11, double as a team and individual event.
Bayne and Muskett have to fund their own trips, as ultra-running is not yet government funded.
- Robert van Royen
