They did it: Marathon pair set world record
It was one of the best sleeps Richard Bell has had in years.
And deservedly so. It was after 40 hours of playing squash with fellow Manawatu¯ teenager Kaitlyn Watts.
The pair played for 40 hours and 41 seconds at Squashgym Palmerston North at the weekend, setting an unofficial world record. It was part of a fundraiser for them to go to the American junior open in New Haven, Connecticut in December and the British junior open in Birmingham in January.
The two 16 year olds started at 4am on Thursday and finished at 8pm Friday, and so by the time Bell got home he was so tired he slept for about 15 hours.
It had been a huge effort. When they started they had a big support crew of friends and Bell said the first 14 hours went well.
They were allowed a fiveminute break every hour, but could accumulate those breaks if they didn’t take five minutes every hour.
‘‘The first night we started to slow down. Early morning 3, 4, 5am on Friday morning there weren’t so many supporters there at that hour.
‘‘It got pretty tough about 6 or 7 on Friday morning. We hit a bit of a wall then and started going a bit delusional from the sleep deprivation.’’
Bell couldn’t think of what court he was on in the club, so they had a break and a 20-minute power nap and freshened up with some electrolytes.
The 26-hour mark was a tough point, but as they got nearer the finish line on Friday afternoon, people started coming in to support them.
Bell had drunk a few energy drinks so wasn’t feeling too exhausted when he walked off court, but his legs were knackered.
‘‘My feet just felt like they had been trampled on. They were really sore.’’
He used two pairs of shoes and regularly changed his socks to try and lessen the impact on his feet.
They even had a stint of using their left hands as not to completely wear out their right.
They didn’t worry about a score or who won.
When they saw the cost of making it an official world record, they decided against paying for it because it is a fundraiser event, so didn’t think it was necessary to keep the score.
When they got to 40 hours there was some thought about carrying on and setting a longer record, but they had lots of friends and family there so decided to finish it then. Bell said they made about $7000. They head away to the American junior open next week.
Bell is at Palmerston North Boys’ High School and Watts is at Freyberg High School.