Guinness World Record for Longest Squash Marathon - My Perspectives

Summary / Target

Between Friday 16th September at 4am and Saturday 17th September at 8pm, my good friend Michael Pearce and I attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the longest squash marathon.

Current Record: 38h:00m:27s Holders: Len Granger & Jamie Barnett Sept 4^th 2015 - Barnt Green, UK

Target: 40h:00m:00s Alex Preston & Michael Pearce Sept 16/17^th 2022 - Tring Squash Club, UK

On preparation & training

Longer term preparation was a couple of (running) half marathons, a challenge to run 160 miles in one calendar month and then a sit up, push up and squats challenge the following month. The Begone Dull Care Foundation organised these challenges so there was always someone to train/compete with. Talking more squash specific I did a boat load of squash specific training which in itself fairly standard, but just of high quantity in the run up to the attempt. I did several early morning ghosting sessions, I believed that steady, consistent and relaxed court movement would be key. Mike and I did 3 mini squash marathons ranging from 3.5 to 6 hours in length to get a feel for how the breaks would go and how our bodies would respond to many hours on court.

Nearer to the event itself, apprehension and tension started to creep in as I realised the impending magnitude of the challenge. There were different perspectives to take on the length of the challenge, someone suggested that we’d be on court for a full working week (5 days x 8 hours = 40 hours)!

A fun event we did in the run up was a mini squash marathon where volunteers and club members guested and Mike and I played every one in order over 6 hours. This was great and the variety and support made it quite a fun and engaging event that didn’t feel like training.

Thanks to:

Katie Winterstein, Eitan Winterstein, Darren Withey, Georgia Greenall, Emma Greenall, Mark Bullard, Matt & Joni Duncan, Ethan Duncan, Martha Duncan

…..as the hour approaches you realise that it’s not just two players playing for a long time, it’s an entire club and community coming together to prepare, underwrite, assist, officiate, sponsor, encourage, support and celebrate🤞 thank you to everyone involved, we hope to make you proud” Alex Preston

On equipment

Quite a significant amount of kit was required to see this through. Planning and logistically getting all our kit to the club was a project in itself. Physically moving my kit alone to the club was a two man job. I’ve compiled a few lists of all the equipment we needed.

Squash kit

• 20 x Squash Shirts
• 20 x Squash Shorts
• 20 x Socks
• 2 x Pairs Karakal Prolite Shoes
• 2 x Pairs Karakal ProXtreme Shoes
• 4 x Karakal GEL Performance Sport Insoles
• 1 x Karakal Warm up top
• 2 x Long sleeved winter training shirts
• 1 x Karakal Training jacket and bottoms
• 1 x Slazenger bottoms + Tring Squash Club iPro sports top
• 5 x shower towels
• 2 x hand towels
• 6 x Karakal SN-90 ff Rackets
• 1 x Pair racketball gloves (to combat the inevitable blisters)
• 8 x squash balls
• 15 x foot blister plasters
• assorted standard plasters
• Roll of hand/finger tape
• 12 x Karakal PU grips
• Ibuprofen & Paracetamol
• Theragun massage gun (didn’t end up using as we had such great therapist support throughout)
• 6 x Karakal wrist bands
• 1 x washing basket

6 rackets seemed like easily enough but I broke 4 strings and Mike ended up preferring the Karakal SN-90 to his Dunlops because they are feather light - so by the end we were down to one each. The SN-90 is the lightest racket in the world which helped to keep us both swinging to the end.

The Prolite shoes combined with the GEL Insoles were comfortable enough to feel like slippers which was great for the lower energy portions of the marathon. The ProXtreme shoes provided great support to my feet and ankles during the higher energy phases.

The racketball gloves were surprisingly effective at managing blisters but playing with a glove for long periods became uncomfortable due to the sweat, so I rotated out of the glove regularly. The blister tape and a willing volunteer was invaluable during these periods without the glove.

Greg bandaged/taped up my wrist several times to give it some support. We relied on the clubs first aid kit for this but should have had this in our kit.

Tracksuit bottoms were important overnight and during other low energy sections of the marathon. Ensuring my legs were warm when they otherwise would have gotten cold seemed important and effective, thanks for the tip Greg. That said Mike made it through without putting on tracksuit bottoms.

There were several points where I took Ibuprofen to combat pain and swelling. I believe this worked up to a point but everything has it’s limit.

Paperwork

We had to pull a fair amount of paper work and templates together, get it all printed and make sure it was all to hand at the right moments.

• 4 x laminated copies of our helper guide
• 4 x laminated copies of our witness guide
• 5 x copies of the witness sign in/out logbook
• 2 x copies of the official sign in/out logbook
• 20 x copies of the activity logbook
• 45 x witness statements
• 150 x printed squash marking scoresheets
• 15 x pens
• 4 x whiteboard markers (for writing messages on the glassback for the players)
• 1 x whiteboard eraser

Video broadcast

Part of the Guinness World Record requirements meant we need to submit full video coverage of the entire event from start to finish with a visible stopwatch or clock in the background of the video.

Our video broadcast set up included a live streaming laptop to YouTube and two laptops simply saving a local copy of the video. The livestream included sponsor logos and current fundraising vs target display as well as a scrolling banner of recent and top donations. Thanks to Alfie Stevinson for pulling all of this together. One of our backup laptops was nudged and lost the visual on the clock which meant it was no good for submitting evidence to Guinness, the other two feeds appear to be fine but we won’t know until looking closer and submitting them as part of the evidence pack.

• Microsoft Surface Laptop 4
• Surface Dock 2 (for ethernet)
• USB Ethernet Dongle (backup)
• BRIO Webcam
• Long orange power extension cable
• Black power strip
• 10m ethernet cable
• OBS Studio Software
• Backup Setups
• Backup Laptop 1
• USB Webcam
• Backup Laptop 2 (built in webcam)
• Alex’s Apple Watch
• Apple Watch Charger
• Mike’s Garmin Watch
• Garmin Watch Charger

We tried to integrate a visual indication of our current heart rates onto the video stream but it didn’t prove quite reliable enough to persist with so we dropped it.

On Nutrition

We had a call with the Begone Dull Care Foundation Adventure Ambassador Nigel Pattison who provided some great guidance, advice and tips:

• Hydration is key
• Overall liquid intake of 250-400ml per hour
• Water gets very boring so need some source of flavour from elsewhere
• Mix liquid fuel with water, e.g. SIS https://www.scienceinsport.com/beta-fuel-80 to provide 300 kcal per 500ml
• Fruits are good for high water content
• Food tips
• Roast potatoes ok cold but good dipped in some hot veg soup
• Pasta ok in small quantities
• Rice/couscous/salad/tuna/peppers
• Huel do a bottle of 400 kcal as a meal replacement
• Ice lollies if really warm
• Tips
• Salt sticks are useful to avoid cramps
• Do not try and be calorie neutral, expect a 1.5-2K overall deficit
• Constant grazing rather than 'meals' as such to avoid getting fully depleted
• Salt is important and can use crisps to get in easily with light snacking
• Variety is key to accommodate on the day preferences
• Take Coffee if necessary for a boost but later in the challenge, tea should be ok throughout
• 8-10pm try and eat well while the body is receptive as from 10pm-5am body will naturally not be expecting or be receptive to food
• Avoid
• Not much carbs or will feel sick
• Meat as it takes too long to digest
• Sweetcorn as it does not get digested
• Lucozade - will get sugars elsewhere
• Prep
• Week before cut out meat, go veggie + fish to help with protein
• Night before - salad/salmon/potatoes/veg
• Morning of - porridge + fruit (we actually had an omelette)

Nutrition list

The plan wasn’t to consume all of this, we just wanted enough on hand to give us an abundance of choice when the going got tough:

• 3 x Huel Hot & Savoury bags
• 12 x Huel Ready-to-drink
• 18 x Huel bars
• 12 x Nakd bars
• 12 x Homemade protein balls
• 20 x Homemade flapjacks infused with vegetables
• 2 x Cartons of soup
• 12 x Pre roasted potatoes
• Bowl of fresh fruit
• 1 x SIS Black Metal Shaker
• 2 x 1 litre bottles
• 15 x SIS BETA Fuel
• 20 x Pocari Sweat
• 2 x Mini fridges

On not starting

10 days before the scheduled start of the challenge, I had a deep injury concern that put everything in doubt. It felt like a bruised coccyx (tail bone) and I wasn’t able to move around the court without pain. In training that day I felt the pain but didn’t think it would cause an issue 10 days hence. That night though I awoke in the middle of the night doubled over in pain. I can’t under state how worried I was at this point, for the next 3 days at work I was unable to sit down without severe discomfort and had to get a coccyx cut out cushion to sit down for more than a few minutes. I shared this with Mike and Joni but since everyone on the team was putting in such a great effort to prepare for the event I didn’t want to cast doubt and distract everyone. I sought emergency physio through Vitality and got seen to as quickly as possible, I got some good stretches to do which helped and gave a daily improvement but probably wasn’t going to be enough. A test of playing racketball 6 days before did not feel great at all. Luckily I was able to meet up with Dad (Nigel) the next day who is a qualified physical therapist and he identified a strained Piriformis that may have been pulling on my coccyx. Within two short sessions he’d relaxed this specific muscle and this combined with ongoing stretches I was feeling very well again and felt confident of making the start line. I was able to do a light ghosting session 3 days before and it felt fine. We were a go for the challenge.

I think in hindsight I was feeling stressed and tight in the run up to the challenge and this expressed itself with acute tailbone pain. In a way it was great that this expressed itself so greatly as I spent the whole 10 day period in the run up to the challenge relaxing, stretching, destressing and seeking therapeutic treatments.

On non completion

Once the challenge started without incident and mobility seemed good, giving up never really felt like a viable option but I knew that there was still a risk that we wouldn’t complete the distance. I ran through my head what an end game that didn’t see us complete would look like. Voluntarily giving up due to excessive fatigue or pain didn’t seem like a possible reality. The only realities that saw non completion to me were:

• A doctor coming onto the court and medically advising us to stop
• Physically passing out or expiring
• Injury that prevented either one of us from adhering to the rules of squash while maintaining continuous play

The first 12 hours were fairly plain sailing, borderline fun times. It was after this that the aches, pains and fatigue started to take hold. Having been slightly overzealous with flamboyant nick hitting in hours 1 to 10 my wrist started causing pain. This was just the beginning and the 20 hour period from 12-32 hours was a blur of delirium and discomfort. My stomach cramps started somewhere near the beginning of this period and became worse and worse throughout. By the end I had a calf strain, painful knee (left), outrageous shin tightness, 3 blisters on my right hand and 6 across my feet. But it was the stomach cramps that gave me the most concern, the pain heightened whenever I took on food or even fluids and I spent half my break time in the toilet hoping to “get things moving”. I put the word out to the team for assistance on this but it understandably took a while to research a recommendation and line up something that would help. We started with chamomile tea to soothe the stomach (which did help to take the edge off the pain) and then Buscopan to stop my stomach from spasming (which did fully manage the pain). All this worked and put me in a better place and the pain was alleviated but taking on any food or fluids (including water) caused it to flare up again. With about 15 hours to go until the target time I took on a strategy of consuming minimal water and Pocari sweat drink to get by and managing the pain caused by the cramps.

All this said, and I know of course Mike had his own issues including the loss of his shoulder and ability to play a full backhand. We both lost mobility around the court. There was never a moment where myself, and as I perceived it Pearce, had any inkling of voluntarily retiring. There were times that we made it clear to ourselves and others that what we were going through was tough, but the thought of giving up was never present in either of us, no matter what the cost or what the pain. It was in our control, it was happening. The distance would be made.

Thanks to the team & community

I’m going to try and thank everybody who helped us through. I may have misinterpreted things, missed contributions or otherwise messed this up. Forgive me, I was delirious, barely able to hit nicks consistently let alone form new memories.

Squashathon Players

Thank you to everyone who attended the 8pm - 8am squashathon. Having the club full of people and the atmosphere that you provided kept us going through the night. I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that our challenge would have been impossible without this. With very special thanks to those of you who promoted the fund raising page and got us some additional funds raised. Johnjo - thanks a lot of people seemed to donate supporting you!

Congratulations to Steve Malduca, Jonathan Tucker and Barry Knight for winning the tournament.

Thanks to Andy Booth for cooking up the overnight chilli for all the squashathon players and Barbara Lefevre for preparing and serving up the breakfast.

Officials, Markers & Witnesses

Such important roles to play these. Guinness World Records require a rotating set of witnesses to be present at the event at all times and for them to sign witness statements of what they saw with exact times that they were present. A qualified official had to be present at all times, and a marker to keep and call the score. Thanks so much to everyone who contributed here in a great rotation all coordinated by Charles Lefevre and managed by the on duty helper.

Charles Lefevre, Stan Thornton, Will D'Arcy, Allan Whittow, Katie Winterstein, Paul Wilcock, Sam Hawkins, Andy Booth, Jonathan Tucker, Lizzie Wennell, Sean Walsh, Jamie Hough, Steve Malduca, Marcus Conner, Callum Egan, Tim Moran, Mick Daines, Merril Trueman, Peter Barham, Dave Suter, Rob Last, Derrick Grant, Simon Smith, Steven Cross, Mark Bullard, Matt Duncan, Niall Hogan, Nik Valij, Geoff Bray, Ben Walsh, Phil Benoist, Carol Booth, Rhys Owen, Barry Knight, Hadrian Caseley, Benny Trueman, Anthony Palmer, Malcolm Newton, Derek Beard, Dave Proudfoot

Helpers

These people are amazing, thanks so much for all your support. Our rest break time was extremely limited and communication time was at an extreme premium. For this reason pleasantries were expended by myself I hope no one judged me for this, what I would like to call efficiency.

Joni Duncan, Kelly Gascoine, Nigel Preston, Carolyn Shreeve, Steph Collins, Greg Collins, John Wild, Crispin Boylan, Dave Herron, Tina Pearce, Alice Pearce

Special thanks

Christie Lavery - for saying “Come on guys, you’ve got this” which for some reason audibly wound up Nick Lavery which gave me a boost.

Dan Eades and the MyGlobalHome team - for such a generous donation in the lead up to the event.

Nigel Pattison - the Begone Dull Care Foundation Adventure Ambassador for nutritional as well as physical advice and guidance in the run up to the event.

Darren Withey - all the training that lead up to this and your shared experiences of breaking the record yourself in 2012.

Jamie Barnett - the existing world record holder for this event, thanks for the tips, in depth guidance and rule clarity in the run-up to our attempt, so gracious.

Dave Herron - filling in on the helper schedule at short notice doing so with glee and gusto. Always very confident to see Dave around in case anything technical goes wrong.

Jamie Hough - the ultimate vocal supporter. Throughout the night Jamie was there every 10-15 minutes like clockwork giving a loud encouraging cheer. His stint of refereeing was also the most encouraging and entertaining of all - boost received.

Crispin Boylan - for dedicating his whole week to Intrepid then his whole Saturday to this challenge. For just simply nodding (that we were going to do it, I presume) each time we made eye contact, very important at hour 26. I was nodding back by hour 36 knowing that we were close enough to do it.

Nigel Preston - for showing up several hours too early for your designated shift but helping out from arrival to the end of your shift and beyond. Importantly for being a qualified physical therapist and fixing my body the week before the attempt!

Kelly Gascoine - for being there with unconditional support, form printing, emergency last minute form printing and buying me a Guinness.

Tina Pearce - Mike’s wife and world class quality assurance specialist for helping and supporting on the day and going through all the evidence & documentation very closely and finding any gaps that needed fixing.

Alfie Stevinson - thanks so much for the technical expertise on the OBS video feeds, it looked great. Also thanks for helping me get all my kit to the club the day before. Well done, so glad you won the Karakal SN-90 racket in the raffle!!

Mark Bullard - thanks for help with organising the event and getting club approvals where required - and the extremely fast and timely assistance with mounting the clock on the wall!

Matt Duncan - ultimate utility helper, this man can do anything, willingly, with a smile, the Duncan’s are the ultimate package deal, love the Duncs! Matt is a master of the tunes as DJ (all the tech as well as spinning the discs), helping with all the wiring and cable tidying for our video equipment and generally being a truly safe pair of hands.

Tring Squash Club - the club are always willing to push events like this and for that I’m very grateful. The club donated the court time and since we coincided with the 50th anniversary of the club building and a party was arranged to coincide with when we were scheduled to finish.

Joanne Preston - my lovely wife. Rarely encourages this type of mad behaviour but always makes sure things get completed. I’ll stop starting stupid things that you have to help see through soon I promise.

‍John Holman - this man is a master of the human body and uses pure grip strength (intelligently applied) to persuade your muscles to continue functioning long after they would have traditionally given up. The 3 or 4 micro sessions I had with him over the course of 40 hours was invaluable and in terms of minutes spent on the couch, the relative hours on the court was at an impressive ratio.

‍Will D’Arcy - what an absolute legend for organising a 24 strong overnight team squashathon at the club to give it a great deal of atmosphere. Doing this while he had to get away to his planned holiday by midnight so he couldn’t even participate in the fun event that he organised.

Charles Lefevre - another brilliant man motivated to make things happen and see it through. Charles organised all the referees, officials and witnesses. We realised we needed a fairly long list of qualified officials as we needed at least one person recognised by WSF as a qualified official present at all times. Charles pushed everyone to get qualified including providing personal referee mentoring sessions!

Carolyn Shreeve - my amazing sister-in-law turned up Friday evening and absolutely owned the night shift until at least 7 am. So supportive and totally owned the admin and paperwork and helped us through the breaks.

Greg Collins - straight from holiday my brother Greg came to the club and made it just before midnight and the 20-hour milestone. He was actually the person in attendance with the most experience of what we were going through having completed three 24-hour squash marathons himself. He proceeded to stay, support, guide and encourage for the next 21 hours with just a 1-hour break. Perhaps the ultimate mental supporter. For all this, I am eternally grateful. He took control of stopping the timer for us when no one else would due to nerves about making a mistake. He proceeded to stop it earlier than planned shaving 1 second off our world record time and for this I will never forgive him.

‍Joni Duncan - irreplaceable. This woman's ability to combine effectiveness with caring is impeccable. Joni drove the organisation of the whole challenge from the outset. Scheduling and running our weekly calls and coordinating the squash club, Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity, Begone Dull Care Foundation, sponsors, merchandise and every tiny detail. This couldn’t have happened without Joni.

Mike Pearce - what can I say? This was his idea. Incredible. His ability to learn to play left handed when his shoulder failed was unbelievable. A quiet man proves that it is more effective to act directly than to speak of action.

Thank also Mark Bullard for buying us a Guinness each before we left the court and for Sean Walsh for following up with round 2 (and Kelly with round 3, you get the picture, we were quite thirsty….).

On finishing

Nothing beat the feeling of finishing, sitting and being congratulated everyone or even hugged by some brave people. I’ve taken away a few overall thoughts and feelings from the experience.

• Phases of pain or low energy endured during endurance activities are just that, phases. Phases pass, energy comes in ebbs and flows. Even if the pain runs deep, this too shall pass, just like any other phase. Or to quote Churchill, “if you are going through hell, keep going”.
• No plan survives first contact, but if you have detailed plans the chances are they can be adapted to suit evolving circumstances. A better approach may have been to have done a comprehensive risk analysis and then devised a set contingencies in case they occurred. Each contingency would have been a mini plan in itself and again something that could be adapted to changing circumstances.
• There is no better antidote to pain than adrenaline and nothing boosted adrenaline throughout the challenge than a group of supporters cheering us on. I don’t think I can quite put into words the profundity of this point. During the last 20 hours almost every step was agony through muscle tears, strains and blisters, every ball strike was agony due to my over used wrist, but get the whole crowd cheering on a significant milestone and the pain cleared up almost completely and immediately. I can’t overstate how effective this was. With anything there is a limit and crowd energy and adrenaline can’t last forever, but just how abruptly it could put pain on hold showed me that pain really is in the mind.
• My sense of space was affected in so far as I kind of forgot how the club building was made up outside of my limited view point. I remember dreaming what might be around the corners that I couldn’t see from the court.
• My concept of how time passed changed dramatically. An hour seemed like nothing. Perhaps this was a survival mode - only 100 minutes to the next break! Sitting outside the court sipping a Guinness and chatting felt like a few minutes before going to get showered but turns out it was an hour and a half.
• At some points my vision felt oddly tinted, each wall had a strange different but vivid coloured tint to it. I remember seeing blues and oranges. I think as I grew more tired and simply watching a black ball on a white background for that long meant my colour perception faltered or shut down.
• I should have taken Ibuprofen that night to ease the overnight swelling, this was a mistake as I woke up in extreme pain and without the muscle recruitment to do a great deal about it. Joni recommended putting my legs up to sleep to combat the swelling and Jo made an intricate pile of cushions to support that. When I woke up it was from a dream where this pile of cushions was a strange intricate life support system such that I couldn’t just kick them away. Regrettably I had to wake up Jo to remove them, not ideal.

New World Record: 40h:01m:59s

Alex Preston & Michael Pearce

Sept 16/17^th 2022 - Tring Squash Club, UK

Update  - I plan to go back on court tomorrow for the first time which will be 10 days after the end of the challenge. Mainly due to tightness in the shin, not wanting to push it and also wanting a bit of a break before the season starts. I went for a light run today and felt pretty good.

Update  - I played my first competitive match last night. In previous training sessions since the attempt my body has felt very uncomfortable and squash wasn’t very pleasant. But I’m pleased to report that last night some comfort was returning, however I felt very frail and as if any muscle could experience a pull or tear at any moment. I was proceeding very cautiously but came through the match without injury which I was very pleased about.

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