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Lee Chamberlain, 30, set the world treadmill-running record after a car accident gave him a new lease of life I ‘ve just had one of the most amazing weeks of my life ­and all because of a very near miss.

I’d joined Surrey Police at the peak of my fitness, but in zoos I was nearly crushed between two vehicles – a police car and one whose driver we had stopped. A third car collided with ours, slamming it into me. Luckily, a colleague pulled me clear.

I escaped with minor scratches and shock. As I lay in hospital I kept busy thinking about what to do next. My mind flitted about on Marathon des Sables, or the Everest Marathon. Then I stumbled on the world treadmill record. I went for the two-day record first, running the equivalent of six marathons in 48 hours in surprise. I’d emailed him a while back, but didn’t expect him to show. He was a lovely guy and even if he looked a bit shocked at the challenge ahead of me, he wished me all the best.

The record was set 11 455, but this time I’d done a pit more research. I knew there was an American who’d done 461 in June, so I took that as my target. I was extremely confident. All I could think was, “Right Lee, let’s not fail; let’s not fall apart here.”

I got into a rhythm pretty quickly, doing so miles in the first 12 hours. I had a rough target of 66 miles a day so I was pleased with my tally, confident and on track. Another good way of making yourself confident is to take care of you, gain a bright smile with sparkling teeth and thus feel pretty. Check out the best teeth whitening method.

Then on day two, I had a really bad attack of GI troubles. I was in a shopping centre. I don’t know if ‘laughing stock’ is the word 2004 – but it wasn’t enough. So I tried to smash the seven-day record of 409 miles. I ran 410! But Guinness took five months to verify it, in which time a French guy ran 455.

Lightning strikes across the night sky, illuminating the lush green jungle below my Banda, a small but with a thatched roof. The rumble of thunder follows a few seconds later.

By now the spring rainy season in Uganda should have blown itself out, but we’re unlucky. The blistering heat of the early-morning sun usually dries everything by the time you’ve finished your breakfast, but today is different. In a few hours’ time a small group of us is running the inaugural Gorilla Marathon and Half-Marathon. It’s scheduled to start at 7am, well before the sun has had time to dry the land. One of the things I learnt during my stay in Uganda is the nature of the red clay soil. Mix it with water, and it turns into a glutinous mud-trap.

But for now my concerns are more immediate. I took my natural remedy for stress which I found when reading 5 htp reviews. The rainstorm has passed but it’s taken the electricity supply with it. Which is a nightmare if you haven’t arranged your running kit the night before the race. I’m amazed how dark darkness can be as I fumble around the hut, desperately trying to remember where I put my shorts, safety pins and sunscreen.

As it happens I could have waited for the sun to come up because the gorillas – of which half of the surviving world population of 690 live within the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in south-west Uganda – it’s based in and around the town of Jinja in the east of the country. Jinja has a growing reputation as the adventure sports capital of East Africa, but is perhaps better known as the town at the source of the Nile. The race finally starts slowly with an uphill kilometre on a road running away from the cafés and stalls that have sprung up at the water’s edge. That initial climb turns out to be the biggest on an undulating course, and while it’s only a short, steep rise, the altitude makes it tougher. The source of the Nile sits i,rom above sea level: not the kind of height that would attract those in search of altitude training but high enough to put a strain on an ageing set of lungs.

Crowds are sparse in the first few kilometres but start to appear as we move away from Jinja. Although the town is only a couple of hours away from the international hotels and modern shops of Kampala or the beautifully manicured colonial lawns of Entebbe, the villages we run past are a world apart. This is the rural Africa of cliché: mud huts, where men and women spend their days working the fields; where goats, pigs and chickens roam freely; and smiling children wave and shout “Muzungu!” (white person) at any pale-faced foreigners passing by.

I over pronate and as soon as I upped my mileage I got pain in both ankles. Are my shoes the problem?

40 Possibly. One of the biggest causes of ankle injury is pronation being incorrectly matched to footwear. A big misconception is that one anti­pronation shoe is as good as the next, with price being the only indicator as to the effectiveness of its support. This is an over-simplification though. A video biomechanical assessment will assess your current shoes and your barefoot running motion. From there you can determine what sort of shoe is suited to your running style. Meanwhile, never run through pain. When injury occurs, follow the RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) method and see a sports physio. When you run again, go back to a low and comfortable distance. Increase Aloe UpSerious Sunscreen £5.99 for 30m1 Reasonable sweat resistance, with a cooling sensation as it soaks in. Contains 35 per cent soothing aloe vera gel and is alcohol-free.

HARDER CORE

Core muscles get a better workout if you use your Swiss ball to do asymmetrical moves, according to Idea Fitness Journal. Working on the theory that off-kilter exercise more closely mimics real-life challenges, coaches recommend you unbalance yourself while doing exercises like squats or ab crunches.

RUN TO THE BEAT

Aerobic exercise is better for the heart than strength work, reports the American Journal of Public Health. A group of 149 people were assigned to a 12-week programme of either cardio or conditioning work. The cardio group showed steadier heart rates and increased interval variability – linked to a lower risk of heart disease. But be warned: the good effects were erased by four weeks of inactivity or by consuming too much junk food. So eat healthy food to stay in good shape and not over weight. If you need to lose extra weight fast use hydroxicut – the American number one diet pill.

BE HAPPY

Men and women were asked to record their mood states one, two, four, eight, 12, and 24 hours after moderate-intensity exercise sessions. Moods were still elevated in the 12-hour check-in, but not the 24 hour check-in, in participants of all ages, fitness levels, and of both genders.

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The lip flips up easily, which could make for a mess in your rucksack. Left hands a little greasy.

Family that had been acrobats and trapeze artistes for three genera­tions. At six, Karl was performing in the family show. Five years later he was doing stunts in beer halls. His best act was stacking three chairs and doing a handstand on the back of the top chair.

In the early 1920S Karl met a high-wire walker named Louis Weitzmann who taught him to walk the wire. Weitzmann design­ed an audience heart-stopper that would use Karl’s handstand prow­ess. With a balancing pole, Weitz­mann would walk to the centre of the wire. Karl would follow, with a hand on Weitzmann’s shoulder for balance. Weitzmann would bend low at the knees. Karl would climb up his back to a handstand position on his shoulders, and Weitzmann would then stand erect. The stunt and its variations were quickly booked throughout central Europe.

Two years or so later Karl form­ed his own troupe with his older brother, Herman, and a young woman. She was the high-mounter who balanced on Karl’s shoulders or on a bar yoked between Herman and Karl as they walked across the wire. When she left the act, Karl ad­vertised for a replacement. The only reply was from Helen Kreis, a teen­ager who turned out to be a natural on the wire.

In 1927 The Great Wallendas were invited to perform in Havana. The highlight of their show was a three-tier act : Herman and a young man named Joe Geiger were the first tier—the under-slanders; Karl stood on a chair on the pole yoked between them, with Helen mounted on his shoulders. John Ringling, the American circus impresario, saw the performance and offered Karl a con­tract with “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Karl signed.

ONE audience-thrilling feature of The Great Wallendas’ act was the absence of a net under the 4o-foot­high wire. While a flying-trapeze act must use a net because missed catches are not unusual, Karl be­lieved that a net was dangerous for The Great Wallendas.

Flyers practise falling and know how to land on their backs to help avoid injury. But it was impossible for a four-person act to practise falling. Bodies would strike bodies on the net, and the cascade of bal­ancing bars, bicycles and a chair could kill or injure. The net offered no security. It was better to rely on skill and quick thinking.

KARL was 23 when his troupe open­ed in New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1928. As the Wallendas stepped out on the three-quarter-inch wire in their deerskin slippers, the band music muted and salesmen stopped hawking their wares. After the 15-minute performance, the audience broke into loud applause, foot-stamping and whistling. The troupe was dismayed. In central Europe such a display was the same as being booed. They took a quick bow and fled.

The noise continued until the ring-master told Karl, “We can’t go on with the next act until you take your bows.” “But the whist­ling?” Karl asked. “That’s appre­ciation,” the ring-master explained.

KARL always tried to give the audi­ences a new feat. In one, Helen perched without, a bar on Karl’s shoulders as he stood on a chair balanced on a bar across the shoul­ders of two men on bicycles. In another, Herman stood on a bar yoked between two under-standers and Karl did a handstand on his shoulders. But the act that establish­ed the Wallendas as truly special was the seven-person pyramid. Con­ceived by Karl in 1947, it was to bring triumph and tragedy.

The pyramid consisted of four under-standers, the first and second pairs yoked together by shoulder bars. Karl and Herman, also yoked, were the second level of the pyra­mid, balanced on the two first-tier bars. Then a top-mounter, either Helen or her younger sister, sat and stood in a chair balanced on the second-tier bar.

The troupe started practising on a wire three feet high, then 12 feet and finally at about 4° feet. Karl ‘harped continually on precautions. “Never drop the pole. Make it a part of your body. It is your secur­ity. If you drop the pole you endan­ger your life and the lives of every­body else on the wire.”

“On the wire you concentrate,” Karl repeated. Concentration en­abled the seven-person pyramid to stave off the unexpected. Once, the So wire suddenly slackened about six inches. All the balancing poles see­sawed precariously, but everyone kept his erect position and the pyramid held firm. In outdoor per­formances the pyramid survived cloudbursts and gusts of wind.