What are you doing on Christmas Day? Lee Grantham plans to attack a treadmill record while quarantining in a hotel room in Thailand

For many, Christmas Day is spent eating turkey and chocolates, pulling crackers with relatives and watching the Queen’s speech. If you are an athlete, you will probably try to get outside for a festive period training session.

British ultra-runner Lee Grantham plans to enjoy – and endure – an unusual Christmas Day, though. Quarantining alone in a hotel room in Thailand, he is going to attack one of the national or world long distance records on a treadmill.

The former East Cheshire Harrier currently splits his year between Spain and Thailand. It is an ‘endless summer’ existence that allows him to train in the kind of warm conditions he relishes.

Yet due to the coronavirus travel restrictions he is forced to spend a fortnight in quarantine in a hotel room in Bangkok over the Christmas period but has managed to get access to a treadmill in his room for the record attempt. Rarely has the phrase ‘loneliness of the long distance runner’ been more apt.

Grantham, a former winner of the British 100km title, is currently weighing up which record to attempt. Naturally he realises, too, such a record attempt will not be ‘official’ as he will be alone in a hotel room with no one to monitor it. Still, this doesn’t bother him.

“Like every sports person this year,” he says, “I need to get creative and give myself a target.

“For me the best thing is that the record, world or British, will not officially count because the rule states you must have two witnesses present throughout the attempt. This is perfect because it’s what every runner has experienced this year. The vast majority of their races have not ‘counted’.”

His run is likely to be live streamed with updates on social media. Nike is supporting it too with fitness tech company Wahoo the timing partner.

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At the end of this coronavirus-hit year and with families encouraged to keep their distance from relatives, his lonely treadmill run could strike a chord with many other runners who similarly find themselves short of company over the festive period.

What’s his message to them? “The great thing about this year is it’ll be much easier to sneak out for that long run,” he tells AW. “The entire year has been a curveball. Races have been cancelled or postponed and many with plans had to concede that this just wasn’t the year.

“On the flip side, I see a lot of runners who have taken this time to re-assess where they’re at and want to be. Maybe they have a new vision of what running means to them, how much it gives them, so I don’t think Christmas and New Year will be such a hurdle. In fact, we should be excited.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccination process already begun and if we can hold it together for a short while longer, those races won’t be too far away.”