Graeme Butcher is hoping for a personal best of over 220km when he represents Athletics New Zealand at the world 24-hour endurance championships in Poland on September 8-9.
Butcher, 50, from Masterton will be heading overseas as the defending national 24-hour champion after winning that title in Auckland last year
with a distance of 207km , a massive 30km more than he managed when fourth in the same event in 2010.
And he reckons that providing he can stay clear of health and injury hassles during a tough training regime he could possibly find a extra "15km or so" this time round.
"There is a lot which can go wrong when you are on your feet for so long, so making any sort of prediction doesn't make a lot of sense, but I do think there is still room for some improvement ... not a lot but some."
Even if he breaks the 220km mark , however, Butcher doesn't expect to feature among the leading competitors individually as he anticipates the winner covering around 260km but he sees the Kiwis being capable of a top-eight finish in the teams event.
Five men and three women will be wearing the Silver Fern and with the top three performers in each team counting towards the teams titles, the men, in particular, should make a bold showing. "On a good day at least three of us could go over 220km and that would make us pretty competitive."
Currently Butcher is in the early stages of his preparation for his Poland experience but as he progresses his training will include one 10-hour run per fortnight where he would expect to cover between 90 and 100km.And there will be a number of other runs over about half that distance.
Masterton's picturesque Henley Lake is likely to become a regular training spot as it provides Butcher with the chance to literally go round and round the one circuit, thereby replicating what he will be required to do at the worlds where each loop of the same course will be about 2km.
"I can see me spending a lot of time at Henley Lake ... it's ideal really, you can have the water bottle on the back of the ute and just keep running, I can imagine doing a few marathons there."
For most sane people, of course, even considering the prospect of a 24-hour run would be tantamount to suicide and Butcher wryly agrees it helps to be a "bit crazy" to take it on.
That, and having the ability to train not only the body but also the mind to handle such an assignment.
"Basically what you have to is practise running bored, you have to reach that state where the legs will keep going forward even when they are hurting like hell, and the stomach is starting to churn.You have to understand you will have good patches and bad patches, and that if you don't get through the bad it's all over."