Prostate cancer survivor John Dryburgh 'overcome' after completing 100-mile ultramarathon

And Dryburgh, a UESCA certified ultra-running endurance coach who is now in remission having undergone radiotherapy and hormone therapy soon after being diagnosed with cancer seven years ago, spoke of the considerable emotion he felt after defying the odds to finish 94th overall out of 538 starters in 29 hours, four minutes and 44 seconds, when 144 rival runners failed to finish.

“I'm 100% thrilled,” Dryburgh told the Fife Free Press. “My goal was to finish in 35 hours-ish and then try and be in the middle of the pack, the top 250.

"But I finished 94th and I left a lot of people half my age well behind me.

"I don't know how to get into the details, but I saw people who were sleeping at 11 o'clock at night and I thought: ‘What the hell are you sleeping for? Get going’.

"I kept going the whole way, never slept and I must have overtaken 60 to 80 people who decided to have naps rather than power through. And I was just thinking to myself: ‘Kids these days, man’.

"I didn't feel tired at all. Physically, I mean, tired, and mentally tired, but I didn't feel sleepy at all.

"I finished the race, came home, sat here on the settee feeling sorry for myself because my feet were throbbing and then had a few glasses of wine and still didn’t go to bed at about 10.30 that night.

"Next morning, there was a major anti-climax. It's like: ‘That's it, we're done with’.

"And that's when I said: ‘No, screw it, I'm signing up again next year to do another one’. It's just a mix of emotions when you finish. I was just drained.

"There's photos of me sitting in the chair sprawled out, head down. I had tears in my eyes at one time. I had to put my head down so people couldn't see me.

"I was just so overcome with emotion that I managed to finish it. I had great friends there.”

Dryburgh thanks his race support crew of Stephen Dickson, Colin Campbell, Joanne Dryburgh, Stuart Simpson, Barry Swan and Eleanor Christie.

The 62-year-old, who was formerly in the Scots Guards, is now a successful running coach with Kirkcaldy-RunSum group but said the recent ultramarathon challenge was by far the toughest he’d ever faced.

Starting from Edinburgh Castle at 8am on July 25, the race saw competitors then able to stop at nine checkpoints to hydrate, eat, rest and have toilet breaks, although Dryburgh said he spent as little time as possible at these, sitting down just twice to get treatment and remove sand from his shoes and socks.

The Kirkcaldy man, who eventually finished over 29 hours after setting off, said: “It was ridiculously hot on parts of the run. By the time I got to 60, 70 miles in, it started to get a bit cooler.

"But I was so tired that I had to remember to drink and keep eating.

"When you sweat way more than you expect to, if you don't keep up with the hydration you can quickly collapse in a heap on the side of the road.

"I probably got through 15 to 18 litres of water or sports drink during the race.

"I got my blisters treated at mile 93. I got one of the medics up there to put some tape on them. I made a mistake with the shoes I wore.”

Dryburgh, a Scottish Athletics running coach, is keen to hear from anyone wanting to ask about getting involved in any aspect of running and training. You can send an email to [email protected] to get in touch.