King’s High School year 13 student Zak Chisholm, 17, ran 102km in 24 hours "on the dot" — about the same as the distance between Dunedin and Clinton along State Highway 1.
He was one of nearly 100 students to take part in the school’s annual K24 challenge, lacing up their shoes to run collectively for 24 hours in a 300m loop, to fundraise for I Am Hope’s Gumboot Friday.
Zak ran 340 laps of the course between 3pm Friday and 3pm Saturday, saying afterward his legs were "a bit sore".
"I’d run a couple, then walk a couple of laps. Then run a couple again," he said.
"I was going with how my body was feeling."
Zak said the hardest part of the run came after a quick nap at dawn.
"When I woke up from that, getting back going again, everything was really stiff."
Knowing he was running for a good cause kept him putting one foot in front of the other, he said.
He planned to recover with "a lot of sleep, a couple of ice baths and some spas".
Year 13 dean Jeremy White said the students had put in a fantastic effort to fundraise for Gumboot Friday, during the run and in the weeks leading up to the event.
"It was a good chance for the boys to find their limits and push through them — it was probably because of the support of each other that they were able to push through," he said.
While the final amount of money raised was still to be tallied, he was pleased the students had been able to help other young people, Mr White said.
"It’s easy to celebrate those that reach big numbers, but each boy has their own challenge that they’re after and you could see it in their faces.
"Each of the boys, through the night particularly, were having their own struggles and they just kept going and got through it."
