Perched wearily on his bike, Ian Martin prepped for another interval down the Stateline Speedway track.

"One more," he said with a groan.

Asked his status, he echoed what the other handful of cyclists there said.

"Tired," Martin said, before pedaling hard.

With the sky lightening over the speedway on Saturday morning, there was but 15 minutes left for Martin and his group to finish their task: To bike 625 miles in 24 hours, setting a world record for miles cycled in that time on a paved track.

The two teams of five, all avid cyclists with string-bean physiques, were dragging a bit after a day and night straight of pedaling. Cyclists alternated every two laps, one team pedaling while the other took an hour or so to rest, warm up, re-nourish.

Near the end, their eyes were still clear, their legs pumping steadily.

"Come on!" shouted family members who had camped out in tents and sleeping bags.

Ten minutes left. Five.

A cheer erupted as cyclists passed the finish line for the last time.

Heads came together, figuring the final numbers: 2,196 laps in 24 hours.

That came to ... 606.9 miles.

There was a bigger number, too: About $40,000 raised for Boys and Girls Club.

Martin, who helped organize the cycling fundraiser, said they might still have a shot at the world record.

"You never know. We're going to submit it anyway," he said, in between drinks of water. "We'll have all the Boys and Girls Club kids write letters. Guilt them into it."

The spandex-clad cyclists, all close friends and supporters of Boys and Girls Club, swapped high fives and hugs as their families deconstructed their camp, where they had supplied food and water through the hours.

This was harder than the two Ironmans Martin has completed, he said.

"I only slept five minutes," the Coeur d'Alene man said of the 24-hour period.

Fellow cyclist Greg Gervais agreed the resting periods only allowed brief dozing.

"I think the low point was about 2:30, 3 a.m. It was cold, dark, everybody was in bed," said Gervais, a many-time Ironman and Boys and Girls Club board member. "I'm sure I did the first four or five intervals unconscious."

The key was constantly taking in calories and water, he said. The highlight, the pair added, was when about 30 kids from the Boys and Girls Club cheered them on Friday afternoon.

"A lot of these kids are at such a disadvantage," said Gervais, who lives in Coeur d'Alene. "If we can reach one or two kids, that's a better impact than trying to do rehabilitation."

Keeping up a 26-mile per hour pace was tough, cyclists said, as fatigue set in.

Another slight hiccup - cyclist Jason Johnston of Coeur d'Alene started throwing up during the all-nighter, and had to sit out a few hours.

He hopped back on after an off-duty RN ran home to grab an IV drip for him.

"I don't like to quit," said Jason, who runs a martial arts studio with his wife Colleen. "That's just not something we do."

Colleen, wearing a T-shirt reading "My man can do it for 24 hours", said she was amazed the group pulled it off.

"What they were out there for, the world record was really second, in all honesty," she said. "The 10 of them have the same mentality, the same heart. It was so spectacular."

There for all 24 hours, Colleen said the temperature had gone from 43 degrees to 101, back down to 38, then "to whatever it is now," she said with a laugh. "We went through all four seasons."

Finally off his bike, Trent Munyer hugged his daughters Zara, 5, and Ava, 8, who handed him water.

Trent had prepared for the fundraiser by biking from the Snake Pit to Glacier National Park, he said, his family following behind in the car.

"This is really hard to prepare for. Nobody rides this way, going to your max output for 12 hours of riding," Trent said, adding that he agreed to it because "I thought it wouldn't be a bad way to spend 24 hours."

All the dollars raised will go to help Boys and Girls Club operations, said Linda Rohlinger, board member whose husband George cycled the track.

"The Boys and Girls Club would like to build a facility in Coeur d'Alene. This could potentially be something that could kick that off," said Linda, a triathlete herself. "There are so many kids that can be reached through independent efforts like this. This goes much further than people realize."

Many of Saturday's cyclists had also biked from Coeur d'Alene to Jasper National Park in Alberta last year as a Boys and Girls Club fundraiser.

Will they give the world record another shot next year?

"We'll figure out something else to do," Gervais said with a laugh. "Something else crazy."