'Bound' sprang to my mind. sandyRoe, I haven't unearthed my Fowler yet (after the move lots of things are 'wherever'), but I give a cautious 'no; to the alteration of punctuation and use of 'sure' (Cautious because Fowler can always sneak up on you and catch you out!)
My reason is that if you are talking about a race you have to have something like stride, step, jump etc. and by omitting that there is no clarity of meaning. I'm wondering if it would be OK if one imagined an earlier sentence which established something on the lines of laps?