While everyone was still enjoying the Yuletide and new year festivities an Irish ultra distance runner had taken to the Lake District fells in a bold bid to set a new record for an eye-watering challenge.
And despite Mother Nature’s best efforts to derail Carol Morgan’s determination, the 51-year-old advanced practitioner in emergency medicine, still managed to set a new record for completing a winter round of the Wainwright fells.
She reached the 214 summits, covering 320 miles and 118,000ft of climbing, in an astonishing 193 hours, 51 minutes and 47 seconds – beating the previous best time by five hours.
She had set off from Keswick’s Moot Hall at 10pm on Boxing Day and bounded up its steps ahead of her five pacers after completing the epic mountain odyssey at 11.46pm last Friday and celebrated by unfurling an Irish flag. During the run she had encountered some harsh conditions on the fells, enduring strong winds, rain and freezing conditions.
Afterwards she exclaimed: “Not too bad for an old woman.”
Carol, who runs for the Nidd Valley Running Club in Harrogate, only started running in her 30s and now specialises in non-stop marathon challenges of 100km or longer and has a number of records to her name.
Only one other person has completed a winter Wainwright round – James Gibson in 2022 – and a film was released documenting his effort.
