Ultra-athletes trample all over records in year of marathon feats – The Times
Runners have slashed hours from the times for scaling Lake District peaks and running the length of the country
Nicholas Hellen
The Sunday Times
Donnie Campbell from Inverness ran up all Scotland’s 282 Munro mountains in less than 32 days
STEVE ASHWORTH
It was a summer without the joy of tennis at Wimbledon or the thrill of watching athletes compete in the Tokyo Olympics, yet the pandemic could not stop this becoming a vintage year for British sporting prowess.
Records tumbled as fell runners and ultra-marathoners, barred from races or overseas travel, chose instead to compete against the clock up hills and down dales, on pathways and along roadside verges.
As if impelled to reclaim landmarks and landscapes that had remained out of bounds for much of the spring, they ran from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, traversed the South West Coast Path and scaled all 282 Munros at breakneck speed.
Ian Stewart rests during his run to the summits of all 58 Cairngorms Munros
Ally Beaven, author of Broken — a book about the phenomenon, to be published by