Tributes pour in for former sheep farmer who broke record for most peaks climbed in a 24-hour period three times
Tributes have poured in for the veteran fell runner Joss Naylor, known as the “King of the Fells”, who has died aged 88.
Naylor, from Wasdale Head, Cumbria, is famous for breaking the record for most fells climbed in a 24-hour period three times. He also ran the fastest known times on the Three Peaks, Welsh 3,000ers and Pennine Way.
Continue reading...Deo Kato detained by security services for three weeks after being arrested near Juba on run from South Africa to UK
A Ugandan-born Londoner on a 9,000-mile run from South Africa to London has been released from jail in South Sudan, his partner has told the Guardian.
Deo Kato had already run more than the length of Africa – the equivalent of more than 200 marathons – when he was arrested near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on 2 June. His partner and project manager, Alice Light, had no idea where he was, only discovering he was in prison on 17 June.
Continue reading...Endurance athlete from Worthing says he is ‘just trying to soak it all in’ after completing 352-day, 9,940-mile run
After sinking a strawberry daiquiri and a few beers and enjoying a reunion with his girlfriend after more than a year apart, Russ Cook, AKA the “Hardest Geezer”, who completed his 9,940-mile (16,000km) run along the entire length of Africa on Sunday, woke up feeling “a little bit frosty, a little bit tired”.
And for once, the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing, West Sussex, who raised more than £700,000 for charity on his epic journey, was not pulling on his running shoes. It was all “quite, quite overwhelming”, he said.
Continue reading...Russ Cook from Worthing reaches Ras Angela, Tunisia, after covering more than 9,900 miles in 352 days
After more than 9,940 miles (16,000km) over 352 days across 16 countries, Russ Cook, aka the “Hardest Geezer”, has completed the mammoth challenge of running the length of Africa.
The 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing, West Sussex, crossed the finish line in Tunisia on Sunday afternoon, and planned to celebrate with a party – as well as a strawberry daiquiri – having raised more than £600,000 for charity.
Continue reading...More than a third of runners at this year’s Mexico City Marathon have been expelled after organisers say they cut out sections of the 26.2 mile course.
An investigation was launched after complaints that runners had used cars, public transport and bikes to cheat during the race on 27 August. Tracking data then showed that thousands of participants had not passed some of the 5km checkpoints that monitor whether runners have completed the entire race.
Continue reading...The organizers of a women’s race in Spain has apologised after the winner was offered a food processor to take home, something that has sparked accusations of sexism.
The 7km Carrera de la Mujer issued a statement on Twitter saying it hadn’t considered the kitchen appliance – donated by a sponsor – would have sexist implications.
Continue reading...Erchana Murray-Bartlett reaches end of epic journey from ‘tip to toe’ of Australia – smashing women’s record for consecutive daily marathons
Months after starting out from the tip of Cape York, Erchana Murray-Bartlett is set to complete her 150th consecutive daily marathon in Melbourne on Monday, finishing a record-breaking journey through Australia’s eastern states.
Murray-Bartlett set out in August to run more than 6,200km, raising money for the Wilderness Society and awareness of Australia’s extinction crisis – just days before Ned Brockmann began his 4,000km run from the west to east coast.
Continue reading...British-Iranian who set goal while at notorious Evin prison says he wants ‘something good to come out of all that pain’
Serving a minimum 10-year sentence in Iran’s notorious Evin prison on spying charges, Anoosheh Ashoori, a 68-year-old British-Iranian retired engineer, knew he must find purpose if he was to avoid insanity.
He pledged that one day, when he was released, he would run the London Marathon. It was an ambitious dream, especially for a man who was not very fit and or expecting to be freed before the age of 73.
Continue reading...One runner was killed and another seriously injured on Sunday when they were struck by lightning during a nighttime trail race up a Greek mountain, local police said.
The two men were competing in the Six Peaks race, which takes place on Mount Falakro in northern Greece, when lightning struck the group of runners. The incident happened at 4am at an altitude of 1,340 metres (4,400 feet).
Continue reading...The mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan are edged with a tangerine glow as our minibus drives past them. We set off earlier from Erbil, the region’s capital, and are driving to Shaqlawa, a historic city about 50 minutes away, to hike up the nearby Safeen mountain. Inside the minibus, a group of teenage girls are playing their favourite songs.
The teenagers live with their families in one of Erbil’s two main camps for internally displaced people (IDPs), Baharka and Harsham, having fled Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and surrounding towns such as Tal Afar and Sinjar, when the area was captured by ISISsis in 2014. The hike has been organised by Free to Run, an NGO that supports and empowers women and girls in regions of conflict through sport, offering them life-skills training, and creating safe spaces for them to develop confidence and friends, and to reclaim public space in a country where women’s rights are lacking.
Continue reading...The athlete, 48, on childhood asthma, dogs, Portaloos and the last mile of a marathon
I had asthma as a kid and still do. I started blacking out a little at the end of training runs. Then, at 14, I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma by a brilliant doctor who told me, “This isn’t going to stop you doing any of your sport, you’re just going to have to learn to control it.” I have inhalers in pretty much every bag.
What makes me sad? Losing people I care about – I lost my dad in 2020. And hearing stories about kids who weren’t as lucky as my daughter, who beat cancer last year. I burst into tears when the doctor gave us the initial diagnosis, but she’s been so brave. The chemotherapy made her hair fall out, which was obviously difficult for a teenage girl. But she’s bounced back so quickly.
Continue reading...At first I was full of dread but as I pressed on I noticed things I had never seen in daylight
I’m scared of getting lost in the bush. This is unusual for an essayist. Most of us like to go for a walk in disorienting landscapes and get completely lost so that we can write about it.
Rebecca Solnit wrote that getting lost is “a voluptuous surrender” but this sounds to me like walking in increasingly frantic circles, getting cold and hungry as night closes in, until you have no option but to dig yourself a little hole and cover yourself in leaves.
Continue reading...Rich started working out, Mags started running and Shashi started walking three times a day. It is possible to reach new goals as you get older and it is not only your physical health that benefits
‘I do sometimes feel like a cliche,” says Rich Jones. We’re in the cafe at his gym and he is in workout gear. It’s true, something about the language and the before and after pictures from his physical transformation – severely overweight to lean and chiselled – would appear familiar from thousands of adverts and magazine spreads, if it wasn’t for one thing; Jones got into the best shape of his adult life after he passed 50. “On 9 August 2019, I walked in here. I was 54 and 127kg [20st].”
He worked out at least six days a week, for 90 minutes or more at a time. “I immersed myself in everything, I did gym, I did classes, Pilates, I even did barre,” he says. Within eight or 10 weeks, he was able to stop taking painkillers for a shoulder injury. He now cycles and runs on top of his gym sessions. “It’s just a habit – I brush my teeth every day, I go for a run every day.”
Continue reading...Forrest Gump’s wisdom has inspired many of us, but Rob Pope took that a step further, dressing as his hero for the run of his life. But why? And what did he learn?
On 15 September 2016, Rob Pope, a chipper veterinarian from Liverpool, sat down in the chair of Fluke’s Barbers in Mobile, Alabama, and readied himself for a haircut. “So what would you like?” the barber asked him. Pope held up a photo of Forrest Gump. It had taken years of planning for Pope to embark on this trip to America, to make it to this barber’s chair. He’d spent countless hours daydreaming about it, building the momentum to go. As his job became ever more miserable – he was working 13-hour days, five days a week – the urge to escape became insurmountable. He quit and, along with his partner and fellow vet, Nadine, headed west.
In many ways, the seed for this adventure was sown in 2002. That was the year Pope’s mum, Cathy, died after a cancer diagnosis. Cathy was a medical laboratory scientific officer and a single parent. She raised Pope with grit, determination and heartfelt support of his passion: running. He’d shown promise at the sport since his school days when he took part in the oft-dreaded cross-country and excelled at it. Cathy would take him to his races, which soon became marathons. Marathons after marathons. To Pope she was a best friend, a rock, an inspiration, a support-crew leader. Before she died she asked him to make a promise: “Do one thing in your life that makes a difference.” These words echoed in his mind as he sat in that Alabamabarbershop, awaiting his turn beneath the clippers.
Continue reading...Enthusiast marks album’s 30th anniversary with 150km ride around Adelaide using Strava to sketch naked baby
The naked Nirvana baby has been recreated yet again – this time on the unsuspecting streets of Adelaide.
Pete Stokes rode about 150km on a single-speed bike to sketch the outline of the famous Nevermind cover. His efforts, tracked by GPS-based site Strava, show the baby’s (slightly angry) face over the CBD and the banknote over the leafy eastern suburbs of Burnside and Kensington.
Continue reading...We all believe we should exercise more. So why is it so hard to keep it up? Daniel E Lieberman, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology, explodes the most common and unhelpful workout myths
Yesterday at an outdoor coffee shop, I met my old friend James in person for the first time since the pandemic began. Over the past year on Zoom, he looked just fine, but in 3D there was no hiding how much weight he’d gained. As we sat down with our cappuccinos, I didn’t say a thing, but the first words out of his mouth were: “Yes, yes, I’m now 20lb too heavy and in pathetic shape. I need to diet and exercise, but I don’t want to talk about it!”
If you feel like James, you are in good company. With the end of the Covid-19 pandemic now plausibly in sight, 70% of Britons say they hope to eat a healthier diet, lose weight and exercise more. But how? Every year, millions of people vow to be more physically active, but the vast majority of these resolutions fail. We all know what happens. After a week or two of sticking to a new exercise regime we gradually slip back into old habits and then feel bad about ourselves.
Continue reading...‘Limited’ cardiology research also shows mask wearing likely to reduce spread of coronavirus in indoor gyms
Face masks can be worn safely during intense exercise, and could reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading at indoor gyms, preliminary findings suggests.
Scientists from the Monzino Cardiology Centre (CCM) in Milan and the University of Milan tested the breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels of six women and men on exercise bikes, with and without a mask.
Continue reading...No one would argue that running isn’t good for you, but do we really have to pretend to like it, too?
For the 126th time this year, I turn the corner by the rowing club and begin the climb towards Stamford Hill. I have half a kilometre to go. Mist has settled on the river to my left, where waterfowls, Egyptian geese and a single, stately heron have gathered by some rushes in a dazzlingly pretty scene for Haringey in late November. They likely make some pleasant noises, but only the fortunes of HMS Royal Oak reach my ears, as my earphones sizzle with its battle against four French frigates near the Bight of Benin in the War of 1812. I am trying to enjoy myself.
Last November, with the cooperation of this magazine (ie they paid me), I defied my natural inclinations and did a radical diet and exercise overhaul. The experience produced not just an eminently readable lifestyle piece, but a substantial improvement in my general fitness. And then, shortly before Christmas, it ended, as did my adherence to its stipulations. I jettisoned the protein shakes and the thrice-weekly workouts, and gamely resumed my close personal relationship with butter, sugar, alcohol and grease. I discarded all the measures that had given me these results bar one – running.
Continue reading...Experienced fell runner Chris Smith, 43, missing in Perthshire hills since Tuesday
The family of Chris Smith, an experienced fell runner and Team GB member who has gone missing in the Perthshire hills, have appealed for help to find him.
Smith, 43, was last seen on Tuesday afternoon when he left his family’s holiday accommodation to go running in the Glen Lyon and Loch Tay area and had been due to return that evening.
Continue reading...There’s a replacement to your pre-lockdown workout right outside your door. Experienced runners explain how to get started
The gyms, pools and squash courts are shut. Joe Wicks is showing you how to get fit in your living room, but really all you want to do is get out of your living room. Now is the time to go for a run.
If you are worried you’re not a running type, don’t be. I wasn’t either until I decided that I didn’t feel safe going to the gym in mid-March. Eight weeks later, I finished my first half-hour run, covering an apparently respectable 4.83km in the process. Almost anyone can be a runner, it turns out. So why not give it a try?
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