For the second time in the space of two weeks, the Pennine Way record has been broken. Damian Hall ran the route in a time of 2 days, 13 hours and 34 minutes, knocking over three hours off the fastest known time. John Kelly broke the 31-year-old record on 16th July with a time of 2 days, 16 hours and 46 minutes. The pair had originally intended to run at the same time, with Damian starting in the north and John in the south, but timings never worked out.

Damian set off from Kirk Yetholm at 6am on Wednesday morning and quickly got ahead of his schedule. By the end of the first day, he was 2 ½ hours up on his schedule. In contrast to John Kelly, he chose to run the route from north to south, rationalising that the tougher terrain would be out of the way early on.

Despite tough conditions of rain and mist, he reached the halfway mark of 134 miles in 28 hours – more than 3 hours up on his schedule. In contrast to John, Damian managed to keep pace over the second night and by 10am on Friday morning - 223 miles and 52 hours in - he was three hours up on record pace with 45 miles separating him from the finish in Edale.

 

 

 

 

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Update (10am 🇬🇧): @ultra_damo has run 223 miles of the Pennine Way in 52 hours. He has another 45 miles to go to the finish in Edale and remains about 3 hours up on record pace. Damian is chasing American John Kelly's incredible record of 64 hours 46 mins. 📷 by @davemacfarlane are from a variety of locations between miles 134 and 223. Those locations include Tan Hill Inn, Yorkshire Dales and Heptonstall. Read the full story 👉 LINK IN BIO or here: www.inov-8.com/blog/pennine-way-damian-hall/ Follow the live tracker map here: http://live.opentracking.co.uk/damianpennine20/ Donate to Damian's chosen charity (@greenpeaceuk @greenpeace) 👉 www.justgiving.com/fundraising/penninewaybimble Damian's record (Fastest Known Time) attempt is 'Carbon Negative'. He and his team are also collecting litter from the trail - Great Britain's oldest and arguably toughest - as they go. 👟: New TERRAULTRA G 270 with Graphene-Grip 👉 www.inov-8.com/terraultra-g-270 ‪#DamoPWFKT #terraultrag270 #inov8 #GetAGrip #GrapheneGrip #ultrarunning #trailrunning #fellrunning #pennineway

A post shared by inov-8 (@inov_8) on Jul 24, 2020 at 2:01am PDT

On the last stretch over Kinder and into Edale, passers-by were commenting on how strong he looked, not to mention declining a fresh cup of tea.

A veteran of the Pennine Way, Damian hiked the route in 2011 and subsequently wrote a guidebook on the trail. He has completed the Spine Race twice – the notorious race that takes part in gruelling winter conditions.

Damian's attempt was carbon negative, fuelling without animal products and he was collecting litter along the way. He was also fundraising for Greenpeace.

Someone will probably be along next week to take the record under 60 hours...