New Paddy Buckley Record for Kim Collison
Kim Collison has broken the Paddy Buckley record with a time of 16 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds, beating Math Roberts' previous best of 16 hours and 37 minutes.
Dream day in 🏴 yesterday with the new Paddy Buckley record. 16:20:40.
— Kim Collison (@CollisonKim) April 18, 2021
Thank you for all the support to make this dream a reality
😀😀😀😀#fellrunning #paddybuckley pic.twitter.com/iLMWhBBtHP
Conditions were ideal for the former British Trail Running Champion as he set off at 5am on Saturday morning. His support crew reported on Twitter that he was moving well throughout the record attempt but these things are always tight. He set off on the final Snowdon leg with approximately 3 hours and 40 minutes to beat the previous record.
.@CollisonKim was moving well at Allt Fawr about halfway through the Moelwynions on his 3rd leg of a Paddy Buckley Round record attempt. It's a great day and he's still on pace on leg 4, but it will be tight (as these things usually are). https://t.co/lfMEoSNUy4 pic.twitter.com/qrgoqagrOo
— John Kelly (@RndmForestRunnr) April 17, 2021
The Paddy Buckley Round covers most of the major peaks in northern Snowdonia covering approximately 62.4 miles, with 8700m of ascent over 47 summits. It's split into five legs; the Glyders, Carneddau, Moelwyns, and Hebog/Nantlle. It's considered to be slightly harder than its Lake District counterpart, the Bob Graham, due to a mixture of rougher terrain and the additional height gain. Math Roberts broke the record in August 2020, when he took nearly an hour off Damian Hall's time.
Last year, during a summer filled with fastest known times and dot watching, Kim broke the Lakes 24-hour Record - where the challenge is to visit the most 2000ft peaks within 24 hours. He ticked off 78 peaks over a distance of 145km, with 11,750m of ascent and beat Mark Hartell's 1997 record by a single peak.
The weekend saw another attempt from top climber Calum Muskett who set off on Friday. He set off very quickly and made a couple of errors on the first two legs - starting too fast and a complete lack of sun protection - but he dug deep and despite a nail-biting sprint finish, completed the round with ten seconds to spare in 23:59:50.