Someone's been getting that ready during the day!
Glad you noticed! Slaving away at a hot computer when i should've been out in the hills...
Think he started at 6am, not 7am as per article, otherwise that would have been 2 hours off the record!
So in the space of ten days he solos the Peuterey Integral in a oner, wins the Mont Blanc Marathon and smashes the Bob Graham Round record. This all on the back of minimal training after breaking his leg back in March. Ridiculous!
An awesome achievement, helped by an all-star support and pacing team... And lovely picture of him and BB.
That is just mind-boggling. With Nicky Spinks in Lochaber last week, and now this, it’s looking like a great summer in the history of big runs in the UK mountains!
Very well done to all who were involved today, especially Kilian (obviously!) - inspiring stuff as usual!
And yes, I liked the photo of the handshake with BB too, says a lot about the nature of this kind of endeavour.
Wow incredible! I knew about the Mont Blanc Marathon but soloing the Peutetey Intégrale is completely amazing. Didn’t see that reported. Have you got any links for that one?
A good achievement from Killian but it goes to show how impressive Billy's round actually was.
Hopefully another Cumbria hill farmer will claim it back in the future! ; )
A faster round may be possible but underfoot conditions are unlikely to be as good as this for a number of years. The boggy bits have dried out quite a bit so it's either solid or springy turf. Saying that, this is Kilian Jornet so I will probably eat my words if he ever comes back to the lakes!
Yes. If an athlete won the London Marathon in 1:52:00 three months after breaking bis leg, there'd be other comments than "awesome, inspiring, amazing!"
I see that the article repeats the somewhat dubious claim that the BGR is 74 miles. The consensus seems to be that it is somewhat less than that, maybe as little as 66 miles. Anyone care to comment? Not that any of that detracts from the achievement. It must be busy up there, three friends of mine have completed rounds in the last few weeks.
> I see that the article repeats the somewhat dubious claim that the BGR is 74 miles. The consensus seems to be that it is somewhat less than that, maybe as little as 66 miles.
My GPS clocked it as 64.56 miles although I think different GPS devices calculate the horizontal distance on hills differently. I wasn't that familiar with the route so I suspect a local might shave a bit off that with better lines.
Absolutely astonishing effort. And so good to see the support that turned out for him.
I clocked 72.7 miles, but had a number of navigation "issues" in poor weather during the night. Most others I know (who haven't screwed up!) have been much closer to the 66 miles that seems to be generally regarded as the shortest distance. I don't think 74 is correct, but if its much less than 66 I'd be very surprised tbh.
The going under foot is really good. We recce'd legs 1 and 2 on Saturday and areas which would normally be soaking were like running over a trampoline. It was too hot on Saturday really for us, my mate got a touch of heat stroke. Sunday did start out a touch cooler but was baking by mid morning again.
Amazing run by Killian and wow his support crew must have nailed it too. Utmost respect for them all.
63.6 miles from Kilian's strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1690134887
I love the fact it's labelled the standard strava way as "morning run"...
A friend of mine completed on Saturday night, after a midnight start. 22:20ish, so no records, but I was impressed that he managed it in that heat.
Kilian had been to see Billy Bland before his attempt and Billy was there at the finish to hand him the bottle of champagne. Chatting to BB at the finish before Kilian arrived he was hoping that he would knock an hour off his time.
He registered his attempt with a 14hr schedule as that's the lowest value available!
Kilian looked absolutely shattered at the end (surprise, surprise).
Distance: somewhere between 63 & 66 miles depending on which lines you take. Drawing straight lines between the tops gives 61 miles.
Firstly it's an amazing run especially in the heat. Wonder how many litres of water he drank.
But, I suspect that a much faster time than KJ's is physiologically possible.
His average pace is only 11 min/mile. Not exactly Roger Bannister. So outright speed is not the issue, it's how to maintain effort and how to be as efficient as possible over rough and steep ground.
If a top athlete like KJ had the same level of support and detailed preparation as something like Team Sky (let's assume for now that all is clean), then how much faster could he go. I reckon sub 11 hours would be possible.
That is great going by your mate, it is incredibly tough.
We carried 2 litres of water each for each of the first two legs. I would imagine you could get away with a bit less if you didn't have a rucsac keeping your back warm. It was stupidly hot even on the summits. There were a lot of horseflies over the back of Blencathra which helped keep the pace up but they still got me!
It looked like Billy had also cycled to Wasdale to cheer him on!
> His average pace is only 11 min/mile. Not exactly Roger Bannister.
Not exactly a running track.
I think I mentioned or at least implied that.
It's just that I don't think the improvements in this kind of physical endeavour have levelled off yet, unlike say track running where most improvements are relatively small.
Whether this kind of non-popularist activity could ever get the resources to get to that state is another matter (we probably wouldn't want it to be that popular).
> Yes. If an athlete won the London Marathon in 1:52:00 three months after breaking bis leg, there'd be other comments than "awesome, inspiring, amazing!"
Assuming you mean that something doesn't add up with Killian's performance that's a pretty lazy and ignorant comment to make.
Lazy because it's easy to throw dirt at any good performance without a shred of evidence. Ultimately I've got no more idea than the next man whether Killian is clean but I've never seen any suggestion much less evidence to the contrary so innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Ignorant because it looks like you've arrived at your figure of his run being equivalent to a 1:52 London Marathon just by subtracting the same percentage of time from the current London best. It shows a real lack of knowledge about the events, people and history involved to think that's a fair comparison.
It is in fact a really stupid and entirely unenlightening comparison for a whole host of reasons I find I can't actually be bothered typing now.
I think what's more amazing is your ability to draw comparisons between a marathon and the BGR.
Perhaps you're on the gear rather than Killian?
Interview with Kilian the day after https://soundcloud.com/user-448041620/kong-running-talk-02-killian-jornet-o...
He’s a nice guy, quiet, shy. He’s a fierce competitor and has had issues with rules in the past but I kind of like he pushes the boundaries but do think he gets away with more than most would..
welsh 3000 ers next?
for the Paddy I barely made it 62 miles and the Bob is slightly longer just better terrain so I’d say 64-65. None of them are 70+.
lets hope more go for it now. Record are there to be broken.
It's an astonishing achievement and I certainly don't want to sound like sour grapes but he won't have been hindered by the dryest conditions underfoot in many years. Good timing.
The man himself has already said that he ran it in much better conditions than Billy did, he also had the very best pacers, although Billy’s were pretty good as well.
A segment in tonight's episode of Channel 4's investigative series Dispatches exposes the sale of uncertified budget climbing gear online - carabiners in particular - via the shopping platform Temu, a Chinese app with...