Carla Molinaro crossed the England-Scotland border yesterday on day seven of her Land’s End to John o’Groats record attempt. As of last night, she had run a total of 777.98km (483.4 miles). She needs to reach 1407km (874 miles) in under 12 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes and 7 seconds to beat the female record set by Sharon Gayte last year.
Carla, 35, is still within the scheduled time to beat the record although when I spoke to her at lunchtime yesterday she said: “I have eaten into a little of my time buffer”.
In fact, she has run an average 111.14km each day, which is still on track for the record.
The weather and wind have been fairly favourable so far, although Carla encountered the first rain of the attempt yesterday in the north of England.
She said: “We have been lucky so far with the weather and the wind direction. It has been dry until today and although there have been some hot afternoons, the conditions have mostly been okay.
“There has been a bit of a headwind at times but thankfully it is generally from the south-west, which is good, because that means it is behind me.”
The humidity at the start of the run cause chafing issues. Carla said: “I thought I had sunburn but it was chafing. I had it on my bum cheeks, stomach and back. I have never experienced this before and it was very sore.”
But by far the greatest difficultly has been on-going pain in her legs. She said “I have had very sore legs and this gets worse as each day goes on. My legs seize up and it takes all my energy just to put one foot in front of the other.
“I greatly welcome support from other runners – socially distanced – but I have had to tell people that if they accompany me later in the day, I will not be able to talk to them. I just ask that people kindly talk to me and don’t expect a response. Honestly, I do really welcome people talking to me but it can be too much effort to talk back, while coping with the tiredness and leg pain. It’s very tough.”
Each day Carla aims to run more than 112km (70 miles). She is on the road for up to 16 hours out of every 24 hours. She sleeps for only about four hours each night.
She is being supported by a crew of family, friends and sports professionals.
Read about her record bid:
Follow her progress on Live Tracking.