Irish ultrarunner battles the snow and ice to set INCREDIBLE new Winter Wainrights record – 214 peaks non-stop

What have you done since Boxing Day?

That might seem a strange question but surely few people have come anywhere near to matching Carol Morgan‘s post-Christmas achievement in the Lake District.

For the Irish ultrarunner has completed a record-breaking Winter Wainwrights Round – that’s 214 peaks and well over 300 miles.

Five hours faster

Morgan, who was born in 1973 and now runs for the Nidd Valley club in Harrogate, specialises in long-distance raaces and has won some of the sport’s biggest events including the Dragon’s Back in 2017 and the Winter Spine Race in both 2017 and 2018.

In the first of those years she set a new women’s record for the Winter Spine, which was beaten by subsequent Barkley Marathons trailblazer Jasmin Paris two years later when she won the race overall.

Morgan’s latest feat started at 10pm on Boxing Day from the Moot Hall in Keswick and she would face typically challenging winter conditions in the Lakes, including snow, ice, wind and rain.

After covering 320 miles, she returned to Keswick just over eight days later in 193 hours and 51 minutes later to take five hours off the previous winter record which was held by James Gibson.

John Kelly the summer record holder

She summitted all 214 of the Wainwrights – named after Alfred Wainwright, the British fell walker who was best known for his seven-volume pictorial guidebooks to the 214 Lakeland Fells.

And just to give an indication of the scale of Morgan’s achievement, here’s how the live tracker looked when she returned to Keswick.

Morgan had previously completed a Summer Wainwright Round in May 2022 in just under 155 hours in what were obviously very different conditions.

The record for the summer edition is held by none other than ultrarunning legend John Kelly, who took five days, 12 hours and 14 minutes just a few days before Morgan in 2022.

And this week Kelly will be in action at the Winter Spine Race which we’ll be previewing over the coming days here on RUN247.