Harrogate runner loses ¼ of a stone in gruelling race

A Harrogate runner says she lost more than a quarter of a stone in weight while winning one of the longest and most brutal races in the world.
Queen of the mountains - Incredible Harrogate runner Carol Morgan of Nidd Valley Road Runners.Queen of the mountains - Incredible Harrogate runner Carol Morgan of Nidd Valley Road Runners.
Queen of the mountains - Incredible Harrogate runner Carol Morgan of Nidd Valley Road Runners.

While the rest of Britain stayed indoors during the recent week of bad winter conditions, Carol Morgan was battling through snowdrifts in her running shoes for 268 miles across the top of the Pennine peaks from Derbyshire to the Scottish borders.The member of Harrogate-based Nidd Valley Road Runners said: "After I finished the race and got home, I slept for 24 hours."My one constant thought during the race was food and where I would eat next."I got used to all the snow even though it was up my waist at times. I just thought "it's more snow, I can do it.""Having set a new event record in last year's Montane Spine Race, winning the women's title for the second year running was an incredible achievement for Carol, who is an advanced practitioner in emergency medicine at Leeds General Infirmary.The conditions were so bad, only 53 of the 118 competitors who began the race finished inside the seven-day cut-off point.Carol said: "It was tough but I enjoyed it. I lost more than a quarter of a stone in weight. I lost track of time."I still made it back to work a couple of days later."Eating ice at one point, Carol made it to the finish line more than 20 hours ahead of her nearest female challenger.With the resilience of a true champion, she eventually completed the course in a time of 130 hours, 37 minutes and 22 seconds.Most people would think twice about entering a mountain ultramarathon this gruelling which starts in Edale, Derbyshire and finishes at Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders.But Carol says it is a privilege to run in these wild spaces and believes people in general can meet greater challenges that they imagine is these cossetted times.Carol said: "I love the freedom of it. Even people who know nothing but life in towns need to know the open spaces are there."It's a privilege to run in areas that people have fought for in the past to protect from development."Nidd Valley Runners Club, the smaller of harrogate’s two great running clubs (Harrogate Harriers being the other) was formed in 1984 during the running boom of the early 1980’s when the emergence of the London Marathon captured people’s imaginations. The club’s colours of gold and black were originally taken from those of Harrogate Town FC where the club was based in it’s early days.