Cambridge sportsmen aim for world record as they take on National Three Peaks Challenge in aid of British Heart Foundation
Two Cambridge sportsmen and endurance runners, Stephen Hider and Gary Davidson, will attempt to beat the world record for the National Three Peaks Challenge next month, in aid of the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
They will start their challenge on 23 August, setting out from Fort William, Scotland, to begin the journey on foot and self-supported.
The two friends will climb and run the 450 miles or so, starting at the foot of Ben Nevis in Scotland, via England to Wales, and then finish at the visitor centre at the foot of Mount Snowdon.
They will scale the UK’s three tallest mountain peaks in the process, and they intend to raise as much money as possible for the BHF (initially £5,000-£10,000).
The fastest known time/world record for this particular challenge is held by Glyn Price, who completed it in a time of nine days 16 hours 40 minutes 19 seconds.
This was achieved on 3 August, 2023. Stephen and Gary are aiming to do it in under nine days.
Stephen did the 34 marathons in 34 days in 2022, while Gary is a top-class ultra runner, who has won UK marathons and has also run in places like the Sahara desert.
Gary also runs the Albion Boxing Academy on Cherry Hinton Road in Cambridge, and works full-time as a children’s diabetes specialist at Peterborough Hospital.
He says: “Steve and I are old friends, we’ve done a lot of charity work over the past 14 years, so we already knew each other and knew that we both had a passion for ultra running and raising money.
“I do a lot of fundraising in the community, through the boxing, give a lot of money to local charities, and Steve gives quite a lot to the British Heart Foundation, which is quite close to his heart.
“His neice Isla-Rose was born with dilated cardiomyopathy in 2009, so sadly she passed away the same year but since then Steve has raised a lot of money for the British Heart Foundation.”
When Stephen got in touch about the challenge, Gary was quick to say yes.
“I’m always looking for a big challenge, and generally once a year I do something huge,” he said. “Next year I’m running through the Amazon Rainforest in Peru – there’s some real crazy stuff.”
Gary realised that there was a chance to break the 2023 world record with their unsupported Three Peaks Challenge.
They will need to carry everything they need with them – except for water.
“We’re going to have water dropped off at different checkpoints throughout the run,” explains Gary, “because obviously it wouldn’t be viable. We couldn’t carry 200 litres of water with us!”
They hope to raise as much money as possible for the BHF and encourage people to follow them on social media, where they can see updates on training and watch videos of the world record attempt as it happens.
Visit the pair’s JustGiving page at shorturl.at/iAlLU, and the Facebook page for the challenge is at shorturl.at/shortener.php.
Follow Gary on Instagram at instagram.com/garydavidsonjnr/.