Jamie Aarons set out 31 days and a few hours ago on her Munro Challenge - 282 “Munros” (Scottish peaks over 3000 feet), self-propelled in one continuous round to raise money for World Bicycle Relief. She has beaten the World Record and almost doubled her fund-raising target. It has taken her 31 days, 10 hours and 27 minutes beating the previous World Record set by Donnie Campbell in 2020 of 31 days and 23 hours.
She covered a momentous 2576.52km including 135,366m of ascent, 1315km on foot, 830km by road bike, 370km by mountain bike, 49km on her gravel bike and 11.6km by kayak. She climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest 16 times.
Her biggest ‘day’ was Wednesday 7th June (Day 13) where she did 14 munros within the calendar day (Technically Mount Keen was 00.18 Thursday) she went through six sticks of Trench Footcream and slept an average of four hours a day (on the days she actually slept).
Jamie, 43, is an adopted British citizen, having moved to Scotland from California in 2005. She immediately embraced all the trail-running and mountaineering that her 'right to roam' enabled. She won the West Highland 95-mile race in 2015 and her personal best (18.24) is still listed in the all-time female top ten. She holds the female record for the Cateran Trail Ultra and has twice won the Snowdonia 100-miler (2018 and 2019). She won the inaugural Maxi-Madeira 100km trail-race in December 2018 and was the second-fastest female in the gruelling Tor des Geants 340km/30,000m race in Italy in September 2018.
Jamie decided to take on the self-propelled round two years ago, when she read that Donnie slept eight hours every night on his epic round, and saw a tiny window in which she might be able to match his record.
Two years were spent planning, recceing, creating spreadsheets and organising logistics. It’s been not only a superhuman feat of physical endurance but a VAST organisational challenge!