Irish female ultra runner Helena Crossan has been in cracking form lately over a 100k! There’s no stopping her, most of us couldn’t do her splits over much shorter distances! From Athletics Ireland:

Helena Crossan, Ireland’s top female ultra athlete, had a very convincing win in the Night of Flanders 100km in Torhout, Belgium on Saturday. Crossan, the Donegal native, posted a world class 7:53:41 to demolish the race field. Her time was less than a minute outside her Irish record of 7:52:45, a time she set when finishing 10th at the World 100km last year. Torhout will host the 2010 World 100km.

And Richard Donovan is continuing his record breaking dart through the country at a rate of 3 marathons a day, in the hope of breaking the Mizen to Malin head record! With a bit of trouble with his knee on Day 2 he’s still motoring through Cloghan on his way to Longford on Day 3! Keep going Richard!

-Aisling-

Image of Richard Donovan from Run the Country.

To raise €1 for every foot climbed = €85,000 = a much needed primary school in the Ugandan village of Kitandwe, to be built in partnership with Fields of Life.

Best of luck to them on their training! We’ll be watching the blog for news!

-Aisling-

“I was on oxygen from 9,000 feet onwards” said the pilot who had hoped to break the men’s record of 22,00 feet but the weather was too warm.

She holds the most female ballooning world records of 9 and has made a career out of this hobby as she is now Operations Manager of Irish Balloon Flights. Isn’t that just the ultimate dream of any adventurer, to do what you love for a living?

-Aisling-

Qoute is from Evening Herald, Image from my flickr set.

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Fearghal from revolutioncycle.ie emailed to say Mark Beaumont became the fastest person to circumnavigate the globe by bicycle.

Taking only 195 days his whirlwind tour du monde began last August and covered the requisite 18,000 miles through 20 countries.

Fearghal’s post links to the BBC news story

Beating the previous record of 276 days the 25-year-old crossed the finish line at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at 1430 GMT after an 18,000-mile journey which began on 5 August last year. He endured floods and road rage, and was knocked off his bike in the American state of Louisiana by an elderly motorist who drove through a red light.

If you think about it, it’s not that long really. 195 days is a very short time if you consider all the things you’d see on the way.

-Robin.

SINGAPORE - The Piton posted it so I stole their title, they got it right in one go “47.2 knots of pure awesome-ness”. This video is of The French Hydroptère when it broke a world record for the fastest sailing speed (not including icesailing) when they hit 47.2 knots. Unreal.

I love the comments:

I wouldn’t want to be on this thing if it pitchpoled.

what happens if you hit a whale?

you die, whale dies

:-)

-Robin-

BANGKOK, THAILAND - They don’t come better than this - don’t you love a granny with buzz about them. There’s no holding Peggy McAlpine (yes, McAlpine) after her Bungy jump 20yrs ago at age 80, she’s now managed to enter the Guinness book of records for going Paragliding at age 100! Incredible.

“I was sitting in a chair floating above the mountains. I’m not scared at all.”

She jumped tandem off a 2,500ft peak in a craggy Cyprus mountain. I hope there was a either a road of cable-car to get her up there!

Got to thank Alan at Paratiger for mailing us this one!

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Getty / Daily Mail)

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - DCURCC reader, Sarunas, sent in a link to FreakClimbing.com, featuring an ascent the Nose of El Capitan in 2hr 45min 45sec in Yosemite.

It took Warren J Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore 47 days to ascend the 1000m-high face in 1958, but the two German brothers made the best of a warm autumn to break the previous best time of 2hr 48min 50sec set by Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama in 2006 by over three minutes.

We featured the Huber Brothers who completed this task earlier in the month in a video posted in our Friday Links. The video features them on the route, but presumably from the previous record attempt.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Max Reichl and Heinz Zack)

LONDON, UK, (Team Geared Up) - This one wins all the prizes. Forget ascending Everest blind, as an amputee or even running the A-Z of Marathons, this is way cooler. Having tried to climb Mont Blanc myself (and getting white washed off in a snow storm) I have ultimate respect for them lobbing these gas cylinders up there.

These guys lugged a full jaccuzzi to the summit of Mont Blanc, re-constructed it, and then heated it at 4810m.

Check out all their photos on their site jaccuzzi.ch. Well worth seeing what they carried up.

Credit to GoBlog for the tip.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - As I posted on TGU in 2005, after hearing Simon Anthamatten speak at the Kandersteg Ice Climbing Festival about his 7 new lines on the Eiger North-face in one summer and seeing him climbing I was truly taken by him. Amazing character, although it helps if your ‘da is a Bergfuhrer!

Bren (mountaintraining.ie) has just reported that Simon and Michael Lerjen have just set a new record on the Matterhorn climbing from the Hornli Hut to summit in 1hr 40mins and returning in 53mins giving a total round trip on the Hornli ridge of 2hrs 33mins. Normally this route takes 7-9hrs for a fit experienced climber. This is sensational.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Matterhorn Hornli Ridge from Zermatt, by Robin Blandford)

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - RTÉ News say surfers in Lahinch, Co Clare, have broken the World Record for the largest number of surfers to ride the same wave simultaneously. The record was broken at around 5.45pm by 49 surfers.

The record attempt was watched and adjudicated upon by officials from the Guinness Book of Records.
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The previous record was also set in Lahinch last year.

On that occasion 44 surfers were involved.

When you see the wave above - you got to wonder, does it actually qualify as surfing?!

-Robin-

(Image Credit: Photo by Rotten Richie of the 2006 attempt in Lahinch)