Helene Diamantides - Fell Running Achievements

Fell Running Achievements

In 1987 Diamantides completed her first Bob Graham Round (BG); which is to run 72 miles (116 km) over 42 Lake District peaks in under twenty-four hours. Later in the same year she and fellow fell-runner Alison Wright (who is the youngest woman to complete the BG) went to Nepal to attempt to break the Crane brother's record for running from Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu. This is a 167-mile (269 km) route which includes 32,000 feet (9,800 m) of ascent and 46,000 feet (14,000 m) of descent. Both women completed the route in 3 days, 10 hrs and 8 mins: twenty-four hours faster than the record and twelve hours faster than a team of Sherpas who were also attempting to set a new record.

In 1988 Diamantides competed internationally in a number of mountain races. She won both the women's events in the Mount Cameroon race and the Mount Kinabalu race; and she came third in the 100-mile (160 km) Hogger 'Super Marathon' in Algeria. In the same year she also set a new women's record for the BG: 20 hrs, 17 mins.

The next year Diamantides decided to attempt a feat of running no one had tried before. Her ambition was to complete in one summer all three of the classic British twenty-four hour rounds: the English Bob Graham Round, the Welsh Paddy Buckley Round, and the Scottish Ramsay Round. The first was the Paddy Buckley which was completed in 20hrs 8 mins; beating the men's record (held by Adrian Belton) by two hours. One month later Diamentides ran the Ramsay Round. She was then only the sixth person to successfully complete it and did so with a time of 20 hrs 24 mins. By coincidence Adrian Belton had also decided to attempt all three rounds that summer. In a spirit of camaraderie typical of fell running, Diamantides and Belton ran the final BG leg together. It took them 19 hrs 11 mins; which meant not only had Diamantides completed all three rounds in seventy-two days, but that she had also broken her own BG record by just over an hour.

Diamantides' greatest feat came in 1992. The 'Dragon's Back' was a new 220-mile (350 km) five-day race the length of Wales, taking in the some of the most challenging mountainous terrain the country has to offer. It was supposed to become an annual race, but because of its severity (the Swedish ultra runner Rune Larsson, who had once run 162 miles (261 km) in twenty-four hours abandoned any ambition to win the race by the end of the first day), it only occurred once. Diamantides entered the race with Martin Stone; she and Stone won the race in 38 hrs 38 mins. The extent of Diamantides' achievement can be seen by the fact that the strong all-male pairing of Mark McDermott and Adrian Belton came second with a time of 39 hrs, 10 mins (McDermott is one the greatest fell runners of recent years, having the distinction of running seventy-six Lake District peaks in 24 hours).