Broken: 2020: the year running records were rewritten

'The emotional pain of failing just felt like it was going to be a bit worse than the physical pain of carrying on … '

Attempting to break long-distance running records used to be an underground endeavour, until the virus-stricken summer of 2020 came along. Only a few, such as the Bob Graham Round in the Lake District, had ever broken into mainstream consciousness. But an absence of running races thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented rise in the popularity of attempts ...