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NC500 challenge runners go the distance for mental health


By Ian Duncan

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Sophie Dunnett from Thurso set up the NC500 challenge.
Sophie Dunnett from Thurso set up the NC500 challenge.

When a group of Highland runners had to cancel their plans to complete the Cateran Trail – which runs between Perthshire and Angus – they decided to run the North Coast 500 for charity instead.

Organiser Sophie Dunnett, who has run an endurance coaching business called Performance Endurance Training (PET) for the past three years, said around 60 runners took part in the virtual challenge which took a week to complete.

She said she had to cancel a number of planned training camps throughout 2020 and when it was decided to cancel the trail run, which covers a distance of 56 miles and would have taken three days to complete, she told the runners that she would organise an alternative challenge.

Mrs Dunnett, who lives in Thurso, said there were teams in Caithness, Ross-shire and Inverness taking part.

She said: "I planned out the NC500 Challenge for the original group of runners but then having decided to raise some money for Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), opened it up to other runners in teams of up to 10 to take part.

"The 515 miles of the NC500 was divided into 42 stages ranging in distances from 2.7 miles to 23 miles. The 60 runners who entered had to complete all of the stages virtually in a week within their teams and each team organised their runners and divided up the stages. Stages could be run or walked and teams were free to swap stages around as they needed to during the week."

Her original target was to raise £1000 but their fundraising page has already passed £4650.

She said: "We are all starkly aware of the impact Covid has had on people's mental health and as an endurance coach I am also aware of how many people use running and exercise more widely to combat mental health issues.

"It was an obvious choice for me and has provided to be a very popular choice with all of the runners and their family and friends who have been very generous in their donations."

As well as the Highland teams others also took part from as far afield as Aberdeenshire and London and Mrs Dunnett said: "The support between runners has been overwhelming.

"Runners from the same teams and from other teams have met up to run stages together, and for some runners who live remotely, they have run virtually together by speaking on the phones during their runs.

"It has truly been an opportunity to connect with others which is so much part of having a healthy outlook on life.

"Runners have also not made the challenge easy by using flat routes mostly on roads, but instead have used the challenge to explore their local areas and connect with less well trodden paths and trails, with some serious elevation undertaken by runners during their stages. Some runners who live on the NC500 also took the opportunity to run the actual stage.

"The challenge was brought to life by a disappointment in not being able to get a group of runners together for a multi-day ultra, but what was created in its place has reached out to more runners and has caught the imagination of many wider than the runners who undertook the challenge."

• To find out more visit: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/pet-nc500


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