Mountain Fueler, Paul Haigh, becomes the first person to finish the 125m Founders Round in sub-30h

On Saturday 25th May, Paul became the fourth person ever to complete the round and the first person to break the sub 30h barrier. His time of 28 hours and 38 minutes chopped off over four hours from the previous record set by local Calderdale running legends, Pete White and Rhys Kift in 1991.

What inspired Paul to take part in such a challenge?

In the summer of 2019, Paul's friend Mark took his daughter, Phoebe, to the doctor. Phoebe was 8 at the time. She should be 13 this April. But she will forever be 8.

Phoebe was diagnosed with DIPG. Ultimately, this is a death sentence for a child. DIPG is a highly aggressive inoperable form of brain tumour. The disease is brutal with the cancer wrapping around the healthy brain stem, causing unimaginable pain. Every 9 days, a child is diagnosed in the UK and another family is destroyed by the absence of hope. What makes it more shocking is that treatment protocols have not changed in 60 years. The Astronaut, Neil Armstrong's daughter received the same diagnosis in 1962 that Phoebe received in 2019. They were offered the same treatment- radiation. It would provide a few months of improved symptoms but Mark and family were told to go home and create memories.

Phoebe sadly passed away on November 23rd 2019, a mere 3 months post-diagnosis.

To raise awareness of the disease, Paul began doing a series of ultra-running challenges. Previous to last weekend, he completed the Bob Graham round, broke the double Yorkshire 3 Peaks and Dales High Way records, ran the Lakeland 100, and finished 3rd at this year's 108-mile Spine Challenger South.

Paul explained, "whilst I've done a number of challenges, at the beginning of 2023 I felt more needed to be done to raise awareness. Inspired by one of Kevin Sinfield's big MND challenges, I committed to three ultra challenges of at least 100 miles in distance. I called this 'Going the Extra 100 Miles.'

Whilst having completed many big challenges, the South Pennine 39 Trigs, or Calder Valley Founders Round as it's known now was something personal to me, hitting lots of my local training ground and finishing on Sowerby Crow Hill, a hill that stares at me on my daily dog walk. At 125 miles, it was 15 miles further than I've ever ran and it's a route that only 3 people have ever completed."

The route was devised by John 'Bod' Riley, one of the founding members of Calder Valley Fell Runners who at the end of the 1980s searched the 1:25,000 South Pennines OS map to find 31 trig points and 8 former trigs and thought it would be a great idea to run them all in one go. At the time, it was thought the approximate distance was 105 miles with 20000ft of elevation. In reality, it is much further.

The route was first completed on 30th June 1991 by fellow Calder Valley FR's Rhys Kift and Pete White and takes in some of the delights of the South Pennines including Stoodley Pike, Heptonstall, Haworth, and Top Withins, going as far as Halifax and Burnley.

Paul adds "to complete something like this, it has to hold meaning for you. As well as being massively important to raise awareness of DIPG for Abbie's Army, it seemed fitting to end the 'Extra 100 Miles' challenge on a route that was devised by the fell running club I count as my family and in an area that I call home. It also felt like fate that it had not been run for nearly 10 years and comes almost a year since Pete White, who was involved in the initial completion of the round and was an inspiration to many fell runners in the area, passed away."

Paul continues "my ultimate aim is to raise national awareness of DIPG. One of my heroes, Sir Kevin Sinfield said of MND that it cannot be right that in this day and age there is no cure. Just like MND it cannot be right in this day and age that we are devoting so little funding to research into DIPG, something that can potentially leave our children facing a death sentence. Most other dangers in life are either controllable or preventable."

To find out more about DIPG visit https://www.abbiesarmy.co.uk

To find out ore about Paul's fundraising visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/paulhaigh100