Sky Runner Smashes 2 Speed Records in Ecuador and 4 More Stories to Start Your Week

This is GearJunkie’s weekly wrap-up of news in adventure and exploration. From the inspiring to the tragic, here’s some of what you missed and a few things to look forward to.

It was a remarkable week for speed records. 

First, Swiss-Ecuadorian sky runner, mountain athlete, and guide Karl Egloff broke the standing ascent/descent records for Ecuador’s Cayambe (18,996 feet) and Cotopaxi (19,347 feet) volcanos.

Egloff cliched the Cayambe FKT on Jan. 4, running 8 km (4.97 miles) and gaining 3,937 vertical feet in 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 51 seconds — breaking the standing FKT by 4 minutes, 9 seconds.

He then captured the Cotopaxi FKT on Jan. 7, running 5 km (3.11 miles) and gaining 3,609 vertical feet in 1 hour, 27 minutes, 33 seconds — a 9-minute improvement over the previous record.

Halfway around the world, Lithuanian ultrarunner Aleksandr Sorokin smashed through 100 miles in just 10 hours, 51 minutes, and 39 seconds at Israel’s Spartanion race on Jan. 6. He then established a new 12-hour world record, notching 110.24 miles in that time.

“This effort breaks his own previous world records of 11:14:56 for 100 miles and 105.825 miles for 12 hours,” reports iRunFar, “improving those respective records by about 22 minutes and about 4.4 miles.”

In case you missed the big news, Aleksandr Sorokin shattered the 11-hour barrier for running 100 miles, and set multiple ultramarathon world records, at the 2022 Spartanion race in Tel Aviv, Israel yesterday.

Catch up on all of it below. https://t.co/smR5VMlzTc

— iRunFar (@iRunFar) January 7, 2022

On Jan. 3, polar explorer Preet Chandi completed her 700-mile, 40-day solo trek to the South Pole. The 32-year-old British Army officer of Indian-Sikh heritage said that she hopes it inspires others to push their boundaries regardless of their ethnicity or upbringing.

Chandi also leveraged her effort to raise seed funding for a women’s adventure grant program. “You are capable of anything you want,” Chandi wrote at the end of her trek. “No matter where you are from or where your start line is, everybody starts somewhere.”

 

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A post shared by Preet Chandi (@polarpreet)

The first annual All In Ice Fest kicked off in Ouray this weekend. From Jan. 7 to 9, ice climbers from Black, Indigenous, BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and adaptive communities gathered at the fabled ice park for climbing and clinics.

SCARPA and its Athlete Mentorship Initiative are credited with providing All In Ice Fest with foundational resources and support. Follow @allinicefest on Instagram for a recap.

And The Conservation Alliance has announced its Outstanding Partnership Awards for 2021. Grayl, Oboz Footwear, and Bank of the West were each recognized by the foundation for their efforts to protect wildlife and wild places throughout North American.

Members of The Conservation Alliance support more than 50 grassroots conservation organizations every year through their membership dues, which go directly into the Alliance’s grant fund. To learn more about the membership process, visit conservationalliance.com.

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