A drug that’s very safe and healthy‘: what ultrarunners can teach us about life

Caitriona Jennings ran 100 miles in just over 12 hours and wants other women to follow her example – ‘it’s not actually that difficult’

Caitriona Jennings, a 45-year-old ultrarunner from Donegal, broke the women’s world record for 100 miles.

Imagine being able to run a marathon in three hours and 17 minutes. That is certainly no mean feat. But now think about trying to sustain that same pace for another nine hours. To most of us, the idea veers somewhere between the fantastical and the insane. Yet that is what Caitriona Jennings, a 45-year-old ultrarunner from Donegal, did this month when breaking the women’s world record for 100 miles.

Her time for the Tunnel Hill 100 Mile in Illinois was 12hr 37min 4sec – an average pace of 7min 34sec a mile. Incredibly, until then Jennings had never run more than 60 miles in one go. Having smashed the record, she then jumped on a red-eye economy flight from Chicago that landed in Dublin at 5am. Then she cycled straight to the office, where she works for a company that trades and leases planes to global airlines.