The women's Land's End to John O'Groats cycling record has been broken

The women's record time for the Land's End to John O'Groats route has been broken by a Scottish rider Christina Mackenzie.

Mackenzie completed the 839-mile ride in 51 hours 5 minutes and 27 seconds over the very testing ride that goes over some of the UK's toughest roads, from Britain's most southern point in Cornwall to the most northern in Scotland.

Mackenzie, who is a swimming development officer at the Falkirk Community Trust, set off from Land's End at 8 am on Wednesday, July 28 with her finishing at 11:05 am on Friday, July 30.

If you would like to donate towards Mackenzie's fundraiser then visit her Just Giving page HERE.

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This beat the previous fastest time set by Lynn Taylor who has held the record since 2002 when she broke her own record set the previous year. Mackenzie beat that record by around three hours.

The 44-year-old was already known to be the fastest Scottish woman and the third-fastest woman in the world to ride the distance in 2019 with a time of 55 hours 17 minutes and 19 seconds. 

Mackenzie has been raising money for the Alzheimer Scotland charity with her latest record-breaking ride and has raised an amazing £7,600 with her incredible efforts. This isn't the first time she has ridden for charity either as she rode the London to Brighton ride for the British Heart Foundation in 2014.

In 2020 she won the Veterans Time Trial Association (VTTA) 12-hour national championships.

The city of Stirling resident spoke to Cycling Weekly after her failed attempt in 2019 where she spoke of how she struggled.

“On the descent to Inverness, during the second night after little food and just 20 minutes of sleep, sleep deprivation was kicking in. On the descent, which was touching 49 miles an hour, I actually fell asleep.

“It’s a couple of miles to descend. And it’s just nice, like smooth tarmac. I was on the drops nodding off and then waking up and going, "Uh oh."

But, even when the timekeepers knew she wasn't going to break the record MacKenzie pressed on thinking about all the money that she had raised up to that point for charity. Even though, by that point, she was hallucinating.