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.
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.
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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.
Christina Mackenzie riding LEJOG in record time
(Image credit: Cycling Weekly/Andy Jones)
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.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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