Damian Hall descends Great Shunner Fell during his attempt on the Pennine Way record. Photo: Bob Smith/grough

Endurance runner Damian Hall is on track to set a new fastest known time for running the Pennine Way.

On the final planned day of his challenge, he was almost 2½ hours ahead of the schedule that would see him breaking the record set just over a week ago.

Hall, who is running the 268-mile national trail north-to-south, needs to arrive no later than 10.45pm on Friday to set a new quickest time.

He set off from Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders at 6am on Wednesday, with the object of arriving at the finish ‘in time for last orders’.

After enduring two days of mixed and poor weather, his third day has been run in largely dry conditions with sunny intervals.

The runner, who is also collecting litter en route and is using the challenge as a fundraiser for Greenpeace, has been surviving on power naps in support vans. At the time of writing, he was traversing Black Hill in the Peak District, with the two remaining major hills, Bleaklow and Kinder Scout, to cross before arriving at Edale.

The Pennine Way record set by Mike Hartley stood for 31 years before John Kelly chopped 34 minutes off the record last week with a time of 2 days 16hrs 46mins, set by running the route south-to-north.

Inov-8-sponsored athlete Hall is running with minimal support because of the Covid-19 crisis, with small groups of pacers joining him on sections, and small numbers of helpers at refuelling stops at roadheads.

His progress can be followed on the Open Tracking website.

Footage from sponsors inov-8 from the second day