Injured endurance man is coming back for more

GRITTY: Ben Hall clocks up the hard miles in the US.

EXTREME sports athlete Ben Hall is plotting his next gruelling challenge overseas, refusing to be put off by a painful experience in a scheduled 103-mile race through the Pennsylvania Wilds wilderness in the USA.

The South Anston-born sports fanatic has an incredible CV of high-risk competition, including running across the Sahara desert for six days and mountain climbing in Scotland's most dangerous peaks.But an injury half way through the Pennsylvania contest – in a heavily forested area famed by the legend of Bigfoot – forced the 43-year-old police officer to hobble out.

"America was tough, I injured my hip after around 15 miles," said the former Dinnington Comprehensive and Anston Hillcrest Primary School pupil."It got worse and worse, I got to mile 60 and could barely walk so had to retire there."The medics at the race said that it was a muscle strain in the hip flexors due to me not being used to the terrain."It was brutal ups and downs on rock. There is not really anywhere you can acclimatise to that sort of terrain unless you train in that area."It was a good experience but maybe it wasn't the best idea picking the hardest 100 miler over there for my first one!"It has made me more determined to go over there and do another one of the big ones next year but I need to build myself up more over here and see how it goes."Ben has started that process by taking part in a 55k race across the Peak District recently."My hip felt okay so I am going to start the training to look at another attempt next year but will probably be a different 100 miler in the States."