British Army veteran completes ultra-marathon across Tanzania for military charity

A British Army veteran who completed an ultra-marathon across Tanzania hopes to take on another extreme challenge to raise vital funds to improve fellow veterans' mental wellbeing through cross-fit.

Tricia Sinclair completed the 250km five-day running feat called Ultra X Tanzania, which saw her traverse 3,700m up Mount Kilimanjaro.

Ms Sinclair served in the Army for 14 years between 2008 and 2022, an experience she said she will "always be grateful for".

She now works as the director of fitness for charity REORG, which helps rehabilitate veterans, military and emergency services personnel through functional fitness and jiu-jitsu.

Through the challenge, she hoped to raise £30,000 to allow 100 veterans and military and emergency services personnel to go through the charity's fitness programme – which uses cross-fit to improve health and wellbeing.

"I kind of went into it actually not even knowing if I would physically be able to finish the whole thing," the 37-year-old from Twickenham, London, said.

"Obviously I'd done the training and was hoping for the best, but I've never run that far before."

Despite never running "anything more than a marathon", she was the 10th overall female – with a time of 37.01 hours – which was based on the overall time taken to complete the feat.

Previously speaking to PA, she said: "The idea of leaving the service is massive, it's so daunting, it's petrifying, because the idea of transferable skills and surviving in the civilian world is massive.

"My transition has been made so much easier because, first of all, REORG offered me a job as a full-time member of staff, which has been amazing because it is surrounded around fitness, which I am massively passionate about, and it's supporting people that I've been working with for the past 14 years."

Ms Sinclair documented the ultra-marathon using a GoPro and particularly wanted to "capture the bits where I'm absolutely hanging out".

"It's funny because, on the first day, I was using the GoPro loads and was running with it a lot because I had bags of energy," she said.

"By day three, even just getting that GoPro out of my bag was such a hindrance – but I still caught a lot."

Ms Sinclair's fundraising page is still live and can be found here.