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Pippa Middleton Completes Grueling 47-Mile Swimrun Race For Charity

By Val Powell
Published on: 16:58 PST, Sep 9, 2015

Pippa Middleton, younger sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, completed the 47-mile course that had her running more than forty miles and swimming six miles in the Baltic Sea.

Middleton, alongside teammates James Middleton, James Matthews, and Jöns Bartholdson, finished the race in 13 hours, four minutes and 24 seconds.

In an interview with People magazine, Pippa Middleton said the 47-mile “swimrun” event “was one of the hardest things I’ve done.”

The ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship is one of the most challenging swimming and running events in the world. The race was unique and grueling in the sense that participants had to swim between, and run over, 26 of the archipelago’s 1000 islands. Throughout the competition, Pippa Middleton, one of the 240 participants, had to complete the challenging trail run in her wetsuit and go through the six-mile swim in the ice-cold Baltic Sea with her trainers on.

Middleton and Bartholdson finished 82nd in the overall race while her brother, James Middleton, and her friend, James Matthews, crossed the finish line right after them.

A lover of extreme sports and fitness challenges, the 32-year-old Pippa Middleton said she was “inspired” into participating in the race.

“I’m inspired by the scenery, the sense of adventure and sheer distance that’s involved — running 65km in a wetsuit and swimming 10km in trainers with hand paddles,” Middleton said in a Reuters interview.
The event, according to Middleton, is equivalent to “almost three Ironman swims and one and a half marathons.”

Pippa Middleton’s strong finish in the Sweden race is also a big triumph for the Michael Matthews Foundation.

The Michael Matthews Foundation is a charitable institution that builds schools for impoverished children in different remote locations around the world.

The foundation, established in honor of the late Michael Matthews, is being run by the family of James Matthews, Pippa Middleton’s ex-boyfriend.

Before she competed in the race in Stockholm, Pippa Middleton was seen practicing while she was vacationing with her family in St. Barts. James Matthews and her brother James Middleton were also with her during the trip.

In June, 2014, Pippa Middleton finished a 3,000-mile cycling race across the United States. Middleton, then 30, completed the race in six days, ten hours and 54 minutes.

Pippa Middleton joined the race as the lone female member of an eight-man team that included her brother James to help raise funds for charity.

[Image via YouTube]

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