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NC man sets record by running up Grandfather Mountain in 30 minutes

A North Carolina man set a new record for a five-mile hill climb up Grandfather Mountain.

Johnny Crain ended his run with a time of 30 minutes and 18 seconds.

“It feels good,” Crain said. “Just the challenge of it. I just raced two days ago in Atlanta and I was going to end my season. But then I was like, ‘Why don’t I do just one more extremely hard effort?’”

The previous record, 30 minutes and 35 seconds, was set in 2005 by Ian Connor.

The climb, named "The Bear" sends approximately 800 runners up the steep switchbacks beginning from Linville and ending at the mountain’s summit.

The annual race is a kick-off for the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games held in MacRae, N.C.

“Coming through the halfway point during the Highland Games, that was really a big motivator,” said Crain, who runs with ZAP Fitness in Blowing Rock.

Boone resident Amanda Lopiccolo, 34, was the first woman to cross the finish line with a time of 38 minutes and 45 seconds.

The race was her first Bear, also serving as something of a welcome to the High Country, as she and her family moved from Cary, N.C., to Boone only three weeks ago.

For all she’d heard about the race, though, the course lived up to her expectations.

“It’s brutal,” Lopiccolo said. “It’s everything they said it would be — and more. But it’s also rewarding.”

For more information about the Highland Games, visit their website.

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