Mount Everest to Antarctica: The woman who does record-breaking obstacle races in the most ‘extreme’ places on Earth

After being awarded the Guinness World Record for completing an obstacle course almost halfway up Mount Everest, a 34-year-old woman from Poole has her sights set on completing a world-first polar obstacle course in Antarctica this December.

Dr Becky Neal, principal lecturer in exercise physiology at Bournemouth University, has been taking part in obstacle course races for around a decade, progressing from local events to European and World Championships, and even taking on challenges in the most testing places on Earth.

Becky took part in her first obstacle course race around ten years ago, an event that came her way almost by chance. In the years that followed, she has gone from casual involvement in the sport to being one of the best obstacle course athletes in the world.

She is now head of obstacle course racing at British Obstacle Sports and is preparing to be one of the first people ever to take part in an obstacle course race near the South Pole.

“I’ve done high, I’ve done hot, so now I want to complete the trilogy with the polar,” Becky told PA Real Life.

Becky’s first foray into obstacle course racing happened almost by chance: she was doing her PhD in Portsmouth and her supervisor’s friend had a spare ticket for The Nuts Challenge, an obstacle race that takes place in Surrey, which Becky accepted on a whim.

“I’ve always been excited by adventures and challenges. I grew up quite a sporty person, doing running and gymnastics – I did running since I was eight, I did 15 years of gymnastics. And, really, it’s hard to combine those sports,” Becky said.

“But, actually, obstacle course racing is the perfect combination of running and gymnastics. So I had a good background, which set me up well…

“I just turned up on my own. Did it, had a really good time and then started looking at ways I could do more of it.”

From there, Becky signed up to more races, joining a club team called Nuclear Phoenix and representing them at races as part of a league series. Over the years, she has competed in European and world championships as well as smaller, local events, has been on the TV show Ninja Warrior twice and has taken on some incredible one-off challenges, too.

“There’s loads of different things,” she said.

“I’ve done more extreme ones, including a 70-kilometre ultra obstacle course race in the desert in Saudi Arabia in 2024.

“100% on sand, that was 120 obstacles and 70 kilometres.”

In 2022, she was awarded the Guinness World Record for the greatest ascent and descent on an obstacle course race, when she completed a course 3,019 metres up Mount Everest.

“We walked slowly over 12 days to get up to Base Camp, and then the race started at 6am,” Becky said.

“I had, like, zero hours sleep, it was minus 20 degrees. You’ve got half the amount of oxygen, basically, and you’re going up higher than Base Camp with obstacles – carrying heavy bags of rocks, going over walls, doing monkey bars…

“Then I ran about 48 kilometres down, although there was quite a lot of elevation gain … that took four times as long as it normally does for me to run because it was so technical,” she continued, adding the run took her around 12 hours, almost quadruple her road marathon personal best of three hours, five minutes.

“I was just running on my own in the middle of the Himalayas, which was quite daunting, but also very, very beautiful.”

Now, Becky has her sights on another world first – a polar obstacle course in Antarctica. Taking place on Union Glacier in western Antarctica, the course is 10km long, all on ice and snow, and involves ten obstacles.

“There’s things like ninja steps, there’s monkey bars, there’s rings,” Becky explained.

“We’re doing an ice wall, so we might use ice axes to do that. There’s also some carries, so carrying a heavy block of ice, or pushing or pulling an actual sled, like you might do in an expedition … The classic kind of challenges on grip strength, balance, agility and power.”

Becky and the other athletes tackling the course will not only face extreme cold and testing conditions, but they will also need to acclimatise to the polar day. As the obstacle race is happening in December, close to the solstice, the team will have to deal with almost 24 hours of daylight while sleeping in tents on the glacier.

While the feat is just a few months away, Becky is still wrapping up her summer competitions: when she spoke to PA Real Life, she was just days out from the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. She is training by running, going to her local bouldering gym and working out at obstacle training centres.

“I also have a rig in my garden that’s basically like a giant set of monkey bars with different attachments connected to it, so I can practice some of the more specific skills at home,” Becky added.

However, Becky’s feat is not just about breaking records and completing a world-first – she is also using the opportunity to raise money for Women’s Aid, a charity close to her heart.

She hopes her completion of an obstacle race in one of the most hostile environments on earth will act as a physical metaphor for “the obstacles that women encounter every day” and is raising funds for the national charity that works to end domestic abuse against women and children.

Supported by Huel’s Limit Seeker Fund – which helped The Hardest Geezer Russ Cook when he ran the length of Africa, among other extraordinary athletes – Becky hopes to make this impossible-sounding feat a reality and to inspire others to push their limits and see what they can achieve.

“It was an idea in my head and I wasn’t going to do much about it because it seemed too impossible, too big. And then I saw the Limit Seeker Fund… I literally just submitted an application and then I was lucky enough to be awarded one of the Limit Seeker places.

“I thought: ‘You know what? I can do this’.”

Find out more about Becky’s Polar Challenge and donate to her fundraiser here: https://limitseekers.huel.com/fundraising/thepolarchallenge