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A woman was pulled out of an ultramarathon after she was bombarded with threats over fundraising for Afghan women and girls.
Sarah Porter had started Britain's most gruelling ultramarathon when organisers took the 'difficult decision' to withdraw her due to threats to her life, while she was running.
Ms Porter was a third of the way through the 108-mile Montane Winter Spine Challenger South endurance race when she was removed from the event due to the threats in relation to the foundation she was fundraising for, which helped women and girls in war zones.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, she said: 'I got a message saying there are threats coming in, and it's quite dangerous and they're talking about executing you.
'They were very serious threats. I burst into tears.'
Ms Porter is understood to have been the target of Taliban fighters since 2021, after managing to rescue 54 girls and women out of the Afghan capital Kabul, which was captured by the Taliban that year.
A risk assessment was carried out before the race, in which runners can be alone for hours in some of the UK's most remote moorland with their location tracked on the race's website, but it was deemed safe for her to participate.
However, she received a notification from the event organisers that 'the situation had changed', and her tracking device was disabled.
Sarah Porter had started Britain's most gruelling ultramarathon when organisers took the 'difficult decision' to withdraw her due to threats to her life, while she was running
When she got to the race's second checkpoint, she was removed from the course after the organisers consulted with her security team and 'everybody felt that that was the best solution'.
'My immediate feeling was just one of shame really,' Ms Porter told the Guardian.
She said: 'I really felt like I'd let down the girls that I was running for and I'd really kind of got this narrative in my head and psyched myself up that what I was doing was just so insignificant in comparison to what they're enduring.'
Ms Porter, an amateur runner, said she didn't hold anything against the organisers saying she 'can't do anything but respect them for the way that they dealt with things' and that it has 'made [her] more determined to carry on and continue doing [future races].'
Her GoFundMe page is still open for donations and has currently raised more than £50,000.
The organisers of the Montane Spine Race, which takes place on the mountainous terrain along the Pennine Way, from Edale in Derbyshire to Hawes in North Yorkshire, said: 'On Saturday the 10th [of January] we made the difficult decision to remove one of our participants from the race following a personal safety threat, we have been working with all the relevant authorities and believe there is no wider threat to other participants on the course.
'We understand that this is disappointing for the runner in question, but the safety of all our participants is always our primary concern.'
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