“It’s always nice when it’s over. The last few days have been difficult, the weather was bad, and then I got blisters,” said the new record holder after completing the trail. Even though she felt elated when she saw her 18-month-old daughter again, Kegl Vencelj was barely able to stand on her feet. She previously attempted to break the record four years ago but failed.

Her husband Toni Vencelj has always supported her in her endeavours: “I saw her blisters, they got worse every day, but thankfully they didn’t affect her performance. I know what she had to go through because I’m also an ultramarathon runner.” He asked his friends on social media to accompany her on the trail, and many of them obliged.

The Slovenian Mountain Trail takes hikers from Maribor through the Pohorje mountain range, the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, the Karawanks, the Julian Alps, the Karst Plateau, and down to the coast. The trail passes through 80 huts where hikers need to get a stamp to prove that they actually hiked the trail. It takes the average hiker several years to complete the trail.