Fitness fanatics from all over Britain are celebrating the centenary this weekend of one of the most audacious feats in Scottish mountaineering history.

Today marks the day, 100 years ago, when a Gurkha soldier scaled and descended a mountain in the Red Cuillins, on the Isle of Skye, in his bare feet in a stunningly fast time.

Harkabir Tharpa ran up to the summit of rugged 2573ft Glamaig mountain across a bog and through steep grass and scree in the summer of 1899. He arrived back at the foot of the mountain in just 75 minutes.

The time taken for the four-mile round trip by the soldier, who had gained his experience in the Himalaya Mountains in his native Nepal, so astonished local clan chief MacLeod of MacLeod that he refused to believe the estate gillies who told him.

The Gurkha was then persuaded to repeat the feat to prove that it was possible and knocked a further 20 minutes off his time.

The time for that legendary run in the summer of 1899 was not beaten until 1984, after a Glamaig Hill Race was introduced in the 1980s as an annual event.

Now some of the country's top fell runners, as mountain athletes are called, manage to complete the gruelling route in less that 50 minutes.

Today a team of four soldiers from the Gurkha regiment will join around 100 other runners in a race to commemorate Harkabir's achievement.

The race starts and finishes at the front door of the Sligachan Hotel.

Glamaig is the rugged mountain which lies above the village of Sconser.