Trail and error: This ex-robber uses ultra running to stop inner-city kids from following in his footsteps

With an uncle who was the criminal kingpin behind one of the UK’s largest-ever armed robberies, it was perhaps always inevitable that John McAvoy would spend his best years behind bars. But a chance meeting in a prison gym allowed him to turn his life around. Now he tells Jim White about his crusade to stop other inner-city children from repeating his mistakes

From Belmarsh to Mont Blanc: John McAvoy used his time inside to get in the shape of his life (Annie Bradney)

There was a moment during the premier screening of a new documentary called Alpine Run Project that had the entire audience chuckling. The film is about a dozen youngsters from inner-city Britain who this August competed in the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB), a race notorious for its scale and difficulty. The director had given a GoPro camera to Courtney, an 18-year-old who, before she put on her running shoes and took to the paths circumnavigating Europe’s tallest peak, had never before been out of Stockport.

“S***, it’s effin hard work uphill,” she pants as she toils up a mountain path. “Surely to God, we’ve got to be coming down soon.”

At which point the film cuts to her hurtling down some vertiginous scree.