Women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond are crushing courses around the world. At a time when we’ve been preconditioned to believe we’ll slow down, many women are holding strong—or even improving. This week’s guest Anna Troup, 56, who has clocked many of her greatest ultrarunning feats since turning 50, is a perfect example. Last year she took first overall (including the men) at the 268-mile (430K) Montane Summer Spine race—Britain’s toughest ultra marathon—in 84 hours, 56 minutes, and 37 seconds. This after a 2022 injury that left doctors questioning if she’d ever run again. This week, we talk about her most recent feat: completing the Montane Winter Spine Race this past January in 106 hours, 19 minutes, and 12 seconds—through brutal conditions including gale-force winds literally blowing runners off their feet. We dig into her journey to ultras, how she trains, races, and recovers, her menopause experience, and why more midlife women should line up and give it a go.

Anna Troup took up ultra running in 2013 with the sole aim of completing the UTMB, which she did for the first time in 2014. Unexpected success followed, much of it after she turned 50, and she has since won and held course records for many of the UK’s toughest single stage ultras including the Arc of Attrition 100, the Lakeland 100, Exodus 100, Wendover Woods 100, the Oner and the Summer Spine and Winter Spine. She has run the women’s Fastest Known Time for the Pennine Way and was the first female British finisher in UTMB in 2022. Ultra running has been a family sport since the beginning and she normally competes with Richard Staite, her partner, whilst her two children can be found either running themselves or as volunteers in aid stations. She works as non executive director and has recently moved to the Lake District to be closer to the mountains she loves.

Resources:

Ultramarathon winner's 'tough and terrifying' race at BBC

How a 55-year-old woman won Britain's toughest ultra marathon outright at Running Matters

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