Each of our Gear Research and Innovation Division (GRID) athletes brings unique insights from their ultra-running exploits. Today we get the inside line from the 24hr Running World Championships, courtesy of GRID and Team GB athlete Robbie Britton.
Photos Courtesy of Geoff Lowe @geofflowe
“There’s one event that stands out in the world of ultra-running as the best and it’s not the one you would expect, or the reasoning either. ”
The 24hr Running World Championships happens every two years and this year was my seventh time toeing the start line for this global extravaganza of running in circles. The years I’m not on the start line myself I’ve been in the tent supporting my team from the other side of the crew table.
The reason this event stands above all others, on both road and trail, is that it truly is a team event. It’s not just the crew that are absolutely integral to a peak performance, but your fellow compatriots that wear that same kit and set off with all their hopes and dreams of a big total with you.
In any other event in our sport you are an individual battling for your own position. We have team scores in 50k, 100k, mountain and trail championships, but whilst those team battles might get you through a tough spell or help an athlete wring the last squeeze of juice from the lemon that is an 80km race that didn’t go to plan, you rarely help each other.
And this is where 24hr Championships stand out. Don’t get me wrong, individual 24hr races are weird as fuck. In a Champs race it is the combined total of your three best runners that is the team score, but you can have six runners on the start line. Such is the nature of the beast, on a good day 50% of the team will be okay.
The European Champs in 2016 the GB&NI team were in Gold medal position and were penalised for one of their runners getting up from the physio table on a monumentally bad day and pacing his team mate who was the third scorer at the time.
In the heat of the battle it was decided by the local officials that wasn’t allowed. No prizes for guessing which team was in silver and went on to win…
Fast forward to 2025 and every team there gets it. Every team is now a team. Broken men and women, their own dreams shattered, stand tall and push beyond their own limits. This isn’t for a PB, they know that went out of the window after the 14th stop in the toilet and when their right leg stopped doing what they asked in hour 17. This is for a team mate. This is for their national team.
The British team were a shining example with Sarah Webster and Kelsey Price working together for hours on the 1.5km loop. The previous British record holder Joasia Zakrzewski and fellow teammate Ali Young selflessly ran lap after lap in front of third scorer Sophie Power, to make sure she wasn’t alone in her hours of suffering.
The British women’s team won gold. That Gold was heavily boosted by Webster’s overall win and new world record, but it wasn’t possible without Price and Power’s total in support. Even beyond the scoring three, the team supported each other with experienced team member Jen Coleman battling alongside with the sole purpose of letting her team mates know she was suffering with them.
“Ultra running is a solitary sport and 24hr running can be the loneliest at times. No crowds are out to watch you run around a park at 3am in a normal event. The European and World Champs are always different.”
This might not inspire you to try a 24hr race, you might be too smart for that, but there are lessons we can all learn to make ourselves better athletes.
The primary one being around just how much deeper you can dig with a purpose, especially one beyond yourself.
If your own racing is just about you, just about a time or a position, then when it gets tough those can be your only focus as they slip from your hands. You can’t always invent a team focus, nor can we all run in a world champs, but supporting those around you can still bring it’s benefits (beyond being a nice human being).
When we look to others who need our help our own brain is reminded that things could be worse. It changes the perception of our effort (in the same way the opposite happens when someone flies past us).
Whatever your distance or event, being part of a tribe will make you stronger. It can fill you with a sense of belonging, a greater purpose and one more reason to go that extra mile when your heart is leaping out of your chest.
The future of ultra-running feels like it’s drifting more and more towards the trails and with good reason, there are beautiful landscapes, challenging terrain and some of the best events in the world. But road ultra-running still has a future and it’s bright.
From Comrades to Passatore and Spartathlon, via Badwater and every road 50k and 100k around the world, the tarmac allows athletes to push the paces and the limits of human endurance.
There’s 100 different reasons to try (and not to try) a 24hr running event, and it might just be the strangest format in the world of ultra-running, but when it comes to the Championships, it’s also the greatest.
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