For the U.K.’s Sophie Power, becoming the fastest woman to run across Ireland was about more than achieving a remarkable physical feat. Power made the 563-kilometre trek in a remarkable three days, 12 hours and eight minutes (taking more than three hours off fellow British ultrarunner Mimi Anderson‘s record, set in 2012) in the hopes of inspiring other women and girls to take on personal challenges.
“Chasing the record wasn’t what kept me going,” Power posted on Instagram post-run. “It was just the hope that other women and girls might see me striving and reconsider their own limits. Get a sprinkling of confidence to take on a challenge. Try something they might fail at to gain strength throughout their lives.”
Power was running in support of SheRACES, a global network she founded in 2022 that strives to create equalization for women in sports. Power made headlines in 2018 when a photo of her breastfeeding midway through UTMB (after she was unable to defer due to pregnancy) went viral. SheRACES later helped UTMB develop a pregnancy deferral policy, which they launched in 2023.
A family affair
Power began her journey in Main, the northern tip of Ireland, and had to log more than 100 miles a day to reach the most southerly point, Mizen Head, under the previous record time. Power was supported by a crew that included world-record endurance cyclist Kate Strong, Power’s husband, John, and her two sons, Dannacha and Cormac, who helped with live-tracking and gathering witness signatures to ratify her run with Guinness World Records.
Warm weather and physical suffering
Power charged through the initial stages of her run, hitting the 200K mark in under 24 hours, but the lack of sleep (less than two hours over the entire run) and warm weather began to take a toll. The hope of showing other women and girls that anything is possible kept her going through the low stages of the race, her crew reported on social media.
Post-run, Power’s recovery involved tending to very swollen feet and a knee injury she developed on day two due to the camber of the terrain. “Undercarriage cuts” were the worst pain of all, she wrote on Instagram. “..had me squealing on the last day and make it hurt to sit down still,” Power said.
A community of support
Power credited the outpouring of support along the route and on social media with helping her make it to the finish line. “All I can process is my overwhelming feeling of gratitude. By the end it felt like the whole of Ireland was behind me,” she said.
“So many people came out to run and support saying they were inspired by the message—I still have the sounds of all the schoolchildren in my head saying they want to run this one day!”
