Map of the Via Alpina: a 2,000km trail through eight countries<\/a>Map of the Via Alpina: a 2,000km trail through eight countries.<\/p>\nWoods ran through the night to reach the finish line in Monaco on 1 August, shuffling into the glitzy city-state exhausted, and grateful she and her team were still in one piece.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve used up everything \u2026 so it just was a sense of relief I don\u2019t have to run any more,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
The journey had taken her a remarkable 28 days, 17 hours and 59 minutes \u2013 smashing the previous record of 35 days and 21 hours set by British runner Jake Catterall, and beating Dutch runner Tessa Caspers\u2019 previous best women\u2019s time of 38 days.<\/p>\n
The record, Woods says, also belongs to her team: \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty massive thing to ask of anyone, and I\u2019m just so grateful to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realisations and inspiration<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Woods showed little interest in running as child. After moving to the UK, aged 20, she started running to improve her health, initially managing just 15-minute jogs.<\/p>\n
As her habit grew, she began running 10km races, which soon escalated to marathons. During the week, Woods worked at a hair salon, while her weekends were spent seeking out mountainous trails. After 16 years in London, she bought a camper van with her husband and spent the next seven years travelling Europe\u2019s mountains, before eventually settling in Andorra.<\/p>\n
Sophie Woods tries to catch a nap while completing her 2,000km odyssey. Photograph: Zoe Salt\/Zoe Salt @Zoe_salt_photography<\/p>\n
Woods has competed in dozens of premiere races, including running the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (a 170km mountain race) six times, the Tor des G\u00e9ants (an extreme 330km endurance event) and more, over the past decade.<\/p>\n
But by 2025, her joy in running started to wane. After several years attempting IVF treatment, Woods and her husband had to come to terms with infertility. As a result, each race felt like she was \u201cjust going through the motions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really struggling with the fact \u2026 that my life wasn\u2019t going to look different, that I wasn\u2019t going to be changing nappies and doing school runs,\u201d Woods says.<\/p>\n
On seeing his wife struggling, George Woods suggested they focus on a new challenge \u2013 Woods running the Via Alpina, with him as crew. The endeavour would have a profound effect on her love for the sport and her sense of self.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had come from a place with the IVF where I was not particularly in love with my body,\u201d Woods says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut my love and respect for my body, and what she can do for me now, is just so much more. What she allowed me to achieve, in a way that was joyful \u2026 I just have so much more respect for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since completing the trail, Woods has been flooded with messages from girls and women around the world who want to try a 5km run or push themselves further. Her Instagram account has gained more than 55,000 followers in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Woods \u201cnever thought\u201d she would be in a position to inspire others and the widespread interest in her feat has come as a surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the trail-running world, these things seem a lot more normal,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it has blown up, and you start to understand that what you\u2019ve just done is not normal at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of weeks into her record-breaking 2,000km run through Europe\u2019s alps, Sophie Woods feared she might die.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-115456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117093834868802976","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}