{"id":117040,"date":"2026-08-18T16:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117040\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:09:07","slug":"i-fell-out-of-love-with-my-body-how-ultrarunner-sophie-woods-conquered-the-alps-and-overcame-ivf-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/117040\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I fell out of love with my body.\u2019 How ultrarunner Sophie Woods conquered the Alps and overcame IVF failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Woods has just run an FKT on the Via Alpina, knocking a week off the previous time and utterly dominating the 1,242-mile course. But speaking on the Runner’s World Podcast<\/a>, her motivation to attempt this record did not come from a place of competitiveness or record chasing, but from a place of healing.<\/p>\n

‘It really shook me not being able to have a child, because for my whole life I have used my body, through sheer force of will, to get to the finish of whatever I set my mind to.’<\/p>\n

A highly accomplished ultrarunner, Woods spoke openly about her struggles with IVF and how the desire to be a mum left her feeling lost. ‘\u200aI wanted to have a child and do nappies and school runs \u2013 and, you know, the idea of kind of showing up to the same races that I’ve always done was just… I felt like I was on autopilot.’<\/p>\n

One day, Woods’ husband suggested a change of scene from her usual racing schedule. The idea of running a record on the Via Alpina came up \u2013 and it captured her attention and desire to do something new and challenging. ‘\u200aI’d never been very interested in doing an FKT, to be honest, because I love racing fast women \u2013 but then this opportunity came [up] to run the length of the Alps and I thought, “How cool”.’<\/p>\n

And so Woods set off on 4 July 2026 from Trieste, Italy for what would be 28 days of arduous running \u2013 but what would also result in a much-needed sense of having achieved something spectacular for herself. ‘\u200aI was annoyed, I was angry, I was sad \u2013 all of those emotions. And doing this has just made me fall back in love with myself. You know, it’s made me go, “Wow, my body is incredible”.’<\/p>\n

Listen to the full episode here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Woods has just run an FKT on the Via Alpina, knocking a week off the previous time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,51951,51952,51955],"class_list":["post-117040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-fkt","tag-sophie-woods","tag-ultrarunner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117117384475649574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117040","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=117040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}