Anna Troup blew the field away at the Summer Spine Race earlier this month, but she says the real win for her was just making it to the start line!
The 55-year-old icon enjoyed a fairytale return to action by storming to a dominating overall victory, completing a hat-trick of wins after previous triumphs in 2021 and 2022.
But she wasn’t even sure she would be fit to take part in Britain’s ‘most brutal race’ after missing two years through injury and fearing she may never run again.
Six months of mending
Troup explained her thinking in an emotional Instagram post, saying: “You’d usually start with a finish line picture and then tell the story of the race. But the real win for me was getting to the start line.
“My foot (anterior calcaneum) properly broke in UTMB August 2022 and we all assumed some time in a boot, 6 months of mending and I’d be back out there.
“But that turned into 2.5 years of struggling to mend and at one point having to accept it might never mend and I might never run any distance again.”
Anna kept up her cardio fitness with rigorous daily sessions on the Wattbike while allowing her stress fracture of the foot to heal in time for what is widely regarded as ‘Britain’s Most Brutal’ endurance race.
Runners started from Edale in Derbyshire on Sunday, June 15, and were given a time limit of 156 hours to reach the village of Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish Borders. She did it in under 85.
Afterwards, she admitted it had been a “dream comeback”, but on her Insta she revealed just how tough the long road back to running had been.
Anna was ‘on the edge’
She said: “It hasn’t been easy. I was a runner, then I wasn’t. I had been super fit, I had to work out how to maintain it, whilst every year that passed made it harder as an older athlete.
“I had been part of a wonderful ultra community. Now I was on the edge – someone who had been a runner and had had success but was now part of history and not the present.”
Particularly tough was moving to the Lake District and being “surrounded by fells I couldn’t access” because of her injury.
The mental side of injury
She said: “The physical side of injury is hard. The mental side is really hard. People are kind but only those who have known long term injury can really empathise. Most didn’t understand how I could be broken for so long.
“I felt like I was constantly making excuses for not joining in. Hiking the TMB with friends in September 2024 was the start of coming back.”
There were setbacks along the way too.
Troup said: “I had a place in the Winter Downs 200. Instead, the new forces and the newly mending foot caused my 1st metatarsal to fracture. That was the end of any race hopes (again).
“In February 2025 more MRIs showed progress. I dared to hope. But my fabulous consultant sports physician, Jo Larkin @fortiusclinic was pretty clear. Recovery looks like a very long time. An even longer time!
“I couldn’t will my body to mend”
“Out went the Northern Traverse in April and I focused on the @spinerace . Less steep terrain. More bog. Less rock. Less need for full on speed and therefore less impact.
“Plus I love the @spinerace and all those involved. I knew they would look after me, whatever happened. Just because I wanted to race again didn’t mean I would race again.
“There is a point where mental determination doesn’t trump where you’re physically at. I couldn’t will my body to mend.”
In the end though, she didn’t just make the start line, she put in the performance of her life, and admitted it felt “so special” after fighting back from her injury. Who knows what the future holds now?
