American ultrarunning legend Camille Herron created history many times over at the Lululemon ‘Further’ event in California.
In what was a new initiative from the activewear brand to demonstrate ‘how far women can go when they’re supported with resources and product innovations typically reserved for men’ Herron made many of the headlines.
The six-day ultramarathon began on March 6, with 10 women attempting to break their own records and – in Herron’s case – world records, with the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific using the event to advance women’s-first research.
They aim to answer questions that have never been studied at this scale, such as: Do female ultrarunners have more fatigue resistance? And what are the physiological limits of female energy expenditure?
‘Go as far as possible’
“A six-day ultramarathon with 1 rule: Go as far as possible,” is how Lululemon describe it – and that’s exactly what Herron did on a certified 2.6-mile / 4.18km looped course in La Quinta.
The 42-year-old already holds many national and world records but she added no fewer than 12 more to her collection as the graphic below shows:
Six-day mark
For a long time she also had the overall six-day world record – for women or men – within her sights.
That’s held by Yiannis Kouros of Greece at 644.23 miles (1036.79km) and has stood since 2005.
She needed to complete 248 laps of the course over the six days to achieve that and was ahead of schedule at halfway but in the end she reached 560.29 miles (901.71km), bettering the women’s world best of 549.06 miles (883.63km), set by Sandra Barwick back in 1990.
