At Further, Lululemon’s women’s-only six-day ultramarathon which concluded on Tuesday, Camille Herron ran 560.33 miles to break the 6-day women’s world record. Herron racked up a staggering 220 laps of the 2.56-mile course, averaging 93.38 miles of running per day, and bested the old record—Sandra Barwick’s 549.063 miles from 1990—by over 11 miles.
Participants start the Further event on Wednesday, March 6 Lululemon attempted to run the farthest distance of their entire careers on the loop course at Lake Cahuilla in La Quinta, California. To support the athletes, Further was put on in partnership with the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, with the goal of advancing women’s-first research and addressing the gender gap in sports science.
Nutrition - Weight Loss Leah Yingling, one of the top ultramarathoners in the U.S., who cranked out an impressive 157 laps (400 miles) as well as Montana Farrah-Seaton, who logged the third-most laps at 124, or 315.82 miles.
Herron posted on Instagram after the race, laying out the 13 records she set on her way to the 6-day (144 hour) record.
Coming into the competition, Herron was the women’s world 48-hour record holder (the third best performance in the world behind only two men) and the first runner to have won all three road Spencer, Boston Dog, Honored with Statue for 50K, 100K, and 24 hours.
Throughout the multi-day challenge, the 10 women were allowed to take breaks to eat, sleep, or accept help from their crews at any time, and there was no minimum quota for time or distance covered each day. Each athlete had individual aspirations for Further. Herron was curious to test her outermost limits and see what women are capable of as ultra endurance runners, whereas author and inclusivity activist Mirna Valerio had a goal of logging 12 hours of “joyful running” each day.
Further wasn’t just about supporting Herron and the other athletes on their long distance journeys, though that succor was beneficial. In a pre-race panel discussion, Herron said that in the year leading up to Further, she’s had the most support she’s ever had in her running career. “It shows in what I was able to do last year,” she said, referencing her 48-hour world record.
Beyond Herron’s success, there’s research coming out of the initiative. A 2014 audit of select sport science and sports medicine journals found that 4 to 13 percent of published studies were female-only, with around 90 percent of those studies using incorrect methods to review a woman’s menstrual cycle.
So in an effort to better understand female athlete performance, all of the Further athletes were involved in research for about a year leading up to the ultramarathon. Researchers also used various testing methods within the race, particularly looking at biomechanics, to explore questions like whether female ultrarunners have superior fatigue resistance to male ultrarunners, and analyzed the overall physiological and biomechanical effects of running for six days straight. Lululemon and Canadian Sport Institute Pacific aim to publish initial findings this fall.
DAA Industry Opt Out.
Abby Carney is a writer and journalist in New York. A former D1 college runner and current amateur track athlete, she's written about culture and characters in running and outdoor sports for Runner's World, Like the Wind Magazine, DAA Industry Opt Out, and other outlets. She also writes about things that have nothing to do with running, and was previously the editor of a food magazine.
