Experts say best form of recovery will be to stay active, process traumas and set healthy targets Most people would consider running a marathon the pinnacle of fitness – but not Russ Cook. The endurance athlete has just completed a 9,940-mile (16,000km) run along the entire length of Africa. While Cook told reporters that he was a “little bit tired” and in need of a strawberry daiquiri after completing his odyssey, scientists who spoke to the Guardian suggested the road to recovery could be rockier than he anticipates ..read more

Endurance athlete from Worthing says he is ‘just trying to soak it all in’ after completing 352-day, 9,940-mile run After sinking a strawberry daiquiri and a few beers and enjoying a reunion with his girlfriend after more than a year apart, Russ Cook, AKA the “Hardest Geezer”, who completed his 9,940-mile (16,000km) run along the entire length of Africa on Sunday, woke up feeling “a little bit frosty, a little bit tired”. And for once, the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing, West Sussex, who raised more than £700,000 for charity on his epic journey, was not pulling on his running shoe ..read more

The ultrarunner is famed for her achievements in long-distance events. Breaking 11 world records in a single competition may be her finest feat to date It’s a hot winter noon on a Monday and Camille Herron is asleep. She lies on a cot in a tent next to a flat dirt track. Lined with palm trees and white stone and desert grass, it loops two and a half miles along the lip of a large olive-green lake. Over the lake, towers a screen of steep mountains covered in bush scrub. It’s one resort among many in California’s Coachella Valley and the setting for Lululemon’s FURTHER event, a chance for 10 sel ..read more

Not only are more runners doing ultramarathons in their seventies and eighties, they’re also going faster On a bone-cold morning in November, Wally Hesseltine, far from his cozy California home, was lying prone in southern Illinois – beside a trail of crushed gravel – his right knee bruised and bloodied. The initial 95 miles of the Tunnel Hill 100 footrace had unfolded with the swiftness of a fleeting breeze. Brisk, beautiful miles under a collage of crisp autumn foliage. The 80-year-old hadn’t fallen once. But the last five miles presented a particular problem. They were all downhill. He coul ..read more

Courtney Dauwalter finishes 100-mile race in 15:29:33 Tom Evans, a former soldier, is first Brit to win men’s race Courtney Dauwalter smashed the course record in the women’s Western States – the worlds’ oldest 100-mile race – taking almost 80 minutes off the previous leading time. Meanwhile, Tom Evans, a former soldier, became the first Briton to win the men’s event. Arriving at a remote part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, 379 runners – who gained a place in the race by winning a lottery – set off from Olympic Valley, California, before finishing in Auburn, a city in Placer County tha ..read more

More meditative and less repetitive than road running, trail running offers fitness with a view. And the chances of injury are lower than you might expect Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Jumping over tree roots and slogging up steep slopes may not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but a growing number of Australians are pounding dirt instead of pavement, taking their exercise (and social lives) to the trails. You may have stood to the side for them while bushwalking, pausing patiently as cheery folk with strange little backpacks trot past. Or perhaps an algorithm has fed you some ..read more

Erchana Murray-Bartlett reaches end of epic journey from ‘tip to toe’ of Australia – smashing women’s record for consecutive daily marathons Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Months after starting out from the tip of Cape York, Erchana Murray-Bartlett is set to complete her 150th consecutive daily marathon in Melbourne on Monday, finishing a record-breaking journey through Australia’s eastern states. Murray-Bartlett set out in August to run more than 6,200km, raising money for the Wilderness So ..read more

Trail running events have rapidly expanded in the last decade but extreme weather is casting a shadow on the sport More than 5,000 people lined up for Ultra-Trail Australia (UTA) on the last weekend in October, making it the largest trail running event in the country and, according to the race organisers, the second-largest in the world. But the multi-day event, which includes 50km and 100km ultramarathons, nearly didn’t go ahead because of the sport’s vulnerability to extreme weather and climate change. UTA, which is owned by Ironman, was postponed in May after heavy rain, and the lead-up to ..read more

Sinfield’s former Leeds teammate Rob Burrow has condition 42-year-old will cover 60km a day in latest running challenge Kevin Sinfield will run seven ultramarathons in seven days in November as he continues his campaign to raise money and awareness to help people affected by motor neurone disease. This is the third challenge in as many years taken on by Sinfield, whose great friend and former Leeds Rhinos teammate Rob Burrow has the condition. Sinfield, 42, previously ran seven marathons in seven days in 2020 before running from Leicester Tigers’ home ground Welford Road, where he is defence ..read more

New models explain conditions that led to 21 runners dying at China event, and could help improve accuracy of future forecasts In late May 2021, 172 runners set out to tackle a 100km ultramarathon in north-west China. By the next day 21 of the runners had been killed by hypothermia after an unexpectedly intense storm brought freezing temperatures, strong winds and hail to an upland section of the course. Weather forecasts had predicted a cold front, but had not captured how extreme the conditions would be. There are no meteorological stations in the area and survivor reports are subjective, bu ..read more