14-time Ironman champion Lucy Gossage wins 431-kilometre ultramarathon
The Brit tackled the famed Spine Race for the second time, completing the brutal course in just under 88 hours
British triathlon champion Lucy Gossage won the 431-kilometre Spine Race ultramarathon through the U.K. early Thursday morning. Gossage is a 14-time Ironman champion, but in recent years she has transitioned to ultrarunning. In 2024, she raced the Spine Race for the first time, crossing the line in an extremely impressive third place. This year, she returned to the gruelling event and successfully climbed to the top of the podium.
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The Spine Race
The Spine Race is widely considered to be one of the most challenging and arduous races in the world. It is 431 kilometres long, taking anyone brave enough to attempt it along the entirety of the Pennine Way, a brutal trail that stretches from Edale (a town just east of Manchester in England) up to Kirk Yetholm (a village near the Scottish border).
The route is not only hundreds of kilometres long, but it also features more than 10,000 metres of elevation gain from start to finish. Runners have 168 hours to complete the race, which is non-stop (no stages, so competitors decide if they need rest and when to take it). As if the race wasn’t already hard enough, since it takes place in the winter, athletes face brutal weather, including snow, heavy winds, and rain.
Winning the Spine
Gossage had quite a successful career as a triathlete. In 2012, she won Challenge Barcelona (an iron-distance event), and a year later she won Ironman U.K. and Ironman Wales. She finished 10th in Kona in 2015 and ninth in 2016, and she won Ironman Lanzarote twice. She also won the famed Norseman Triathlon in Norway, a brutal race that tests even the toughest of athletes. She had tremendous success in triathlon, and after a lengthy career in the sport, she made the switch to ultrarunning.
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At the Spine Race, she had to chase down a fellow Brit, Robyn Cassidy, for the first half of the run. Cassidy built up a solid lead over the opening stages of the run, but an event as challenging as the Spine Race isn’t over until someone reaches the finish line. As the race wore on, Gossage slowly clawed her way back into the mix, eventually catching and passing Cassidy.
From that point on, it was all Gossage, and she powered forward with tremendous grit and eventually reached the finish, claiming the Spine Race title for 2025. In addition to winning the women’s race, she finished fourth overall, beating a number of high-profile men runners (including American ultrarunning star John Kelly). Gossage stopped the clock in 87 hours, 41 minutes, reaching the line almost seven full hours before Cassidy’s 94-hour finish.