Eloise Eccles: GB Athlete and Spine Challenger North Winner 

When Ellie set off on the first-ever Summer Spine Challenger North, she was seeking adventure and an opportunity to run for the joy of it. There was no goal of winning, even less so any expectation that it would be the catalyst for her entry to the 24-hour World Championships.

Ellie explains that her entry into running wasn’t like that of your typical athlete. Her love for ultrarunning came much later; her early years being spent mostly avoiding all things sport, despite having had quite an active childhood. 

“We walked everywhere. We lived in a small village, and even the local shop was about a four mile round trip. We also had big dogs that needed lots of daily exercise. I’d continuously try to excuse myself from PE though. Later, in my teens, my mum would sometimes convince me to jog the village loop with her. But it all stopped there.”

After putting an end to some ‘unhealthy habits’ around ten years ago, Ellie began running, and the short distances quickly became longer. She ran through her two pregnancies but running wasn’t really a focus. 

“When my eldest started school, I would run with some of the school mums and I remember one of them suggesting that I might be good at triathlon. For some reason, I thought that this was a brilliant idea. I bought a road bike, and sent a request to the local triathlon coaching club along the lines of, ‘Hi, I’d like to do an Iron Man next year,’ as you do. I could neither swim front crawl or ride a road bike!

“A very unlucky coach agreed to take me on, and we did a few sprint triathlons as a means of working towards the Iron Man. I quite quickly got strong on the bike, but the swimming was taking much longer to come together. Still, I guess I was doing okay, despite being last out of the water a lot of the time!”

In 2019, after much energy and time spent triathlon training, Ellie realised her heart wasn’t truly in the long bike rides that were needed for the upcoming Iron Man and decided to focus purely on running.