Running into Your Best Midlife with Anna Troup (Episode 267)

Hit Play Not Pause

Fitness, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.9 • 769 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2026

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond are crushing courses around the world. At a time when we’ve been preconditioned to believe we’ll slow down, many women are holding strong—or even improving. This week’s guest Anna Troup, 56, who has clocked many of her greatest ultrarunning feats since turning 50, is a perfect example. Last year she took first overall (including the men) at the 268-mile (430K) Montane Summer Spine race—Britain’s toughest ultra marathon—in 84 hours, 56 minutes, and 37 seconds. This after a 2022 injury that left doctors questioning if she’d ever run again. This week, we talk about her most recent feat: completing the Montane Winter Spine Race this past January in 106 hours, 19 minutes, and 12 seconds—through brutal conditions including gale-force winds literally blowing runners off their feet. We dig into her journey to ultras, how she trains, races, and recovers, her menopause experience, and why more midlife women should line up and give it a go.

Anna Troup took up ultra running in 2013 with the sole aim of completing the UTMB, which she did for the first time in 2014. Unexpected success followed, much of it after she turned 50, and she has since won and held course records for many of the UK’s toughest single stage ultras including the Arc of Attrition 100, the Lakeland 100, Exodus 100, Wendover Woods 100, the Oner and the Summer Spine and Winter Spine. She has run the women’s Fastest Known Time for the Pennine Way and was the first female British finisher in UTMB in 2022. Ultra running has been a family sport since the beginning and she normally competes with Richard Staite, her partner, whilst her two children can be found either running themselves or as volunteers in aid stations. She works as non executive director and has recently moved to the Lake District to be closer to the mountains she loves.

Resources:

Ultramarathon winner's 'tough and terrifying' race at BBC

How a 55-year-old woman won Britain's toughest ultra marathon outright at Running Matters

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:12.2	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help you feel and perform your best no matter what your
0:22.0	hormones are doing. This show is a production of feisty media.
0:27.3	Hello, strong feisty women. I hope you all are well. So, as I have said many, many times,
0:34.7	women really are built for endurance. Women in their 50s, 60s, and beyond
0:40.4	are crushing courses around the world. At a time when we have been preconditioned to believe
0:46.6	we'll all slow down, many women are holding strong or even improving. This week's guest's British
0:53.8	Ultra Runner Anna Troop is a perfect example.
0:57.8	Anna, who is now 56, took up ultra-running in 2013 with the sole aim of completing UTMB,
1:05.0	which is the world's most prestigious challenging 100-mile mountain ultramarathon,
1:09.8	which is held in Chamonie, France.
1:11.3	And she did that in 2014 and went on to clock many of her greatest ultra running feats since turning 50.
1:19.5	Last year, she took first overall, including the men, at the 268 mile, that's 430K, Montane's summer spine race, which is Britain's toughest ultramarathon,
1:31.5	in 84 hours, 56 minutes, and 37 seconds, and that was after a injury in 2022 that left her
1:38.7	doctor's questioning if she'd run again. This week, we talk about her most recent feat, completing that same montane spine race,
1:47.8	only the winter version, this January, in 106 hours, 19 minutes, and 12 seconds through brutal
1:55.5	conditions, including gale force winds, literally blowing runners off their feet. And while she is just something, we
2:03.6	dig into her journey into ultras, how she trains, races and recovers, her menopause experience,
2:11.2	and why she really thinks more midlife women should line up and give ultras a go. And I'll tell you, she really has
2:19.4	be inspired. I'm guessing she will inspire you too. I will put a couple of stories on her in the
2:25.4	show notes. I encourage you to check those out. Anna really is something. And just a couple of
2:31.3	clarifications. So you get even more out of this episode.
	...

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