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
t’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 select women to run as far as they can in six days.
Then in 2015, a lanky 5ft 9in runner from Norman, Oklahoma appeared on the ultramarathon scene. With an awkward gait, a wide smile, and an eccentric personality, Herron, a 2:37 marathoner, started an unprecedented streak. In 2017, she became the third American to win the Comrades Marathon, a storied 55-mile race in South Africa, and in 2023 won the Spartathalon, a 153-mile ultramarathon in Greece. She is the first athlete, male or female, to win both.
But the six-day mark was still out there – Barwick, 1990, 549 miles. As Herron slept during the day on Monday, questions started popping up on running forums and Facebook groups. “Bell lap!” wrote ultrarunning veteran and stats master Mike Dobies. “Did she save enough for a final push?”Loving all of the official photos coming in too - they’ve captured some amazing moments for all of the athletes.The push comes at 2.30 in the afternoon.
All through the night she keeps up the fight and at 3.30am Herron crosses the invisible threshold: 550 miles, a new world record, the Biggy, the six-day. However, the International Association of Ultrarunners, which ratifies the six-day race, doesn’t call any marks past a 48-hour run a world record. In the IAU’s phraseology, her performance is simply a ‘best’.
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