Sophie Woods Is Three Weeks Into Crossing the Alps on Foot, and the Overall Record Is in Reach

Sophie Woods is nearly three weeks into an attempt to run the length of the Alps, and she is on pace to cross faster than anyone has recorded on the route. Woods, a New Zealand-born ultrarunner who competes as Sophie Grant, left Trieste, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, on July 4, bound for Monaco, some 2,000 kilometers (about 1,240 miles) and eight countries to the west.

The line she is following, the 2024 Via Alpina, has been run under formal timing only twice. Jake Catterall set the overall record in August 2024 at 35 days, 21 hours. Tessa Caspers ran the fastest women’s time a year later, 38 days, 2 hours. The current course dates only to 2024, when the Via Alpina’s tangle of colored variants was folded into a single 2,000-kilometer line, so faster-sounding times from earlier years, including Karel Sabbe’s 30-day run in 2021, were set on a different and longer route. Woods has been covering about 63 kilometers (39 miles) a day, with roughly 3,600 meters of climbing, according to her team at Centurion Running, a rate that, if she holds it, would bring her to Monaco in around 30 days. That would beat the women’s record and Catterall’s overall mark as well. No woman has held the outright record on the route, and how far the endurance gap between men and women closes at these lengths is a question scientists have started to take seriously.

The Via Alpina is not technical mountaineering, but as long-distance trails go, few are more punishing. The 2024 version covers about 2,000 kilometers and climbs more than 109,000 meters (about 359,000 ft) in total, according to Centurion, crossing Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France and Monaco. Fastest Known Time, which ratifies these records, lists it as a premier route, meaning any claim requires a high standard of documentation. Woods is running supported, tracked by Garmin and crewed by her husband, George Woods, and a friend, Zoe Salt, who is filming along the way.

Woods is not new to long days in the mountains. She has finished the Tor des Géants, the 330K race through the Italian Alps, three times, placed in the top 10 at UTMB, won a UK skyrunning title and completed the Marathon des Sables. In January she was the third woman at the Montane Winter Spine, the 268-mile race along Britain’s Pennine Way in winter, finishing in 117 hours and 32 minutes on her debut. “It is the biggest thing I have ever done, and I’m super nervous for it,” she said of the Alps attempt before setting out.

The crossing sits on top of a harder story. Woods is one of two runners, with the Canadian Stephanie Case, at the center of Off Course, a 2025 documentary about elite ultrarunners trying to become mothers. The film, which screened at the Banff and Trail Running film festivals, follows both women through their races and through their attempts to start a family.

The hardest terrain still lies ahead of her: the high western Alps and the long drop through the Maritime Alps to the Mediterranean. Woods is posting daily to Instagram, and her position can be followed on Strava. If she holds her pace, she is due in Monaco in early August.