Every year in August, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc sets aside its quiet, albeit lively, ski-town reputation and becomes a hive of activity for runners from all over the world. For those unfamiliar with Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc 100M, the bright blue decor and massive overhead finish line arch might appear out of place in a French alpine town characterised by its quaint flower-adorned ski chalets and pastel-coloured buildings. But for Charlotte Lomas, Chamonix is a welcome sight at 3am after running for a gruelling 33 hours.
The 25-year-old says she remembers race officials and photographers standing near the finish line, but no medal was placed around her neck and no locals were cheering her on. The streets were asleep and her mind was reeling.
“Where do I go? What do I do?” she recalls thinking, as at the same time a wave of nausea rolled over her. She was greeted by her small crew comprised of friends Kate Verhoeven and Alice Zec just as her legs began shaking, she says, so she sat down and savoured the coolness of the hard concrete road seeping into sore muscles. Someone placed a hotdog in her hand. It was arguably the worst thing she had ever eaten. She remembers lying in bed an hour or so later thinking, “keep going, keep going, keep going.”
This is the reality of ultramarathon running.
“I was so happy,” she says of becoming the youngest woman to ever complete the 177km race. “I was struggling, it’s not to say it wasn’t incredibly hard, it was.
“Between 100 and 150kms, I was in a really negative head space. But I was still just so happy and so in love with what I was doing there was no question of whether or not I would drop out.”
When I started I didn’t think I had the right body type to run. I was looking up to a lot of women who were just stick thin, you know, not an ounce of fat on them.
The UTMB World Series encompasses 43 trail races held around the world and concludes in Chamonix every year where qualified runners can compete for a final placing in their respective race categories. The most prestigious of all, the 100-mile race traverses a landscape that rises and dips 10,000 metres across various alpine peaks through France, Switzerland and Italy. The race, which began in 2003, has grown in popularity and saw participation by women in particular sky-rocket last year, with some 7,200 people vying for an entry ticket.
A section of the trail. Photo by Charlotte Lomas.
Last year Lomas, who studied global health at university, finished 40th overall in a field littered with elite runners. But it was only a few years earlier she had taken an interest in marathon running.
The disability support worker began logging her runs on the Strava app for runners in 2020 and has since clocked up 6,479km on her profile, averaging 76km a week. She has so far completed eight ultramarathon races taking 105 hours and covering 654km.
According to Strava’s 2023 yearly recap, Gen Z is exercising less for health and more for athletic performance. Similar observations have been made in recent studies suggesting people often begin their running journeys seeking community and connection and end up competing as a way of exploring personal physical and mental limits.
Lomas’ running coach Cameron Kelsall says lockdowns played a massive role in encouraging outdoor exercise, and Lomas hesitantly admits she too began running, like so many others, during COVID-19.
Despite growing up playing hockey and basketball, Lomas says she didn’t believe she was cut out for running, and her perception of what an athlete should look like has come a long way in a short time.
“When I started I didn’t think I had the right body type to run,” she says. “I was looking up to a lot of women who were just stick thin, you know, not an ounce of fat on them.
“There’s better representation across elite fields now, particularly in women’s [sport], where there are a lot of different body types.”
Make sure you’re not running from your problems in your life.
Since running fire trails in the Blue Mountains near her hometown of Katoomba, Lomas has raced in Ultra-Trail Australia and Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko, hiked Etosha National Park in Africa, and signed up for mountaineering in Pakistan’s Karakorams.
She considers trekking the Gondogoro La mountain pass in Pakistan one of her proudest achievements.
“I just remember on the way down just being like, I’m gonna die,” she laughs, “like, this is so hard.”
Verhoeven says a combination of qualities have come together to make her childhood friend so good at what she is doing.
“She’s just so resilient,” Verhoeven says. “She’ll just keep pushing and she’ll just keep going with whatever she sets her mind to.”
For Lomas, personal goals and a sense of community go hand-in-hand.
“Make sure you’re not running from your problems in your life,” she says. “You might finish a race and feel really fulfilled for a couple of days or a week, but everything just comes back straight afterwards and it doesn’t work like that.
“Make sure you’re doing it because it’s something you really wanna do and, maybe, because you’re curious about where your limits are in your own body as well.”
Main photo of Charlotte Lomas supplied by her.
