IIt’s noon on a hot winter Monday, and Camille Herron is sleeping. She lay on a cot in a tent next to a flat dirt road. Lined with palm trees, white stones and desert grass, it winds for two and a half miles along the edge of a large, olive-green lake. Above the lake rises a steep mountain range covered with brush. It’s one of many resorts in California’s Coachella Valley and is home to the Lululemon FURTHER event, where 10 select women get the chance to run as far as they can over six days.
It was the penultimate day, her nap was long — five hours — and the queue timer was ticking — and Herron had less than 24 hours to complete the 48 miles. If she can hold on, she will break a record that has stood for more than three decades.
The six-day race was once the gold standard of what humans could endure on foot, predating cross-country races and the modern marathon. In the 19th century, thousands of spectators lined up to watch these “walkers” walk for six days—at the Empire Rink at PT Barnum Arena (where the MetLife Building in lower Manhattan now stands) and at fairs across the United States. They are popular in Europe and America, bringing better challengers and variety. The first six-day women’s game was held in Chicago in 1876. According to Davy Crockett of the Ultrarunning History website, “more than 300 women” participated in these nearly week-long events in the 19th century. In 1880, Haitian immigrant Frank Hart completed the 565-mile journey in six days, “stunning the crowd at New York’s Madison Square Garden.” He won $21,567, which is equivalent to $679,000 today.
What followed were accusations of cheating, poisoning, the rise of bicycles and the final coup de grace – baseball. The 1980s saw a resurgence in time trial ultramarathons, and the men’s six-day record was broken for the first time in a century. But it seems the high water mark has been reached. No one has come close to Yiannis Kouros’ record of 645 miles in 1988 and Sandy Barwick’s 549 miles in 1990, the men’s and women’s records respectively. “Their record proved to be completely resistant to those who came after them,” said former Pan American race director Jesse Riley.
Then in 2015, a lanky 5-foot-9 runner from Norman, Oklahoma, showed up on the ultramarathon circuit. With an awkward gait, a bright smile and an eccentric personality, Herron, a 2:37 marathoner, set out to set an unprecedented record. In 2017, she became the third American to win the Comrades Marathon, South Africa’s famed 55-mile race, and in 2023, she won the Spartan Dragon, a 153-mile ultramarathon in Greece. She is the first athlete, male or female, to win both titles simultaneously. In the same year, she ran 270 miles around the 400-meter track in Bruce, Australia. She completed the task in 48 hours, not only improving her time but becoming the first woman to hold American men’s and women’s records in distance running.
When the FURTHER event began last Wednesday, Herron was already the holder of multiple world records from 50 to 250 miles. A small crowd gathered under four stage lighting towers and a row of orange and white tents. The 42-year-old woman wore sunglasses and had a water bottle tucked into the crotch of her shorts. On the first day, she drank a bottle of Coca-Cola and ran 133 miles. The next day, she ate tacos and added another 113 miles. On March 8, International Women’s Day, she broke the American women’s 48-hour road record. More will follow.
Every time she broke a record, Herron would open her arms and point to the sky, as if to say, “Isn’t this incredible?” In fact, she was openly in awe of what she was doing, which sometimes made her a target in the ultrarunning community . Her whimsical pregame mantra of “let the magic happen” only made this worse. But it’s hard to argue with those numbers. The numbers and records kept piling up: a new 300-kilometer mark, a US 48-hour road record, a new 300-mile road record, the women’s 500-kilometer world record, the women’s 500-mile. When she completed the latter, she danced around the starting line in her pink compression socks, giving high fives and hugs.
But the six-day record still stands – Barwick, 1990, 549 miles. On Monday, while Herron was sleeping during the day, problems began to arise on running forums and Facebook groups. “Bell rings!” wrote ultrarunning veteran and statistics guru Mike Dobies. “Has she saved enough money for the final push?”
The push time is 2.30pm. Herron got up and started moving, soon bringing cooler night air and more miles. But after a few turns, she veered off course again. Rest again. “Follow the routine,” she told herself: Run, eat, hydrate, sleep, and repeat. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to do this. As Christian Griffith once said of his run across America, the goal was “too close, but too long.”
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Now, close to 40 miles in 18 hours, Herron got up and moved, logging 15 minutes of mileage; for her, the pace of walking, the hardship of death. Then another stop. She was now in limbo, with the late ultrarunner Al Howie describing her in the Daily Super: “She’s dying… She’s back from the dead… She can’t survive.”
She kept fighting all night, and at 3.30am Herron crossed the invisible threshold: 550 miles, a new world record, Biggy, six days. But it’s not official. The International Ultrarunners Association sanctioned the six-day race but stopped short of calling the run over 48 hours a world record. There is only one best.
Heron soon dozed off, and the praise came fast and furious. “It’s just a matter of time,” said Trishul Cherns, director of the Global Multi-Day Ultramarathon Organization, which tracks ultramarathon statistics. “Camille’s performance proves that women entering the race can compete equally with men.” Crockett said she “is the greatest female ultrarunner of all time, both on the track and on the road.” Newsey Dutchman Barwick, whose record or “best” or achievement was broken by Herron, said she was “in awe of her speed.” A truly amazing performance, so brave and inspiring to all athletes. “
But Herron wasn’t done yet. As the sun rose over the Santa Rosa Mountains, she stood up again. One more push. Loop once more, then two, then three. She reached 900 kilometers, another record, and then it was over. This is followed by 11 world records recognized by GOMU and world best performances recognized by IAU. Either way, the number on the LED screen clearly showed 560.3 miles. Above is a single word in all caps: FURTHER.
