Though girls’s participation in ultrarunning is on the rise, there may be nonetheless surprisingly little recognized about many female-specific physiological challenges confronted by ultra-endurance athletes. The just lately launched Ladies’s Well being Programme goals to alter that by bringing a data- and science-driven change to the way in which females strategy the game.
Camille Bruyas, who was second on the 2025 UTMB, is likely one of the elite runners concerned within the Ladies’s Well being Programme. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
By convening a discipline of medical specialists, researchers, {and professional} athletes, this system — created by Extremely Sport Science and supported by UTMB — will accumulate information at prime worldwide races to raised perceive feminine our bodies, with the objective of enhancing the security, well-being, and long-term participation of feminine athletes in ultrarunning.
The necessity for extra information and analysis is obvious. Based on information from the Worldwide Path Runners Affiliation (ITRA), feminine participation in path operating has elevated from 16% in 2007 to 30.5% in 2025. Nonetheless, few research look at the precise physiological and psychological components regarding feminine efficiency. As Dr. Stacy Simsan athlete, train physiologist, and diet scientist, typically says, “Ladies are usually not small males,” and extra analysis is required to grasp the variations. The Ladies’s Well being Programme goals to make use of scientific research, questionnaires, and athlete suggestions to raised perceive how feminine athletes function throughout endurance occasions. Key analysis areas will embody menstrual well being, being pregnant and post-partum, hormonal well being, and hydration and intestine points.
Blandine L’Hirondel, ending third on the 2023 UTMB, is considered one of a number of elite athletes concerned with the Ladies’s Well being Programme. Photograph: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Extremely Sports activities Science, the group behind the challenge, is a non-profit devoted to enhancing the well being and security of endurance athletes. Dr. Sandrine Nail-Billaudan ultrarunner and lead researcher at Extremely Sports activities Science, helps to coordinate the challenge. She explains that “the information will finally be used as a stepping stone for offering clear recommendation to the general public. We wish our information to be accessible to all athletes, no matter their degree, in order that they will apply these rules to their coaching and competitors.”
There are a number of elite athletes related to the challenge, together with French runners Marion Delespierre, Blandine L’Hirondeland Camille Bruyas. Delespierre, who can also be a sports activities doctor, will even be contributing to the programme. “These are points that I work with every day in my clinic,” she says, “so in fact they’re vital to me on each an expert degree and as an athlete. Accessing extra female-specific research will make approach for higher remedies and assist sooner or later.”
Marion Delespierre, who’s a sports activities doctor along with an expert runner, believes the Ladies’s Well being Programme will produce precious information. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
The primary 12 months of the Ladies’s Well being Programme will use the 2026 UTMB as an “open-air laboratory … enabling entry to a extremely various and consultant pool of athletes whereas permitting large-scale information assortment and cross-cultural evaluation.” Based on Nail-Billaud, this system will host a congress throughout the UTMB competition with classes open to each the general public and analysis specialists, throughout which specialists will current the outcomes of ongoing research on psychological well being, gynecological points, and digestive issues, together with video testimonials from athletes concerned in this system.
