Sophie Grant Breaks the Via Alpina Record Across the Alps

2,000km. Eight countries. Almost 29 days on her feet. Around four hours of sleep a night. A new Via Alpina Record.

On 4 July, ultrarunner Sophie Grant left Trieste with an ambitious goal: to traverse the entire length of the Alps on the Via Alpina.

Twenty-eight days and 17 hours later, she arrived in Monaco having covered around 2,000km and climbed the equivalent of going from sea level to the summit of Everest 12 times.

In doing so, Sophie didn’t just smash the existing women’s Via Alpina record by more than a week. She also broke the men’s Via Alpina record, becoming the fastest person ever to complete the route.

Speaking to Mel Berry on the VOOM Performance Podcast, Sophie revealed what it really took to keep moving day after day through extreme heat, storms, technical Alpine terrain and relentless sleep deprivation.

Why Sophie Grant Chose the Via Alpina?

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

For Sophie, the appeal was partly in the sheer scale of it. When her husband George suggested the Via Alpina, the opportunity to travel through eight countries and explore mountains she had never previously seen immediately caught her attention.

But more importantly, she wanted to attempt something where the outcome wasn’t guaranteed.

“I wanted to explore doing something entirely different that I had never done before.”

After racing everything from 5Ks and vertical kilometres to 330km mountain races and the Winter Spine, Sophie wanted a challenge that couldn’t simply be approached like another race.

The Via Alpina offered exactly that: big days, repeated week after week, with no certainty that her body would continue to respond.

How Sophie Grant Tackled 2,000km Across the Alps

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Thinking about 2,000km would have been overwhelming, so when Sophie left Trieste, she deliberately refused to think about Monaco. Instead, the challenge became much smaller: get through today.

Her first day was around 67–70km. Tomorrow didn’t matter until today was finished. That mentality would become increasingly important as the days accumulated and sleep disappeared.

Sophie averaged only around three to four hours of sleep a night. There were occasional six-and-a-half-hour nights, but also nights of around two hours. Before the final push, she slept for just 90 minutes.

Rather than allowing herself to reach the point of serious sleep-deprivation hallucinations, she would occasionally take short trail naps or grab ten minutes in the van when she found herself weaving or trying to run with her eyes closed.

Extreme Heat, Storms and Technical Alpine Terrain

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

The Alps threw almost everything at Sophie and her crew. One of her least favourite days involved spending hours on tarmac through farmland in temperatures of around 40°C. Another night saw Sophie and photographer Zoe struggling to navigate a mountain in darkness while thousands of insects swarmed around their headtorches.

More frightening was a thunderstorm high in the mountains.

Sophie and Zoe had passed a refuge believing they had enough time to cross the high ground before the storm arrived. They didn’t. Lightning began cracking around them. Hail fell. They found themselves exposed high on the mountain, surrounded by conductive equipment including cameras and running poles.

Sophie described the experience as genuinely terrifying.

The technical terrain could be equally serious. On one descent, fatigue combined with terrain resembling a downhill via ferrata forced Sophie to deliberately slow everything down. One mistake could have had major consequences.

Asked afterwards whether the Via Alpina had been harder physically or mentally, Sophie didn’t hesitate.

Mentally.

How Sophie Grant Fuelled Her Via Alpina Record

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Keeping Sophie moving for almost a month required an enormous amount of energy. She was consuming approximately 6,000–7,000 calories per day, with fuelling treated as non-negotiable from the very beginning.

Days typically started around 3am with muesli or porridge. Once moving, high-carbohydrate sports drink formed the foundation of her fuelling, supplemented with gels, chews and sugary drinks including Coke, Fanta and Orangina.

Then came the real food.

Trail mix. Beef jerky. Bean burritos. Burgers. Pasta. Fried rice. Gnocchi. Ham and cheese sandwiches. Wraps.

Whenever she reached the crew, Sophie would eat as much real food as possible and often leave carrying something else. If necessary, she’d walk while finishing it before starting to run again. There was even an unlikely favourite: ice cream slushies.

The idea came after Sophie sought advice from experienced endurance athletes before the attempt. Her crew experimented with blending ice cream, ice and other ingredients into calorie-dense cold drinks — particularly welcome during the hottest sections.

But underneath the unusual food combinations was a serious strategy.

Sophie believes consistently eating enough has been one of the biggest reasons she has remained strong and resilient throughout a decade in ultrarunning. She has also learned through experience that properly fuelling training allows her to recover faster and maintain consistency from one week to the next.

Foot Care and Recovery During a 2,000km Ultramarathon

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Over 2,000km, tiny problems can become challenge-ending problems. That meant Sophie had to behave differently from how she might during a conventional race.

If she felt a stone in her shoe, she stopped immediately and removed it. Socks were regularly changed, her feet were repeatedly checked and lubricated, and she deliberately resisted the temptation to hammer technical descents.

It was boring, she admitted, but essential.

The result was some of the best foot condition she had experienced during an ultra, although the final push still produced a new problem when small holes began opening in the pads of her feet.

It was another reminder that across almost a month of continuous movement, management mattered as much as speed.

The Team Behind Sophie Grant’s Via Alpina Record

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Although Sophie was the athlete putting one foot in front of another, the record was far from a solo operation.

Her husband George played a central role in planning and crewing the attempt, adapting constantly as inaccessible roads, weather and the realities of the route changed their plans.

Photographer Zoe also joined the team, documenting the journey while tackling the same difficult mountain environments to capture it.

Friends arrived during the later stages, bringing a welcome connection to normal life. Allie Bailey sent Sophie a song each day during the final five or six days, while one of the athletes Sophie coaches recorded poetry for her.

Those seemingly small gestures became significant when exhaustion set in.

As Sophie put it, those acts of kindness made things easier when things became hard.

Breaking the Men’s and Women’s Via Alpina Record

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Despite eventually becoming the fastest person ever to complete the route, Sophie says beating the men’s record was never the driving motivation. Her personal target was simpler: finish in under 30 days. She looked at the distance and elevation and decided what she believed she could achieve. The challenge was Sophie versus the Via Alpina rather than Sophie versus another athlete.

Finishing in 28 days and 17 hours therefore exceeded even her own target.

The final days, however, came at a cost. The push to Monaco meant surviving on increasingly little sleep, taking some of the enjoyment out of the closing stages. Still, she had done it. While Sophie is proud to have broken both the women’s and men’s records, she is wary of framing female endurance achievement solely by comparison with men.

“Women are just good at sport. Full stop. That’s it.”

For Sophie, the achievement stands on its own.

What Sophie Grant’s Via Alpina Record Means for Women in Ultrarunning

Photo credit: Zoe Salt

Perhaps the most important outcome of the Via Alpina Record wasn’t the record at all. Sophie hopes seeing someone attempt something so enormous encourages other women to take their own first step towards something that scares them.

That doesn’t have to mean running 2,000km across the Alps. It could simply mean turning up to a first parkrun.

“If you can give women belief and a bit of courage,” Sophie told Mel, “we can do some cool things.”

For someone else, bravery might mean entering a race, heading into the mountains or simply trying something without knowing whether they’ll succeed. That uncertainty is increasingly what drives Sophie herself.

The lesson she takes from the Via Alpina Record isn’t that everyone should attempt something extreme. It’s that there is value in starting something where failure remains possible.

Try the hard thing. Try the scary thing.

What Sophie Grant Learned From Running Across the Alps

This article is based on Sophie Grant’s conversation with Mel Berry on the VOOM Performance Podcast and you can listen to it here.