The first all-Women of Colour team to race Infinite Trails

Rugged ter­rain and steep ascents are the domain of the most deter­mined, tena­cious and skilled ath­letes in the world of trail run­ning. In this unfor­giv­ing envi­ron­ment, three remark­able women from the Black Trail Run­ners (BTR) com­mu­ni­ty group are gear­ing up for an extra­or­di­nary chal­lenge. Becky Dev­ereux, Rachel Dench and Juli­ette Den­ny have set their sights on the adi­das TER­REX Infi­nite Trails 2023, a gru­elling team event held in the Gastein Val­ley in the Aus­tri­an Alps. Togeth­er, they’ll run a com­bined dis­tance of 100km with a ver­ti­cal gain of 7,600 metres – that’s just over a kilo­me­tre shy of the height of Ever­est.

I speak to the three after a wet day of moun­tain train­ing up in a dis­band­ed open cast slate mine in the depths of Eryri Nation­al Park (Snow­do­nia) in Wales. Their jour­ney from dif­fer­ent start­ing points in the world of run­ning to prepar­ing for this demand­ing race is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of deter­mi­na­tion, com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and a shared belief in the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Peo­ple of Colour.

Rain and moun­tain mist has made the pur­ple grey scree that lit­ters the trails slip­pery and oth­er­world­ly. Yet, we all man­age to get down the moun­tain, ankles and knees thank­ful­ly intact, if some­what damp. As we sit sod­den in a hired Renault van, alone in the cor­ner of a bar­ren carpark, we reflect on the grim beau­ty of the day. The win­dows start to steam up and I watch as the wind blows an emp­ty Qua­vers pack­et across the crum­bling tarmac. 

This group will be the first all-female team com­prised of Peo­ple of Colour to enter the adi­das TER­REX Infi­nite Trails event. With the hopes of the BTR com­mu­ni­ty rest­ing on their shoul­ders, the unspo­ken pres­sure of them all fin­ish­ing feels as heavy as the dark clouds trudg­ing through the Welsh moun­tains. Remark­ably, despite the fatigue every­one feels, spir­its are high and the new­ly formed team of three are moti­vat­ed to explore what tak­ing on such a daunt­ing chal­lenge means for them.

Rachel Dench is an ultra-dis­tance trail run­ner and a found­ing mem­ber of Black Trail Run­ners. Rachel’s no stranger to the world of run­ning, yet under­plays her hand every time I speak with her. The con­fi­dent shy­ness she presents masks her abil­i­ty to deliv­er on the trails: her Stra­va pro­file shows blis­ter­ing pace at 50km and 100km races, with respectable times in marathons down to 10km races, which she class­es as warm-ups. But Infi­nite Trails appears to present an entire­ly new chal­lenge for Rachel.

It’s hard to know if the race ahead real­ly has her spooked but I sense some­thing that has per­haps pushed her into unknown ter­ri­to­ry. ​“It’s less about the dis­tance and more about the ele­va­tion,” she explains, reveal­ing the unique chal­lenges of this moun­tain­ous course. Rachel reminds me that moun­tains are hard to come by when you live in North London.

“It feels quite nice not being the one to watch out for or auto­mat­i­cal­ly expect­ed to win,” she says. It’s a telling line and I’m not sure I believe it. Rachel is as com­pet­i­tive as they come but the num­bers are stacked against her: 4,000 metres of loss and gain over 44km of moun­tain trails is no joke.

While Rachel thinks she has the ​‘ups’ dialled, it’s the descents that are the wor­ry. The knife­like arêtes near the sum­mit give way to scram­bling and then root-cov­ered trails in the low­er sec­tion, all of them primed to deliv­er a twist or break should you put a foot wrong. Even though Rachel appears per­fect­ly adapt­ed to this ter­rain, the impact on the quads over such a long time runs the risk of mak­ing the legs use­less. Or, in her words: ​“Quads turned to jel­ly.” Focus needs to be laser-sharp to get through the race unscathed. ​“I’m not just run­ning for myself,” Rachel reflects. ​“I’m run­ning for the team and for the com­mu­ni­ty.” On this point, there is no doubt in her voice.

Not com­plet­ing the race due to injury or fatigue is a wor­ry felt by every­one, not least Becky Dev­ereux, who start­ed run­ning just two years ago. Becky lives in the Pen­nines where there are hills aplen­ty on the doorstep. But this is by far the biggest run­ning chal­lenge she has tak­en on. ​“I always said that I wasn’t a run­ner,” she says. ​“I think I’d done one park run but then Covid hap­pened and I couldn’t play ten­nis any­more because the club was shut. Exer­cise is real­ly impor­tant to me, so I start­ed running.”

Becky’s short jour­ney with run­ning has been an intense one, espe­cial­ly while rais­ing a young fam­i­ly and work­ing as full-time vet. I ask a few ques­tions about the vet­eri­nary world and crack a weak dad joke but no one laughs. A drop of con­den­sa­tion from the now-opaque wind­screen drops onto my phone and there’s a sec­ond or two of awk­ward silence.

“I want to show them [my fam­i­ly] that peo­ple like us can do things like this,” Becky says. ​“It’s super impor­tant.” I’m not imme­di­ate­ly clear if she means women, Peo­ple of Colour or moth­ers. In ret­ro­spect, I think it’s prob­a­bly all three, and maybe some oth­er groups that are not imme­di­ate­ly obvi­ous to me.

Becky has put in the graft, get­ting a train­er to help her with fit­ness in the lead-up and head­ing off to Cha­monix in France, the Euro­pean cap­i­tal of trail run­ning, at the end of Sum­mer with Rachel for an insight into what to expect at Infi­nite Trails. ​“It was amaz­ing,” she says. ​“I just had this out-of-this-world expe­ri­ence, some­thing that I would nev­er have thought of doing on my own.”

The Cha­monix trip proved valu­able, offer­ing a real­i­ty check on what moun­tain trail run­ning means, in terms of fit­ness and endurance. Becky got a glimpse of the spe­cialised skills need­ed to make it back to the start/​finish line before the cut-off peri­od. If just one of the team fails to make the cut-off time, the entire team is dis­qual­i­fied – sure­ly one of the cru­ellest rules in endurance racing.

“Every so often dur­ing train­ing, you’ll have some days where it feels great and you’re feel­ing fit and strong,” Becky reflects. ​“And then those are the days where you do a run and every­thing just feels like hard work. But you’ve just got to keep putting one foot in front of the oth­er and giv­ing it a go, and it will happen.”

All three share this posi­tion – a tenac­i­ty that isn’t uncom­mon in Women of Colour. The strength they have shown, not just as indi­vid­u­als but as a team, is impres­sive – even more so, giv­en that they met for the first time just six months ago and live miles away from each oth­er. Video calls and What­sApp mes­sag­ing have helped bring them clos­er, as has the shared belief that they are doing this for a greater cause.

For Juli­ette Den­ny, los­ing a close school friend to can­cer led her to search for a cause and ques­tion the big things in life. She decid­ed to take on the South Downs Way, a gru­elling 112-mile trail run along the south coast of Eng­land. That proved a turn­ing point – and helped teach her to embrace the mantra of carpe diem. “[The South Downs Way run] helped ground me at a time where there wasn’t a huge amount of ground­ing,” Juli­ette explains. ​“It gave me a lot of strength at a time when I had none.”

The way Juli­ette talks about throw­ing her­self into run­ning and phys­i­cal chal­lenge is infec­tious. She talks about marathons and Iron­mans as though they’re some­thing that every­one should – of course – be doing. She gets excit­ed when describ­ing the Tran­sit van she has done up into a camper to trav­el around the coun­try and expe­ri­ence nature through run­ning. ​“It’s a chance to real­ly step out­side of all the things that are going on in your head and all the things that are going on in your life,” she explains.

Trail run­ning appears to have tran­scend­ed the phys­i­cal for Juli­ette. It allows her a space for bal­ance and solace, an oppor­tu­ni­ty for reflec­tion and deep­er con­nec­tion with pow­ers big­ger than our­selves. Pain and sor­row have been trans­for­ma­tive beasts and run­ning has been the get­away car. Now, she tru­ly believes that any­one can embark on that jour­ney, no mat­ter their back­ground or expe­ri­ence. ​“What I want to show peo­ple is that [trail run­ning] is some­thing that any­one can do,” she says. ​“They just have to take that first step out­side and try and do it.”

Col­lec­tive­ly, the team strike an inspir­ing pose. They have been pulled togeth­er for a race none have ever com­pet­ed in, with an unknown chal­lenge that’s total­ly seri­ous. Yet, rather than an air of ner­vous­ness, I feel the elec­tric­i­ty of excite­ment in the van. It almost makes me want to step out and feel the heavy mist on my face once again, to smell, taste and touch the nature on the edge of the car park. To run up the wet trail and get my heart rac­ing and my limbs mov­ing, to fill my lungs with the raw­ness of the Welsh moun­tains. Almost. It’s get­ting dark and the dri­ve back to Lon­don isn’t get­ting any short­er for me. The team head off to show­er and change, then fuel up for anoth­er day of train­ing in the mountains.

Infi­nite Trails is a moment of con­nec­tion for Rachel, Becky and Juli­ette, one that takes them fur­ther on their jour­neys of per­son­al growth; a step clos­er to answer­ing some of the ques­tions that keep us all search­ing for the truth. Yes, it’s about cross­ing the fin­ish line but also about advanc­ing what they are capa­ble of as indi­vid­u­als, as a team and as a com­mu­ni­ty of Black Trail Runners.

Find out more about Black Trail Run­ners and adi­das TER­REX Infi­nite Trails.

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