Words by Like the Wind – Photography by Tanya Raab and Daniel Hamshere
Six years ago, while racing on a trail in the mountains above Courmayeur, Sabrina Pace-Humphreys slipped off the side of a narrow snowfield. She hung onto the edge for dear life, screaming for help. Five men who were also racing ran straight by her, ignoring her pleas, until one man finally stopped to pull her back onto the trail.
“There is a stereotype of Black women as being aggressive, strong, self-sufficient,” she said. “And ultimately, for some, there’s an internalised bias that, ‘Oh, she’s screaming for her life, but she’ll be able to help herself.’”
Sabrina is a woman of Black heritage and a trail runner. But this experience made her question the trail-running aspect of her identity: it reinforced her feelings of not belonging in trail running because she is a woman of colour. Within the trail running community, she didn’t see other Black people or people of colour doing what she was doing. She didn’t see them on race websites. She didn’t see them in magazines. She didn’t hear them on podcasts. As far as Sabrina was concerned, she was on her own.
After this incident, she reached out to other running clubs and communities that were designed for people of colour, to see if they did any trail-running. The answer was no. So, she decided that she had to make a choice: she could either leave trail running – a space that did not feel welcoming for her – or take action to change it. She chose action.
Through her outreach to running communities, Sabrina met Phil Young, who would become a co-founder of Black Trail Runners (BTR) alongside co-founder Sonny Peart. Founded in 2020, BTR is a UK-based community and campaigning charity that seeks to increase the inclusion, participation and representation of people of Black ethnicity in trail running. BTR is run by volunteers and uses funding to host trial sessions for trail running, help members travel to and enter races, enable Black runners to gain instructor certifications, spread the message of inclusivity and diversity – and more. Since 2020, BTR members have podiumed at global events. The organisation is working on creating a talent pathway for youth and its community continues to grow.
“We know we have the future winner of UTMB and the likes within our community,” Sabrina said. “But what’s happened within the sector is that those people haven’t been given the resources, so we’re here in order to ensure that they have the resources they need.”
The lack of representation of Black people and people of colour at trail-running races and events – including ones that occur on a world stage – is not because they don’t like trail running. For example, BTR’s annual trail racing event Black to the Trails sells out every year. But systemic barriers prevent widespread participation in these high-profile events, such as expensive entry fees and a lack of targeted event promotion. Many events are in areas with minimal Black population. In many cases, there is little to no ethnic diversity on event panels or in race organisation leadership – and qualification events are not easily accessible to regions with long-distance running traditions, for example East Africa.
There are solutions to these issues, which BTR works to promote. But the solution will take a long-term cultural change that requires addressing social, political and industry elements. As Phil said – it’s not just a quick fix. Some of the work will include bringing more young Black people into outdoor spaces. BTR also insists on the collection and tracking of ethnicity data at events to understand baseline representation, which is not currently done by many events and organisations.
Change is already happening through the support of established partners and growing awareness of challenges faced by the BTR community in these spaces. Since 2022, adidas TERREX partnered with BTR to provide funding, access to events and a co-branded apparel line for members. BTR members are invited to participate in adidas-partnered races, are given adidas TERREX trail-running kit, as well as being included in content across adidas’s social media and event platforms. adidas TERREX is also a founding member of OUTO – Opening Up The Outdoors – a collective of outdoor brands aimed at increasing diversity in the outdoors. And, in the UK, the brand has partnered with groups and individuals like Muslim Hikers, Bonnie Boots, We Go Outside Too, Deo Kato and many others.
Together, these changes mean that there are seven women of Black heritage from BTR that will join the start line of various UTMB trail races. Grace Natoli, BTR Chair of the Board of Trustees, is running Experience Trail Courmayeur (ETC), the 15km race. Rebecca Devereux is running the OCC, the 57km race, and Sabrina will run the full 100-mile UTMB race. These women have trained hard and are just as deserving to be racing as anyone else in Chamonix.
“It says to women of colour that we belong here too,” Sabrina said. “What I want brands to see is, ‘Wow, there are women of colour out there who are inspiring but aren’t even on our radar at the moment. We need to tap into that.’”
This year will be Sabrina’s first UTMB, but she has already spent four days scouting the course. In July, she fastpacked the 107-mile route solo. At first, she was nervous to do the route alone – partly because it passes the trail she fell off in 2019. But after completing it, she felt empowered and prepared for the big dance.
Sabrina has spent a lot of days in the mountains this year, raced Ultra-Trail Snowdonia in May and raced the 88km Comrades ultra marathon in South Africa.
“This race is about reinforcing how strong I am,” she said. “There will be little Black girls, Black teenagers, Black women who might see me and think, ‘There’s someone that looks like me, somebody who has the skin, features, hair I’ve got.’”
Grace, who has run more than 110 marathons and ultra marathons over the last 15 years, said that representation is one of the most important and impactful ways to inspire more diversity within trail running.
“You cannot be what you cannot see,” she said. “For young people of colour, they need to see in order to aspire, in order to give them a sense of belonging.”
Grace ran ETC last year, which was her first mountain race and one of the hardest races she had ever done – but the excitement of crossing the finish line was unmatched. This year, Grace said that it is unprecedented to have seven Black women representing BTR at various UTMB races. “This is making history,” she said.
The aspect of making history is exciting to Rebecca, but also daunting, despite her athletic preparedness for the race. “As a group, we’re making history doing this – and that’s an amazing thing to do – but there’s also a bit of pressure associated with that,” she said. “But it’s a piece of history that needs to be documented.”
The seven women from BTR who are racing at UTMB this year (Sabrina, Grace, Rebecca, Juliette Denny, Nethliee Smith, Angela Tomusange and Serena Broadway) are all very different people. Rebecca said, “We’ve got grandmothers, mothers, people of different ages. It shows the sport isn’t just about elite athletes or 45-year-old white men. It shows that the sport needs to be accessible to everyone.”
In 2024, women made up less than 30 percent of participants across all UTMB races in Chamonix. And, although there is no publicly-available data available from UTMB, Black women unquestionably make up a much smaller percentage of those participants. From BTR’s participation in this year’s event, Sabrina hopes that it can be one step towards inspiring change in the trail racing community, which has a very long way to go when it comes to equity.
Rebecca thought that, ideally, BTR won’t even exist in 10 years – because it won’t need to. Black people will be able to go to a race and see other Black people in a proportional manner, and that diversity will come naturally.
“When I’m an old woman, I want to go with my grandsons to a running event and see a more globally diverse population,” Sabrina said, agreeing with Rebecca. “If I’ve done that, and if I feel as though there’s been some change, then that’s the legacy that I leave.”
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