Trail running is a white, male-dominated sport – meet the woman trying to change that

Trail running is a white, male-dominated sport.

This is evident every year at the end of August, when for a week, 10,000 runners descend on Chamonix, a small Alpine town in France, to compete in the UTMB Mont-Blanc World Series Final. Nicknamed the Super Bowl of trail running, UTMB Mont-Blanc week features eight races, including 15km with 1,200m+ elevation gain and 100 miles with 10,000m+ elevation gain.

According to UTMB Group, which organises 55 trail races across 28 countries, the number of women participating at UTMB Mont-Blanc across all races has risen from 19% in 2022 to 25% in 2025, with the group aiming to reach 40% across all events by 2030 – while participation in the 100 miler has gone from women making up an average of 10% of participants from 2022 to 2024 to 15% in 2025. 

Yet the absence of Black women in particular is striking.

While undocumented due to French data collection laws, it’s an issue that’s glaringly obvious. And for Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, an avid trail runner and Black mixed-race woman, the lack of representation of Black people and people of colour at trail running races and events is disheartening.

“Black people make up the global majority. Without this demographic and this community, trail running can never be inclusive,” she says. “It’s not like Black people don’t want to be at these events. But the reason they are not showing up is because they haven’t seen representation. Brands haven’t deemed us an important customer.”

Sabrina, 47, began running in 2009 after her doctor recommended running alongside medication and talk therapy to treat her postnatal depression following the birth of her fourth child.

Twelve weeks postpartum, she headed down to a canal towpath, hoping no one would see or laugh at her as she shuffled along to complete a mile.

“All I could think about was my breathing and not falling in the canal, and for that time, I didn’t have any kind of thoughts about whether I actually should be here on earth,” she says. “That act of running and being able just to be very present in the moment and listen to my breath and listen to what my body was telling me. Even though it hurt, it made me keep going back for more.”

After seven years of road running, competing in races from 5km to marathons and being in an athletics club that was hyper-focused on personal bests, she started to lose her joy of running. The trails, however, presented a new challenge and an opportunity to see the world.

In 2018, as part of her alcohol recovery programme and a 40th birthday gift to herself, the Gloucester-based mother of four and grandmother of three completed Marathon de Sables, a gruelling 250km ultra-endurance race across the Sahara desert in Morocco.

Since then, she has completed prestigious trail races in the UK and France, including Ultra Trail Snowdonia 2025, Arc of Attrition 2024, Cotswold Way Century 2024, UTMB Mont-Blanc ETC 2024 and Winter Downs 200 in 2023 – an impressive trail running resume built on courage and resilience.  

Six years ago, during a race in the mountains above Courmayeur in Italy, a life-threatening accident almost ended Sabrina’s trail running career after he slipped off the side of a narrow snowfield.

Clinging onto the edge, she screamed for help, and despite her pleas, five male racers ignored her, running past until a sixth man pulled her back onto the trail. This traumatic experience sparked a fire within her to create a safe space for people of colour in trail running.

In 2020, together with Phil Young and Sonny Peart, Sabrina co-founded Black Trail Runners (BTR), a UK campaigning charity that seeks to increase inclusion, participation and representation of Black people and people of colour in trail running.

BTR organises weekly social runs in urban areas and in the countryside, which are led by their own Black community members who are UK Athletics-qualified and insured run leaders and coaches. They also fund training and qualification for members looking to become race coaches and leaders.

Four times a year, BTR hosts day-long taster sessions that take members into the countryside for comprehensive workshops that cover safety, navigation, how to run on trails and mandatory kit requirements. This is followed by afternoon sessions out on the trails putting that newfound knowledge to the test in a safe and supportive environment.

BTR members can also apply for race funds and loan kit schemes, which help them to pay for race entries, cover travel costs and gives access to loan trail running kit.

Since 2023 Sabrina and BTR have been hosting Black To The Trails, an annual inclusive trail running event with trail races ranging from 1km, 5km and 10km at Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire, also making her the UK’s first Black female race director. Nicknamed the Notting Hill Carnival of trail running, Black To The Trails is a family fun day out designed to introduce all participants, and especially young people, to the world of trail running.

Kids run free and heavily discounted coaches transport participants and their families from London and Birmingham to the Chiltern Hills to enjoy trail runs, DJ sets, Caribbean, African and halal food trucks and designated quiet areas for neurodiverse individuals. “We say come for the run and stay for the fun,” she says.  

For the past three years, Sabrina has been visiting Chamonix for UTMB Mont-Blanc week, first as a spectator and last year as a runner in ETC, a gruelling 15km race with 1,200m+ elevation gain. Looking around last year, during the race and afterwards, she struggled to find people that looked like her – and in that moment, she decided to change that.

In August 2025, as part of efforts to improve Black representation at major trail races, Sabrina, along with six female BTR members (Serena Broadway, Rebecca Devereux, Grace Natoli, Nethliee La Croix, Juliette Denny and Angela Tomusange), arrived in Chamonix to compete across the different races available, with Sabrina taking on the gruelling 100 miler.

For Sabrina, intense preparations for the 100 miler included sleeping in a high-altitude tent in her husband Neil’s home office for three weeks, isolated from the rest of the family. For eight months, she spent several weekends away in Snowdonia on gnarly mountains testing her race strategy, fine-tuning nutrition and fuel plans.

For each of the seven women, Chamonix was about more than just racing in the world’s most prestigious trail race week. It was a chance to be the change they wanted to see in the world.

Decked in soon-to-be-launched black and gold “Here for the Women’s Race” T-shirts, Sabrina and the BTR women hosted a UTMB Global Majority gathering to celebrate community and shared the importance of continuing to increase access, participation and representation of Black people within trail running. 

Proceeds from the sale of this T-shirt, designed in collaboration with Women’s Trail Fund, will go towards funding BTR runners and projects to increase inclusion, participation and representation of Black women and women of colour in trail running.

In Chamonix on race week, heavy rains, snow and mud wreaked havoc on most of the races, forcing organisers to alter some of the routes. But despite these challenges, five BTR women successfully completed their races, pushing their bodies beyond their limits; Grace, Nethliee and Angela completed the ETC, while Rebecca and Serena completed the OCC.

Sabrina’s race ended with her being timed out 128km into the 176km route in the 100 miler, but the disappointment of not reaching her goal was softened by the impressive achievements of the BTR women representing at UTMB week.

“I didn’t complete the full UTMB 100 miler loop, but it’s a small glitch in a larger matrix,” she says. “I’m proud of what we’ve achieved as BTR women, from being here putting ourselves on the start line, completing races and gritting it out until we couldn’t go on anymore. We know we have the future winner of UTMB and the likes in our community, so that inspires us to keep going.”

She continues: “Trails don’t discriminate. It’s the industry, it’s the system around trail running that still, to this day, seeks to show a version of what it believes trail running to be, but Black Trail Runners is the antidote to that.”

Sabrina’s personal goals remain unchanged, and she is determined to return to Chamonix to handle “unfinished business”.

“I’m going to be running UTMB again in 2026 if I can get in,” she announced in an Instagram live race debrief Q&A session. “I will continue to show up, to activate, to campaign, to represent by putting myself on the start line. I’m going to finish this thing.” 

Images: Tanya Raab