The U.K.’s Scout Adkin was crowned women’s winner of the 2024 Mountain Running World Cup, which she won by a single point. In this interview, she talks about how the finals played out, where she won the vertical kilometer race and placed third at the trail race; and the challenges presented by the trail race in particular, which was run on a fast, net-downhill course.
For more on how the finals played out, read our in-depth 2024 Mountain Running World Cup VK results article, and 2024 Mountain Running World Cup Trail Race results article.
Scout Adkin, 2024 Mountain Running World Cup Champion, Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Sarah Brady of iRunFar. I’m here just after the finals of the 2024 Mountain Running World Cup with women’s champion Scout Adkin. Scout, how are you doing?
Scout Adkin: Good, thank you.
iRunFar: Congratulations.
Adkin: Thank you.
iRunFar: What a weekend you’ve had.
Adkin: Yeah, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind and just a big relief as well at the moment, and hopefully I’ll have a bit of time now to process it all and have a rest. [laughs]
iRunFar: Yeah, well deserved. So, you came into this weekend in second place, and you’d only just moved up from third place a week before that, so it’s been a bit of a whirlwind end of season. Did you see this coming at all, to make it the whole way to the top?
Adkin: I knew it was going to be very tight. I think I hadn’t done enough races coming into this weekend for the full series yet, so I could still gain some points, although I know Joyce [Muthoni Njeru] was able to then get rid of some of her worst results, so it was quite literally down to the wire today by one point in the end. So yeah, very close.
iRunFar: Yeah, so I guess you had no spare races, so they had to all be good.
Adkin: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
iRunFar: And they were, so that’s great. And then just first of all to talk about yesterday, so you won the VK by a comfortable enough margin for such a short race. You won by 30-something seconds?
Adkin: Yeah, I think so. Something like that.
iRunFar: Great, and you looked to be just really at ease towards the end of that race. How did it feel?
Adkin: Yeah, it’s such a great course, and yeah, I just managed to get into a really good rhythm, and obviously with it being a time trial as well, you have absolutely no idea where your finishing position is until everyone’s finished really. So, my aim was basically to, I started second last, so I knew Philaries [Jeruto Kisang] was just behind me, so my first aim was for her not to catch me. And then basically just trying to catch as many people ahead of me as I could really. And it worked out fine.
iRunFar: And do you think you like that format? Do you think it’s kind of good mentally?
Adkin: Yeah, it’s definitely different to a mass start. I think it’s a good test mentally as well. You’ve got to be seriously strong in yourself and your own abilities, and maybe because I do quite a lot of my training on my own, I’m kind of fairly used to solo running quite a lot of the time anyway. So, for me it was maybe a bit, I wouldn’t say easier, but I’m a bit more used to that environment.
iRunFar: You have to really be able to trust your own pacing.
Adkin: Yeah, definitely.
iRunFar: Okay, and then just to talk about today. So not a whole lot of elevation in that course, it was only about 850 meters of climb. There was a good bit of road. It was just very fast. How did you find all that?
Adkin: Yeah, tough. I mean, I was pretty much on the limit for the whole way, descending as well. I would have personally preferred a bit more climb and a bit less descending, but yeah, I knew, particularly the Kenyans, they’ve just got a lot of speed. It was a lot of fast running, and adding some quite technical little bits of descent in there as well. It was definitely a challenging course, and I had to sort of push from the start, really.
iRunFar: There seemed to be a lot of little turns as well. Did you find it was kind of hard to get in a flow with it?
Adkin: Yeah, definitely, particularly through some of the villages and things that we passed through, and then even on the trails as well. Some of them are very… even the flatter uphill sections were quite technical and very narrow. There were a couple of times I slightly slipped my footing, and you know, you could be down a sheer rock face. So yeah, definitely mentally had to be paying attention the whole time.
iRunFar: You seem to maintain position for a lot of it. Were you kind of in third the whole way through?
Adkin: I started leading the first climb, and then very quickly on the first descent, Joyce and Philaries got ahead of me, but pretty much from there on in, I was only within a second or two behind Philaries the whole rest of the way. So, it was basically keep her back in sight and don’t let her get ahead, and hope no one else was finishing very quick behind me.
iRunFar: Yeah, I saw that towards the end. You were so close together. That must have been very intense.
Adkin: Yeah, I think for me, it’s probably easier chasing than being chased, but yeah, it was still very, very tough.
iRunFar: And then as regards the overall series, you won by a single point. So had you done the maths going into today’s race? Did you know what you needed to do to win the series, or did you just see at the end what happened?
Adkin: Yeah, I mean, you kind of don’t want to think too much about the outcome. You want to just focus on the race, but yeah, my partner yesterday had kind of done the maths, and I was just praying it was right, those calculations. So thankfully they were. I knew it was going to be very tight, and anything can go wrong on that sort of course. You just basically, I was just hoping to have, you know, the best run I could really on that.
iRunFar: Okay, brilliant. And then, what’s next? Are you back to work tomorrow, or do you have a break?
Adkin: Yes, early flight tomorrow, and then yeah, back at work. But yeah, a rest now from running for a bit. A bit of downtime, and just kind of process the year. And then obviously get your plans in for over winter, and what you aim for next year as well. So yeah, I haven’t really thought past this weekend.
iRunFar: Yeah, I think that’s fair enough. You deserve a little bit of time now to regroup.
Adkin: Yeah, thanks.
iRunFar: Okay, well congratulations again, and thank you so much.
Adkin: Thank you.
