The U.K.’s Scout Adkin is racing the 2024 Mountain Running World Cup Finals, and is currently ranked second in the series. She’ll race both the vertical kilometer on Saturday and the 23-kilometer trail race on Sunday. In this interview, she talks about her background in running, the highlights of her season so far, and what it’s like to share the world cup circuit with her brother Jacob Adkin.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth women’s and men’s previews and follow our coverage here on the website and on Twitter/X over the weekend.
Scout Adkin Pre-2024 Mountain Running World Cup Finals Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Sarah Brady of iRunFar. I’m here in Chiavenna, Italy, before the finals of the 2024 Mountain Running World Cup with Scout Adkin. How are you?
Scout Adkin: Good, thank you. Yes, thanks for having me on.
iRunFar: It’s great to meet you at last. This is our first time interviewing you, so we’d love a bit of your running background. We found international mountain running results for you back as far as 2019. What were you doing before that? Were you fell running?
Adkin: Yes, I was. Not quite at the international level. I’ve basically been fell running since I was a kid, actually. Done various things on track and cross country, and then came into fell running in the mountains. And then luckily I managed to get my first GB vest as a junior, and then had about 10 or 11 years of still running, but just not at the right level for various reasons. Then I started picking up four or five years ago. And yeah, been running on the circuit for a few years now.
iRunFar: Ok, super. And then as well, I think I’ve seen that you won a cross-country title in Scotland last year. Are you still doing that as well?
Adkin: Yes, yes, Scottish National Cross Country Championships. Yes, that was nice. I took a bit of a break from cross country for a few years, but I’ve been back doing it for a couple again now. It gives you a bit of a focus over winter as well, but for me, it’s very flat, very fast sort of running. Then the aim is to transition that into the mountains in the springtime.
iRunFar: Ok, brilliant. You’re from Scotland, but I think you live in the Lake District of England?
Adkin: Yes, that’s right. Yes, I grew up in Scotland, and then I’ve been living in the Lake District for a few years now for work. Yes, great place still to live in. Plenty of hills and fells to run on there as well.
iRunFar: I think it’s probably hard to live there and not be a fell runner.
Adkin: Yes. [laughs]
iRunFar: [laughs] Ok, very good. Just this season, you’ve had a really, really good world cup. You’ve had two wins: you were second in Sierre-Zinal, and second just last weekend as well at Šmarna Gora.
Adkin: Yeah.
iRunFar: For you, what was your highlight of the season?
Adkin: I think probably the highlight was the race in France, the Montée du Nid d’Aigle, mainly because it was, although it was net uphill, it was quite a long race for me. To prove that I’ve built on my strength and things, that I can actually race competitively at that distance, and then to back that up at Sierre-Zinal, which is a bit of a whirlwind of atmosphere. If you’ve been, you know what it’s like, very intense. It was a great experience to then go out and see how I could do at that. Thankfully, it went very well.
iRunFar: Yes, it sure did. You did amazing. Is that your longest distance to date?
Adkin: Yes. I hadn’t even trained at that distance for quite a few years. [laughs] It was great to just see and test yourself with also the heat and a bit of altitude as well. I hadn’t particularly trained for that race. I’ve been training for a variety of different races, from the short VKs like tomorrow, through to probably about 18 to 20 kilometers. It was more just to push the body and hope it held up really, to the end.
iRunFar: I guess the years of training and hard races, it all accumulates.
Adkin: Yeah. I think I’ve got such a very long history of running now that, yeah, I’ve got a good background, so that definitely helped.
iRunFar: Ok. It was a really good result. Such a strong field.
Adkin: Thank you.
iRunFar: Then as well as that, you competed at the European Off-Road Championships in the uphill, and the up and down. I think you were fourth and second, was it?
Adkin: Yes. Second in the uphill and fourth in the up and down.
iRunFar: How was that?
Adkin: Yeah, it was interesting. Very typical Scottish weather, a lot of rain and quite a lot of mud, particularly on the uphill of course. No heat to worry about with that, so it was good. It’s just for everyone, it was very early in the season, being the end of May. Getting myself race-ready for that was quite a quick turnaround from cross-country season, but I’m really pleased with the results there.
iRunFar: And it must be just great to be part of such a strong team.
Adkin: Yeah, definitely. I’ve been lucky in the last few years to be part of both the uphill and the up-and-down teams for both the European and world championships It’s great being part of very strong women’s teams over the last few years.
iRunFar: As well as your teammates, your brother Jacob [Adkin] is competing in this world cup and he’s doing pretty good, too.
Adkin: Yes.
iRunFar: What’s it like to share the journey with him?
Adkin: It’s lovely having a bit of family company. Like me, he’s had his ups and downs in the last few years or so as well with various injuries and things like that. It was great this weekend catching up with him again, because we’re both doing different things in summer, so I haven’t seen him for a few months. It’s just nice to see him, and both getting silver in the uphill at the European Off Road Championships was a really nice family affair.
iRunFar: Yeah, I’m sure that was amazing.
Adkin: Yeah.
iRunFar: Do you get to train together at all?
Adkin: No, he lives in Scotland at the moment, or he’s traveling abroad, and obviously I’m in the Lake District at the moment. No, probably Christmas Day is the only day we probably generally would run together.
iRunFar: Nice tradition.
Adkin: Yeah, and then occasionally if we happen to be both visiting parents or whatever, we might run together then.
iRunFar: Ok, very good. I know you’ve been here before, you’ve raced the Chiavenna uphill?
Adkin: Yes, a couple of years ago. Yes, that’s right.
iRunFar: And then you did the Nations Cup here in 2021, which is kind of similar to the long trail race.
Adkin: Yes.
iRunFar: So, is there anything that you’ll take from those experiences that you think is good to know for this weekend?
Adkin: Yeah, so I think particularly for the uphill, although it’s obviously only just over three kilometers, it’s obviously very, very steep. So, although it’s not far in distance, it’s sort of pacing it as well, and with it being time trial, it always adds a nice interesting element to it as well. The up and down, although it’s a little bit slightly different to what I did three years ago, it’s nice sort of knowing some of the course, I think, as well. And again, it’s just a bit of pacing with that.
There’ll be a cheeky second climb in there as well, and there’s a lot of descent. So yeah, it’ll be fine. Just end of season now, last race of the series. So I’ll just give it my all, particularly by Sunday. And I can have a recovery and a rest after that.
iRunFar: Yeah, really good. I wanted to ask you as well, because a lot of these races are so compressed and you raced just a week ago, how have you found recovering and turning it around so quickly again?
Adkin: It is challenging. You can do it for a few weeks and then you do tend to need another couple of weeks of recovery. And particularly for myself, because I work as well, not quite full-time, four days a week. So, I’m traveling back and forth between races. So, although I was out in Slovenia last weekend, I’ve flown home, done a few days’ work, and then I was up at 2 a.m. yesterday to get my flight back out. So, yeah, it is quite challenging, and the recovery is tough, particularly with a lot of flying and traveling in between. But I tend to just not train as much, obviously, in between those sort of races. So, yeah.
iRunFar: You pulled it off anyway, you’ve made it to the end of the season, well done.
Adkin: Yeah, thank you.
iRunFar: I hope you have a fantastic weekend of racing.
Adkin: Thank you very much.
iRunFar: I look forward to seeing you out there.
Adkin: Great, thank you.
