Salomon athlete, Lucy Bartholomew, was just 16 years old when she stepped into the world of ultra-running as she ran her first 100km alongside her dad, Ash Bartholomew. From this time, Lucy discovered her love for the sport and travelled the world running, notably placing second at the 80km of the Marathon du Mont-Blanc, winning the 100km at the Ultra-Trail Cape Town, and placing third at the Western States 100 in 2018. More recently, in 2023, Lucy achieved a top 10 finish at UTMB and, shortly after, competed at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, which made her one of only two women who raced UTMB and the Ironman World Championships in the same year. Based in Australia, Lucy runs to connect with nature and community and is well-known for her sunny outlook on life, her determined attitude, and her ability to enjoy the process, even when things get tough.

Pete: If we take it right back, who is Lucy? Where did she come from? What has she done in the sport? And maybe some of the personal elements you're quite proud of aswell.

Lucy: Wow. Okay, so I grew up in a family of five. I've got two older brothers. My dad's always been into running. I grew up just outside of Melbourne City in North Balwyn. Dad had been doing road marathons for as long as I was alive. As he started to slow down he looked for a new challenge and found the Ultra Trail Australia, which was then the North Face 100, in the Blue Mountains. He started training for that. I remember thinking he was bananas to want to do that.

He'd go away on these weekends and go to these really cool places; camp and see such cool wildlife and nature. I asked if I could come along. I wanted to see these places too. They became really special moments of our lives. They had nothing to do with the running. At first, I would take my bike and ride next to him as he ran, and then pretty quickly realised that he was using running as a very loose term. He was hiking with a backpack of snacks and jogging the downhills. So I left the bike at home and started to join him. That's where I think the seed was planted for sport and nature and loving running.

It wasn't really the ultra distance, it was just running and experiences that I fell in love with. I finished high school still in love with the sport of trail running, saved up my money and flew to France for a gap year. I raced over there and managed to pick up a sponsorship with Salomon on their international team. 

Pete: Back to 15 years of age. First 100, running alongside dad and for a bit of context, we're talking from here to Frankston and back. Explain that story, that journey, where did it come from? Run us through that.

Lucy: I went up to the Blue Mountains and saw my dad do Ultra Trail Australia 100K, and it was a really cool experience. I was 14 at the time we went up. I waved him off from the start line, and then I was like, what do I do for the next 20 hours? And so I cut through and went to some of the checkpoints by foot. At the time it was Brendan Davies and Beth Cardelli, icons of the Australian running scene, especially in the early years. And then I saw my dad come through and he was incredible. Head down just getting it done. But it was the back of the pack, the people that brought up the rear. That really struck me. They were different ages, different sizes, different backgrounds, but they were so happy.

They would come into these checkpoints and leave with a can of coke and a handful of chips and just like balancing a selfie. I was like, this is a sport - this is unreal. I love eating and I can walk in nature. I saw dad complete the race and I was so inspired. On the train back to Sydney airport, I emailed every race director and said I want to do a 100K, will you let me run?

The one race that came back to me was the Surf Coast Century 100km, which was just on last weekend, they agreed to let me race if i jumped over a few more hurdles before the race and agreed to run side by side with my Dad. In 2012, dad and I lined up in Anglesea to run along the Surf Coast of Victoria. There was a lot of scrutiny around me doing it; a lot of media about being so young; is it safe? Is it healthy? Is he a bad parent? Dad said to me on that start line, 'You know, Lucy, you've got to smile your whole way through this to prove to people that you want to be here. You're doing it because you love the sport. You love who you are and love celebrating being strong.'

Together we crossed the finish line. We spent 12.5 hours together, dad and I side by side, which was testing, as you can imagine. But I finished it thinking that was cool but I have so much more to give. And so the next year I went back, and I was allowed to run solo. I finished 3.5 hours faster and came second. It was so important to have that first race with my Dad to make me finish hungry for more and no destroyed from going out too fast and slogging it in.

Pete: You mentioned the role of having someone running with you. That role of being a pacer, obviously you've had family just do that. How do you pick a pacer and how do you get motivated? I know Josh has been so brilliant at it for you aswell, walk us through that.

Lucy:  In some races, you can pick up a pacer, usually it's a 100 mile race and at 100km you can pick someone up for the back 60km. I've had multiple pacers. When I did Western states for the first time, I had Sally McRae. She's known as the yellow runner on Instagram. She's on the Nike Run app. If you use that, she talks to you. Very motivational. I felt like I had the Nike Run app live with me. 

And then I had my brother, which was really special. Although he fatigued more than I! I ended up having to look after my older brother. And then I paced my dad at Western States in 2022, which was an incredible journey through the night. 

Most recently, I was at Cocodona 250, which is 250 miles. So 400km. And my teammate Ryan Sandes ran in Arizona. I paced for about 70km. I spent so much time trying to think of things to say. He's not responding. So you just got to be like, I think he likes this conversation. I'm telling him about my day. What's happening in the race and trying to inspire him to keep moving forward. But it's a very intimate; a very beautiful thing to share, it's just some of my favourite experiences.

Pete: So we fast forward to the most recent race, UTMB. Preparation for that. I know you were overseas for the elite training camp. How much work or what does that block look like beforehand to prepare for a race like that? 

Lucy: Taking it back to May. I came back to Australia, after Cocodona. I raced UTA and had an absolute turd of a day and really got punched in the face with the reality of you just can't disrespect this sport. 100km is a long way. The Blue Mountains are no joke. The people lining up are really giving it their all.

And to think that you can fly in and just start 100K's and try and be competitive was disrespectful. I really took time to recover from that with my tail between my legs before beginning the ramp towards UTMB.  I had two blocks. I did eight weeks in Australia in the winter, training out where I live in the Yarra Valley. I have a small little patch of KingLake that I love and can run on. And I would just do up to six hours in there, just running loops in the mud, in the rain, using my car as an aid station. I feel like that strengthened my character.

Then I went to France. I landed just as summer really hit and was surrounded by snow capped mountains. It was beautiful. I joined the Salomon High Performance Program where we had access to chefs and physios and that's where I built my fitness. But I think that the Australian block; the winter block, the Kinglake, the repetition of loops, the gnarly, not sexy, not content worthy, that stuff, is what shined for UTMB. I think that the Salomon Camp was beautiful and very cool, really dotted the i's and crossed the t's for me, but I think that the two blocks were both just as important as each other.

Pete: So this is obviously the third time you've run that race. A bit more about the race before I get into the stats and figures, what is UTMB?

Lucy: The UTMB is 177km this year, it was a little bit longer because of a rock fall. It starts in France, goes through Italy, through Switzerland, back into France. It's got 10,000m of climbing and descending- it's kind of the Super Bowl of trail running. It's incredible. It brings 10,000 people into this little ski village town that's very much got two walls of mountains on either side. You go up and the highest point is 2600m. This was my third time doing it. And every time it's been a completely different experience.

Pete: 2023 was the first time you ran at 27 hours, 39 minutes, 2024 was 25 hours, 55 minutes with a 25 minute break. That blew my mind. 2025 comes around. You've wiped another hour off that, 24 hours 51. Take us to the starting line. And what goes through your mind. How are you seeing all the other athletes. Nerves. Excitement. Buzz energy. We saw the footage. 

Lucy: In those two previous performances, I finished in 10th place. So that top ten at UTMB is very well renowned for me. That's a very big goal for most brands and for athletes. This year I thought I'd probably land around the same area even with a faster time. The whole sport; specifically the women have gone up a level.

You start at this church, and you're sardined into these corrals. We're at the front because our ranking is high. And so you've got 3000 people behind you, and the first nine kilometers are pretty flat. 

It's nine kilometers of streets lined with French people just yelling at you. Flares. People have horns. It's just mayhem. It's beautiful and it's chaotic. But I do love once we get on the climb it's back into silence. I shared the first few miles with Courtney Daulwater and Ruth Croft, and, you know, you're running comfortably uncomfortable, but you're just feeling so much energy around you. And it starts at 5:45pm as well, so you're kind of enjoying the bit of daylight, knowing that darkness is coming. And we also knew that a big storm was coming. And so there was just this real energy, but nervousness and emotion of just kind of like, “what's going to happen?”. 

Pete: Nutrition and hydration. Walk us through some of those nutrition plans and the execution of that.

Lucy: On the nutrition front, when your gels, bars and chews are frozen, you run into real issues on fueling. I hadn't prepared for that. I was able to get my calories in my drink mix and so we just went to two bottles of drink mix. The flask tops froze a little bit on the high points, and again, I hadn't prepared for that. From now on I will have an Arctic plan. Plan Arctic. I learnt some really great lessons for adverse weather. 

I had to make do with what I could. But the good thing is, it's France. They had baguettes and everything that you could want or need. And so I just kind of went for plan buffet, which is plan B. If you do dairy, you're good - They even have raclette! They're like shaving off cheese onto bread for you. There's salamis. You know, the year my dad did UTMB, he took 43 hours. My stop time was 20 minutes, his would've been 10 hours because he was just having full blown raclette experiences out there.

Pete: You mentioned Genesis. What did you wear throughout the race?

Lucy:  I wore Salomon S/Lab Genesis start to finish. I didn't change my shoes at all. I truly believe that that shoe is made for UTMB and is the best. I've run in it all three years.I had a pair of S/Lab Ultra Glides to change into if I slowed down and needed some more cushioning but that never became the case.

Pete: How has your why evolved over the course of your career? 

Lucy: That's a really good question. Like I said at the start, first of all it was to share time with my dad and to kind of experience these places in Victoria that we would go to and travel to, then more domestically in Australia, and then it became the world.

When your passion becomes your profession, it's a slippery slope because it becomes your identity. It's everything that you do. If you have a good race, you're a good person. If you have a bad race, you can start to believe you’re bad and you start to tie your self-worth into your results. I think what's really changed for me, more recently, is coming to understand that  this sport is wild, and we're out there for so long and it can go so south so quickly, but it can also be really good and really beautiful. Ultimately it's kind of like all those experiences are just so beautiful and worth it.

It doesn't feel like a job if I keep it fun and I do it my way instead of feeling like I had to do it a professional way. I'm a girl of the wind, I can be very random with things that I decide to do. That's the spice that keeps it fun for me. And that's ultimately why I think I have refound that love again.

Pete: Any advice for female runners navigating that tricky relationship with food and body image whilst training?

Lucy: Yeah, this is a really good one. My old coach used to have this saying of 'Eat enough always, eat too much sometimes and not enough never'. I think that's like a really good thing to remind yourself.

But, you know, like a car when you put fuel in, you'll be able to do incredible things and go to incredible places. It is easier to believe that you need to look a certain way to be a runner, and that's just so irrelevant, because there are people that look like runners that stand on the sidelines because they are injured. 

I'd rather have a body that can take me to places and get me to finish lines. And it's not about what you look like. It's about what you do. Food is just such a beautiful, delicious and fun way to add to these experiences. It's not something that should cause you stress. I think seeking help on it, talking about it, acknowledging that there is friction and resistance there, was the first thing for me. It's just such a cool thing to be able to now just enjoy things.

Pete: Kudos to Carmedi who signed up for his first 60K Ultra in November. Any wise words of wisdom?

Lucy: Oh man. Yeah, you can do it. I don't even know who I'm talking to but you can do it. The body will achieve what the mind believes, right? But I think it's also really good and respectful to have that feeling of the unknown; Because there is unknown - There's unknown in going out for a run and there's an unknown doing anything new and especially something for the first time. 

Anything can happen. But to have the strength and the courage to sign up, to come up with the idea, to train for it, to get to the start line, those are all just wins! Most people would never contemplate doing something like this. I think if you can find the wins and use that to get yourself momentum, the finish line becomes kind of irrelevant. You've already given yourself so much by just believing and trying. So yeah, hell yeah, you've got 60K's in you.

Pete: A big thank you to Lucy for everything that you do for the sport, men, women, young, old, massive. Thanks to you, it's been ULTRA.

"The person I can compare myself to is me. Everyone's at different cycles of their training, different cycles of their lives and with different visions of what success looks like to them. The race is a celebration of everyone that respects each other enough to race hard and try hard - especially the women."

Discover the styles Lucy proudly mentioned:
Shop S/Lab Range here.
Shop Trail Running Shoes here.