Spotted on Strava: UTMB, Vuelta, Sand Marathons & a Monkey

From the slopes of Mont Blanc to the heights of Spain, by way of a monkey in Brooklyn and 30 days of running marathons on sand, there's been plenty to watch out for on Strava this week.

It's fair to say that few trail races capture the imagination in the way that Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc does. A who's who of trail running, the race serves as the grand finale of the eponymous UTMB World Series. This year, Katie Schide and Vincent Bouillard secured victories on the iconic course. Schide was particularly dominant in the women's race, taking 20-minutes off the course record to finish in 22:09:31, almost 40 minutes ahead of Ruth Croft in second (22:48:37).

Meanwhile, Vincent Bouillard sprung a massive surprise in the men’s race when he ran away from the field at the midway point. The Frenchman, who works full-time for HOKA and was racing in his first UTMB, became only the fifth person to go under 20 hours in the race, crossing the line in 19:54:23. Fellow Frenchman Baptiste Chassagne was second (20:22:45), with Ecuador’s Joaquin Lopez third (20:26:22)

Switching to two wheels now, and the Vuelta a España - the last of cycling's Grand Tours in 2024 - headed into the final week with Aussie Ben O'Connor a minute ahead of the rest of the field. With a series of mountain stages to come, there's still plenty of racing to be had. Those mountains should suit Pablo Castrillo Zapater, the hometown hero who grabbed a second win on Stage 15, having taken the tape on Stage 12.

While the road cyclists were doing their thing in Spain, history was being made at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Andorra, as Puck Pieterse became the first Dutch woman to win gold in the event. Pieterse held off a strong finish from Anne Terpstra to secure the win. Meanwhile, in the men's race South Africa's Alan Hatherly won a titanic battle with Victor Koretzky. Koretzky attacked on the final lap, but Hatherly held on to take Gold, with Tom Pidcock closing out the podium.

If you happened to be wandering along the Colorado Trail recently, you might have wondered what was going on. This famous trail was playing host to no fewer than three different FKT attempts. Brent Herring claimed the FKT for his attempt on the self-supported East to West version of the trail, while DJ Fox went West to East (with support). Meanwhile, Jeff Browning also went West to East - but with a twist - taking the FKT for that variation.

UTMB or The Colorado Trail wasn't the site for the only impressive two-footed attempts recently recorded on Strava. Elena Lopez took the FKT for crossing the Swiss Alps in 6 days and 20 hours; Eilish McColgan made her Half Marathon return at London's Big Half, winning in 1:09:14; and Spencer Matthews completed the epic challenge (and grabbed a Guinness World Record) of running 30 marathons in 30 days, all on sand. Spencer became the first person to complete this feat while running in the deserts in Jordan.

And, finally, over in New York Karl Chen was monkeying around during this ride in Brooklyn...