Emma Stuart – the Arc of Attrition

A veterinarian by day, Emma spends her time helping animals, but in her spare time, she continues to shine by smashing records for some of the UK’s most prolific ultramarathons.

“I’m a bit of a latecomer to the running scene. I started dabbling and running four and a half years ago, mainly because my partner James, encouraged me.  So I did a couple of half marathons and then jumped straight to a 50km.”

Emma Stuart came in as the second female at the Manx Mountain Marathon, a race that traverses the length of the Isle of Man.

“I didn’t put much time and effort into the training, but I ended up being the second female. And then I thought, oh, hang on a minute, maybe I can do this. I entered a couple of other events, did pretty well in them, and then progressively went bigger and bigger. 50 to 100 miles seem to be what I enjoy doing.”

Her aunt planted the seed to enjoy ultra-marathons when she was younger: “I was always that child at school that was last in all of the sports days by a long way. I remember my aunt, she was a marathon runner, and she’s run a huge number of marathons over her lifetime.  When I was seven or eight, she said to me, ‘Emma, the problem with you is, we Stuarts are like, duracell bunnies, we’re designed to go forever. The problem with these races, if they’re not long enough for you, you need to go longer.”