“Set yourself up for success. Train hard. Do everything you can. But there is an element of just believing you can do it. And that's how I feel about TSP and breaking the record." — Ellie-May, Just Running Team Captain.

"You need somebody who calls the shots and it needs to not be a runner because there will become a point where you — the runner — doesn't really know what's going on."

"You're running on feel and the feeling is that you need to bring everything you've got to every footstep. Everyone is so hyped because the whole way through we did the best with what was in front of us"

"Nobody could have stopped the issues from happening — it just wouldn't be the race that it is. And I would probably be here after feeling less elevated if everything had gone to plan."

"If guys say they're going to win, or if guys say they are going to race — that's ok, we accept that. For someone like me who will quite overtly say 'I want to win' — I want to win The Speed Project and I'm not shy in admitting that at all. I think there is normally a bit of a stigma around a group of girls saying 'hey, we want to win — we're going to win'."

It's the unknowns that cause things to unravel. A nasty crash on the freeway sent ripples through the event — leaving runners stranded alone to cover longer distances and tearing up precisely-tuned plans. In ultra racing time rarely comes back to you. The team did what they could to pivot and react, but the record — at one point a confident formality — had slipped away. Fighting all the way to Vegas, Just Running finished as the third all-women team overall.