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Ain’t no mountain high enough — at least not for this superwoman.
Ultra-runner and New Zealand native Sophie Grant has set out to break the record for the fastest known time ever through the treacherous Alpine pass of Via Alpina. She’s set to achieve her goal in 30 days.
“Being able to look up and actually be inside these landscapes — it’s unbelievable, a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Grant exclusively told The Post.
The 42-year-old runner’s mentally and physically demanding route covers Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and France before ending on the Mediterranean coast in Monaco. “Every so often I lift my head, see how beautiful the place is and just think how lucky I am.”
The course spans 2,000 kilometers (roughly 1,250 miles), along with 120,000 meters (393,700 feet) of ascent.
The current record for the speediest Alps crossing was set by runner Jack Catterall in August of 2024, ringing in at 35 days, 21 hours. A year later, Tessa Caspers set the fastest women’s time for the route at 38 days and 2 hours.
Grant, who runs under her maiden name, is set to blow both records out of the water — or rather, off the Swiss cliffs.
She began the route on July 4 in Trieste, Italy. Now she’s about 310 miles from setting the record, which would make her the fastest person of any gender to complete the demanding course.
A typical day on Grant’s trek involves running 14 to 18 hours, which nets her roughly 40 to 50 miles a day. That includes as much as 16,000 feet of climbing the legendary mountain pass, which includes limestone, dolomite and even crystal formations.
“I don’t really think about it,” said Grant of the steep task in front of her. “I just move as fast as the terrain will let me.”
How is she fueling her Alpine adventure? Not with Ricola.
After sleeping three to five hours in either the camper van, a mountain hut, hotel room or tent, Grant starts each morning with protein-packed muesli and coffee.
Throughout the day, Grant keeps hydrated with sports beverages and stays fueled with a mix of energy gels, nuts, seeds, dried meat, oat bars and ham and cheese sandwiches, making sure to fill up on “proper food” like big burritos and pasta whenever she sees her team.
Grant’s photographer, Zoe Salt, and her partner, George Woods, try to meet her at every rest stop and nightly pause. She tries to take water breaks every three hours. (Fun fact: The Alps have drinking fountains on the route.)
Grant estimated that through her journey, she’s typically been eating 6,000 to 7,000 calories a day, which “still isn’t enough to keep up with what I’m burning.”
The feat is even more remarkable considering Europe’s unexpected extreme heat wave, which has created “brutally hot” temperatures for Grant’s groundbreaking trek. She keeps her skin protected from prolonged sun exposure and scorching temps with long-sleeved running tops engineered for breathability, along with gallons of sunscreen. Grant told The Post that the trail has been “long, beautiful and completely relentless,” adding that the terrain was “much rougher and more remote… everything is taking longer than it should.”
“I’ve had to be really disciplined about taking it one day at a time,” she explained. “Each climb becomes its own separate goal, rather than a piece of something enormous.”
In roughly eight days, when Grant’s personal odyssey finally comes to an end, she plans to take a moment to feel the weight of what she’s accomplished — and then take a good, long rest.
“I’m going to tell my legs they’ve done a really great job and that they can stop now,” Grant said. “Then I’m going to lie on a bed, eat a load of food and watch a lot of TV for a few weeks.”
Like Miley said, “It’s the climb.”
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