CLOSING THE GENDER DATA GAP: The Speed Project 4.0

Setting the Scene

 An unsanctioned roughly 500km (about 310.69 mi) race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Starting at the Santa Monica Pier and ending at the ‘Welcome to Las Vegas’ sign. There are no race sponsors, no recognized competitive sports organizations or federations, just track clubs and endurance enthusiasts.  

Teams are made up of solo runners or relay teams and no more than 3 support members. There are no designated routes or passages. The only rule is that they are not allowed to break road laws which means no running on the highway. Teams can choose any legal path they find on the route to the finish line.

This is The Speed Project.

Event Summary: The Speed Project 4.0 

We supported the team from Onetrack Club out of London. They define themselves as a member’s club for people who run to come together, move, and grow through sport. Onetrack Club brings the professionalism of an elite sports coaching team to the everyday athlete. Founded in 2016 and grew organically from the sponsorship of two runners to become a virtual and physical community that has supported thousands of everyday athletes.  

The Onetrack Team was led by Anthony Fletcher, coach and exercise physiologist. Onetrack partnered with Lululemon EU and brought together a team of 6 female endurance athletes to participate in The Speed Project 4.0 and collect training data to bring awareness to and support the cause of closing the gender data gap in exercise science. This is critical because less than 10% of exercise science research is collected and published from female athletes. In a concerted effort to make a difference in the availability of female data for research in endurance sports, these athletes volunteered to participate in testing and provide their data from the race.  

6 competitive endurance female athletes from the UK comprised the Onetrack Team. Endurance sport content creators, Amy Chapman (@achappers), Mary McCarthy (@marymccarths), and Savannah Sachdev (@savannahsachdev), were joined by PE teacher, Laure Donnelly (@crunch_2_brunch), English international athlete Anya Culling (@a.culling), and Ironman World Championships competitor Jessica Van Droogenbroeck (@jessvandroogenbroeck). Together, each of the women took turns running 3.5km segments along the Pacific coastline through Death Valley and the Mojave Desert.  

As a part of the research initiative, Hawkin was honored to provide force plates and support to Coach Fletcher and his team to collect jump and strength data before, during, and after the race. The day before the race, at the team’s hotel in Santa Monica, we performed a battery of tests including Double and Single Leg Countermovement Jump, Multi-Rebound, and Supine 90deg Isometric Hamstring strength. The same tests were repeated during the race (about 300km into the 500km race), and immediately after the race (right in front of the world-famous “Welcome to Las Vegas”).  

In the end, the ladies covered the 350 miles (560km) while overcoming more than 12k feet of total incline running, 40-degree temperature changes (from 30F to 70F), rain, snow, and sleep deprivation; to finish the race in 50 hours and 18 minutes. We were incredibly honored to support these amazing athletes and Anthony Fletcher (@aka_fletch) in their mission to close the gender gap in sports science research.