North Downs Way 50 Mile Race, 2026

Farnham, United Kingdom
274finishers
23.0%women
80distance (km)
11:01:50median time
45median age
1,707climb (m)

Men's race

1Strong, RichardGBR6:56:42
2Hind, JonnyGBR7:06:03
3John, MatthewGBR7:12:06
finishers211median10:48:59last12:56:48

Women's race

1Woolaston, AbigailGBR8:11:12
2Rickman, HannahGBR8:11:25
3Brook, KatieGBR8:15:42
finishers63median11:47:07last12:56:47

The field

Middle half of the field finished between
9:43:46 and 11:56:46
Finishing for the first time
210 of 274 (76.6%)
Beat their own time here
28 of 64
Oldest and youngest
63 and 23
From United Kingdom
89.8%
Nationalities
18
Finished in the final hour
67 of 274
Last finisher
12:56:48 (0:03:12 to spare)
Under 8 hours
15 (5.5%)
Under 10 hours
80 (29.2%)
Under 12 hours
207 (75.5%)

Abigail Woolaston won the women’s race in 8:11:12, 13 seconds clear of Hannah Rickman, who crossed the line in 8:11:25. Richard Strong took the men’s race in 6:56:42, with Jonny Hind second in 7:06:03. Matthew John completed the men’s podium in 7:12:06. He has been here before: he was second at the Wendover Woods 50 in 2021 and third at the Lakeland 50 in 2016.

Away from the front, the women’s race ran slow. The median woman finished in 11:47:07, the slowest women’s median in 14 editions since 2011. The median man came home in 10:48:59, so the middle of the men’s field was finished while half the women were still on the course.

Histogram of finish times at North Downs Way 50 Mile Race 2026. 274 finishers in 0.5-hour bands. The busiest band is 11:30:00 to 12:00:00 with 41 finishers, against a cutoff of 13:00:00.
274 finishers at North Downs Way 50 Mile Race, 2026-05-16. Dashed lines mark the winners of the men's and women's races and the median finisher. The solid line is the 13:00:00 cutoff.

The women who finished were weighted heavily towards the back of the race. Women made up 23.0% of the field, and a quarter of them finished after 12:12:57, inside the last hour before the limit. Among the men, the slowest quarter began at 11:46:53, almost exactly where the median woman finished.

The field came from 18 countries, but it remained a home race at heart: 89.8% of finishers were from the United Kingdom.

The chart below sets each finisher’s time against their age.

Bar chart of median finish time by age band at North Downs Way 50 Mile Race 2026. the under 30 10:50:48, the 30s 10:36:20, the 40s 10:48:26, the 50s 11:20:45. The 50s are 7.0% slower than the 30s.
Median finish time by age at North Downs Way 50 Mile Race, 2026-05-16. Bands holding fewer than 13 finishers are left out, since a median of a handful is not one.

The cutoff shaped the closing hour more than anything else in the race. Of all finishers, 24.5% came home in the final hour before the 13:00:00 limit. The last woman finished in 12:56:47 and the last man in 12:56:48, both inside the limit.

Two stacked panels covering 15 editions of North Downs Way 50 Mile Race from 2011 to 2026. The upper panel shows finishers by year, split into men and women, peaking at 329 in 2024. The lower panel shows winning times for both races, the men's fastest in 2025 and the women's in 2025.
North Downs Way 50 Mile Race, 2011 to 2026. Finishers by year above, winning times below.