July 2018 -

The ultra marathon runner championing body positivity

When Latoya Shauntay Snell hit rock bottom, she couldn’t run a mile. Then, on a whim, she entered a half marathon. Now she’s competing in ultras and inspiring others. Her journey is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1980s, long before it was gentrified, running for fun was not something Latoya Shauntay Snell would have ever thought to do. “I only ran for ice-cream trucks,” she laughs. “If you were running around the projects at that time, people would instantly start running with you because they would be like, ‘Who got shot?’”

There was an athletics track near where she lived but it had been trashed and remained closed for years. When it eventually reopened, Latoya remembers being excited that she could go there. But she only ever walked around the track, never ran.

“If you were running around the projects at that time, people would instantly start running with you because they would be like, ‘Who got shot?’” Latoya Shauntay Snell

Running just wasn’t something people like her did, she says. “As an African-American, the term we would use is: ‘This is white people shit.’ This is not something that black people do. They don’t go out there and run.”

Plus-sized runner and proud

Fast-forward to today and Latoya, now 32, averages 25-60 miles a week depending on what she’s training for. She’s run over 80 races, including two ultramarathons, and finisher medals adorn her walls. But what makes this shift even more impressive is the fact that Latoya is a proud plus-sized runner or, as she would say on her popular food and running blog Running Fat Chef: “I’m fit. I’m fat. I’m an athlete.”

It was actually Latoya’s weight that led her to take up running in the first place. In 2012, at a time where she weighed over 120 kg (almost 19 stone), she was diagnosed with “a laundry list” of health problems relating to her weight including sciatica, a herniated disc, and sharp headaches. Her doctor said: “You have to lose this weight or you’re going to die.”

So she started to work out, gently at first – with callisthenics – but then, in late 2013, she went to the track. “I kept seeing this guy with headphones dancing on the track, jogging around and sometimes going backwards. He had these phenomenal legs…” she laughs. “But more than anything I wanted his happiness. He didn’t care if people were looking at him. I think that was the bug that put it in my head.”

Ticking it off the bucket list

Then an old friend posted on Facebook that he was signing up for a half marathon, prompting Latoya to sign up too.

“I hit the button and then I freaked out a little as I’d never even run a mile, let alone a half marathon! But I thought I’ll just make it a bucket list-type thing, a one-off.”

She had no shoes or running kit and, when she tried to run, “it felt like crap because I didn’t even know how to breathe.” But at the track she met a group called Black Girls Run. “I’m a serious New York sceptic, and anybody that comes up to me I’m like: ‘What’s your agenda?’ but it was completely free,” she says, “and they were just a super-friendly sisterhood so I joined them.”

Once she’d done the “half”, a friend from Black Girls Run encouraged her to sign up for a full marathon. Latoya laughed, thinking it would take six to seven hours, but the friend said: “Speed is not important, you have the heart for it. And since then I’ve realised anything beyond a half marathon is a mental thing. I’ve learnt to tell myself stories and jokes. I hear soundtracks in my head…”

Capable of anything

A happy back-of-the-pack runner, she’s since competed in two ultra marathons and has signed up for another this year. Latoya says running completely changed her as a person. She realised she was capable of doing anything but also that this was about more than the weight loss. She took on other challenges she’d never have contemplated before including skydiving, and she’s now even training for a triathlon despite a “serious and crippling fear of swimming.”

“I kept seeing this guy with headphones dancing on the track, jogging around and sometimes going backwards. He had these phenomenal legs… But more than anything I wanted his happiness. He didn’t care if people were looking at him. I think that was the bug that put it in my head.” Latoya Shauntay Snell

But it hasn’t all been positive vibes. She’s been heckled at races and repeatedly trolled online. “I’ve been called everything from the n-word to just having random people be offended by the fact I was running. ‘Concerned Trolls’ I call them. They say: ‘If you have that much weight, you shouldn’t be running. What about your knees?’ It’s like: ‘Ok, how shall I lose weight? Or should I sit at home and eat bonbons and perpetuate the stereotype!?’ Or they even say: ‘If you do all that, why are you still fat?’ Luckily, I have a very thick skin now and I enjoy what I’m doing.”

Latoya reminds herself that very few of these trolls have likely ran an ultra marathon. Instead she focuses on the many messages she gets saying how inspiring it is to hear her story and see her body-positive pictures online at her blog Running Fat Chef.

“I’m not trying to be this poster girl,” she says. “You can do anything here and running might not be for everyone, but for me it was like my gateway drug. I had a metamorphosis and suddenly I was doing things I’d have never considered before like learning to swim or skydive. I got over my fear of travelling to other states; I’ve since entered races all over the country. Running changed everything for me.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the Fly Elevon trainers Latoyah wears.

How running saved a DJ’s life

Louisahhh has been touted as techno’s next superstar, but to get there she’s battled addiction and convention. Her story is the latest profile in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

There’s a feeling Louisa Pillott sometimes gets when she plays. When the music sounds right, the crowd is psyched; things are going really well. “You become present,” says the Paris-based American DJ, who is better known as Louisahhh, a moniker her fans chant during her epic sets — like a war cry.

“You’re in your body, and you feel hyper-connected to the world around you. For me, it’s like an epiphany. I suddenly come to and I’m grateful and emotionally moved by the fact that I get to do this.”

Getting into the groove

It’s a sensation she only experiences while performing or running, her other passion in life. It might seem incongruous that one of the world’s most exciting electronic artists is a mad keen runner, but it’s true. It’s also not a stretch to say that if it wasn’t for running, Louisahhh might not be here at all.

Louisahhh started running just over a decade ago after a serious stint in rehab. “I was addicted to cocaine and diagnosed as hypomanic,” she says. “They tried to put me on medication to stabilise me, but I was adamantly opposed to it.”

Instead, she picked her own path back to health on the dusty trails through the Santa Monica Mountains in California. “It was not a terrible place to start. I would gallop around these beautiful trails with a giant discman listening to CDs. That image seems so archaic. It was only 2006 — I guess I had pretty limited resources back then.”

Louisahhh found running evened out her mood and allowed her sleep properly for the first time in a long while. It also made her feel happy, an emotion she’d never expected to feel again. A heartbreaking thought for anyone. “I came into recovery thinking, ‘This is what I have to do not to die,’” she says. “So to suddenly come into contact with something that I found I loved — that I didn’t need anything to do, all I had to do was get some shoes and get on the road — it was such a relief. It saved my life.”

Going against the grain

She moved to Paris. A great move creatively, as she started working with French techno wunderkind Brodinski and released some seminal tunes, but it was a less fun place to run than the hills behind Malibu. “In LA, I went for epic 25-mile runs without ever crossing my own path. Paris is much harder as I don’t like roads. But there are some parks with tracks and canals where you can run all the way to Amsterdam.”

“To suddenly come into contact with something that I found I loved — that I didn’t need anything to do, all I had to do was get some shoes and get on the road — it was such a relief. It saved my life.” Louisa Pillott

Is running considered unhip in her line of work? “When I moved to Paris I thought that. I was really focused on ultra-marathons and long-distance trail running with people who are in that world and super-nerdy. I was like, ‘I’m sober so I’m not going to your after-party. I’ll feel weird as everybody else will be super-fucked. I’ll be up weeping with joy running while the sun rises instead.”

“But in France literally the first group of friends I made, which was seriously lifesaving, were from the Paris Run Club, which is part of the global Bridge The Gap urban running crews. They were a group of creatives, everyone was a producer, or designer, or art director. I was like, ‘Ah this is where the cool kids are. No one told me!’”

Beyond that she also believes running makes her a better DJ. “It definitely does, as I ‘run-test’ all the tracks I listen to. It’s very visceral. If it makes you focus and dig in, then it’s going to really work on a dance floor. If I want to turn it off, it would be the same on the dance floor.”

“Running has made me realise that suffering is okay. Being uncomfortable won’t kill you. The trick is to gracefully accept that you’re uncomfortable — and keep moving.” Louisa Pillott

But the benefits for her head are bigger than just helping her perform well. She says, “Running has made me realise that suffering is okay. Being uncomfortable won’t kill you. If you’re having a down point in your career, or relationship, or if you’re suffering from anxiety or depression, it’s okay, it’s part of being human. Resisting it is not helpful. The trick is to gracefully accept that you’re uncomfortable — and keep moving.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the innovative Clifton trainers Louisahhh wears.

Running away from the rat race and ending up in a photo-finish

Amandine Ferrato gave up competitive running to travel the world. She found a new outlook that led to a national team spot — and thrilling results. Her journey is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

Trail running is nothing like the 100m sprint. There is no swagger at the start, no golden spikes, and no agonising wait while the judges deliberate over the outcome of a super-tight photo finish. Razor-thin wins are not the norm at all. In fact, it wouldn’t be unusual for several minutes to pass between the runner who finished first, arms aloft, and the guy, or girl, who came in second.

Except one sunny day in June this year, the opposite of that became true. And the crowds lining the route into the tiny village of Badia Prataglia in Italy were treated to a finish so dramatic, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in a packed Olympic stadium. The race, which also happened to be the World Trail Running Championships, saw Amandine Ferrato of France finish just three seconds behind her compatriot Adeline Roche.

Changing mindset

A crazy-small margin given they’d been racing for five hours, over 50 kilometres, through the brutally steep forest mountain trails that characterise this northern Tuscan backwater. But what was even more surprising than the theatrical finish was the fact Amandine hadn’t actually wanted to win.

To understand why, we need to zoom out from the race and rewind back to the beginning. Amandine wasn’t a particularly sporty kid. She liked phys-ed at school but did nothing beyond that. Hot-housed by competitive, athletics-loving parents she was not. “Kids today do everything,” she says. “They do all kinds of sport when they’re young, but it wasn’t like that then in my village. It just wasn’t something people did.”

Still at 20, when she finished her studies and had more time, she decided to give running a go and found she liked it — a lot. She even joined up with a club and coach and entered road races and 10km events. But she soon grew tired of it all. Amandine got sick of the relentless pacing and focus on times. She did some mountain biking, but then decided to go travelling, embarking on a 10-month trip through Central America, Asia and Australia that would radically change her mindset and shape her worldview.

“It definitely changed my state of mind; my way of viewing the world,” she says. “I was living like a local, consuming less, being in touch with nature. When I came back to France, I felt stifled by consumerism. I wanted to live more simply.”

Finding calm and simplicity

She stayed with a friend who lived near a hill, which loomed large in her imagination, so she started running up it. “I got a lot of pleasure doing that,” she says, “I liked the contact with nature; the calmness and simplicity of it. It helped me find myself and wake up to what I wanted to do next.”

Some friends entered her in a trail running event, and even though she had no kit and her “trainers were terrible,” she surprised herself by winning. She got a cash prize, which enabled her to buy some decent trail running shoes. “I kept them very preciously,” she says, “like a collector.”

“I got a lot of pleasure running up the hill. I liked the contact with nature; the calmness and simplicity of it. It helped me find myself and wake up to what I wanted to do next.” Amandine Ferrato

After that “the current kind of took me along.” She did some more races and this year, she found herself in the French team ahead of the World Championships. Amandine became good friends with her teammates, and was especially close to Adeline Roche, the runner who would finish just ahead of her in Badia Prataglia.

During the race, Adeline lead from the start with a small group of other runners, while Amandine was comfortably placed in the group behind them. Yet by the halfway-point Amandine had moved up to second position behind Adeline, who by now was two minutes ahead. Then the leader had some stomach problems so Amandine caught up, and the two of them ran the end of the race together, neck and neck.

Friendship comes first

Amandine appeared to have a chance to go ahead and win the race but she didn’t take it, then Adeline sprinted for the line and won by three seconds. “It’s very rare to have as close a finish as that,” says Amandine. “We were together the two of us. We hadn’t prepared for it to be like that. I had a conflict in my head: I couldn’t pass her, out of respect for our friendship and the race. I thought we’d cross the line hand in hand.”

“To share the podium with Adeline was special. I might not do it again in the future, but at that moment I was very much in the moment, and reacting with my heart.” Amandine Ferrato

But Amandine has no regrets about the way things turned out. In fact, in the video of the finish she looks even more elated with her second position than Adeline was coming first. “I am very much an emotional person,” she says. “I feel it in my heart, where as she is much more rational and down to earth.”

“She is from a road running culture, with times in her head, and I’m more from a culture of trail running and nature. I have no regrets about not winning. To share (the podium) with her was one of the special things about that day. I might not do it again in the future, but at that moment I was very much in the moment, and reacting with my heart.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Check out the FAST, TOUGH TRAIL RUNNING SPEEDGOAT SHOES Amandine wears.

How Shirin Gerami sparked a girls’ sporting revolution in Iran

Triathlete Shirin Gerami’s persistence in pushing Iran to allow her, as a woman, to compete led to a win that transcends sport. Her journey is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

The night before racing in a triathlon most people keep things fairly relaxed. They’ll pack their bags, perhaps eat a giant plate of pasta, piled up high like a pyramid, and have an early night. But before her first World Championships Shirin Gerami was doing none of those things.

Instead, she was rushing around trying to get government permission just to compete in the event. To represent Iran, she needed the okay from the Ministry of Sports there and for the past six months the answer had been a consistent and resounding “No.”

Then suddenly, hours before the race, she got an email confirming she was allowed to compete and Shirin Gerami became the first-ever woman to represent Iran in a world triathlon competition. A mould-breaking moment.

Breaking the mould

Her journey to that point was as improbable as it is inspiring. Starting with the fact she had zero interest in sport as a child, which isn’t surprising because in Iran, where she was born and lived from the ages of 10 to 15, girls aren’t encouraged to play sport. “In the schools I went to, phys-ed was quite weak,” she says. “It was never a seriously sporty session. It was more girls sitting around a courtyard reading books.”

She did however love nature and hiking. “I was around 13 when my mum’s cousin, who always loved hiking and the outdoors, told me I should go hiking with her in the [Alborz] mountains, which Tehran [where she lived] is at the foot of. She seemed to know every single person there and she introduced me and said, ‘If you ever see her, take care of her.’”

After that, Shirin would go hiking in the mountains before school most days, leaving at 4 or 5 a.m. in her school uniform. “I’d come down smelly and sweaty and go to school,” she laughs.

When she was 18, she and two friends spontaneously took a hiking trip from Tehran to the Caspian Sea. They were having an amazing time until the fifth night when they got attacked in their tent by a group of men with “large daggers and knives fit to cut off the carcass of sheep.”

The experience was transformative for Shirin, causing her to be diagnosed with a mental illness, but also helping her realise that sport was her way back. “Anytime I’ve gone through a down or hard times,” she says, “it’s always been sports and the outdoors that helped me come back up again from the depths of downness.”

Starting out in triathlon

She went to university at Durham in England, and in her final year found the courage to try triathlon. “I didn’t consider myself sporty in anyway. Triathlon seemed totally impossible and out of my reach but I like an adventure…”

Still, she was completely intimidated at the start. “I was the last person in the slowest lane in the pool, I had to walk my bike up the hill and I was the one who was getting lapped on the track,” she says.

But she kept going and made progress. The thought of racing terrified Shirin but she’d made good friends in the sport and they persuaded her to try. At each stage of her first race, she expected to be stopped for going too slowly. But she never was.

Was she euphoric at the finish line? “It was more the realisation that we underestimate ourselves daily. We don’t show up to the start line; we give up before having even tried.”

She moved to London for work and joined a triathlon club “for the fun and love of it.” Then ahead of the ITU World Championships, which in 2013 were taking place in London, she was chatting with some triathlon friends about the various nationalities that would be represented in the race. “We all laughed and joked and said, ‘Iran, haha well that’s not going to be possible.’ But that night I thought, ‘Hang on. You dismissed something, without actually exploring it.’”

Making the grade

The next morning she called up the triathlon federation in Iran and asked why exactly women couldn’t race. After many questions, the first tangible thing she found was it had to do with clothing and Iran’s non-negotiable stance on women covering up. Shirin thought this would be a simple thing to solve, but it took her six months of sourcing various outfits, and pictures and emails and flights to Iran before the Ministry of Sports delivered that magical “Yes.”

Race day was the first time she’d worn her sanctioned outfit, which included a hijab. The kit was not the easiest thing to compete in, but in that first race, Shirin wasn’t worrying about that. “The relief of getting the permission was beyond anything, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh it feels a little heavy.’”

Four years on from that ground-breaking race, she has many more triathlons under her belt including the iconic Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, which she did last year. Thirteen hours of hardcore exercise over 140.6 miles, all in a hijab, covered to her wrists and toes.

She still feels there’s room for improvement in terms of kit that women can compete in fairly and safely while adhering to strict Islamic codes. “Some people find arts therapy, some people find sports therapy… I dream of a world where everyone could access sports — should they want to. And if clothing really is the area that is stopping you from accessing sport, then I think that’s something that needs to be looked at.”

But Shirin’s legacy is already in full effect. She’s inspired women all over the world, and in 2017, Iran sent a team of female triathletes to the Central Asian Championships for the first time, which was “very uplifting” for her.

“I hope these opportunities will continue growing,” she says. “In the UK, I rock up to whatever club I want to join and start training. It’s as a simple as that. Whereas if I’d been a girl living in Iran, I would not for one second have known what a triathlon was. And I’d have missed out on the confidence, empowerment and joy it’s brought to my life.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the innovative Clifton trainers Shirin wears.

Keeping on running — even when all hope seems lost

You might not have heard of Ludo Pommeret, but he is the Usain Bolt, the Lionel Messi, the Lebron James, of Ultra-Trail running. His story of a seemingly impossible comeback is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

Imagine entering a race that will require you to run an entire earth day and night — if you’re exceptional that is. It will take far longer than a day if you’re not. Imagine running in a race over a distance greater than four marathons, across the Alps, Europe’s highest and most punishing mountain range.

Now picture puking your guts out by the side of a trail less than a third of the way into the race, and looking so pale and broken, that, as they pass you, all your friends and fellow competitors will suppose you’re about to drop out and seek urgent medical attention. But you don’t. Somehow you don’t.

The next time they notice you, you’re standing at the very top of the podium.

Scaling new heights

Growing up in the French Alps, Ludo Pommeret was unsurprisingly drawn to winter sports. He loved skiing and snowboarding. And windsurfing in the summer. He loved sports with stoke and adrenaline; running seemed achingly dull in comparison. “When I was younger, I thought it was not very interesting to run,” he says. “I thought runners were boring.”

Ludo was really good at snowboarding, especially big mountain freeriding and soon found he was picking up sponsors and doing shoots for brands. But as the stakes got higher, his interest in the inherent dangers of riding in the backcountry began to wane. “When you reach a certain level, the descents start to be quite dangerous,” he says. “And you are jumping more and more, from higher and higher points… When I got older I started to think more about the danger. It became different.”

He was hungry for a new challenge. A less risky way to feel the same buzz he’d got from charging down mountains. He certainly didn’t expect it to come from running, but when his brother-in-law suggested he enter a small race close to his village, he decided to give it a go.

“It was good. My brother-in-law and a few friends entered. They all did athletics and cross-country regularly, but I finished in front of them, so they were surprised,” he laughs. “I was too.”

Laying the foundations

At the beginning he didn’t think running was something he could be good at. “I entered another race. This one started in my village so I thought, ‘Why not?’ It was a very long race — 106 km in total, with lots of elevation — though you could do it as a walker. But it was too difficult, the doctors stopped me after 60 km, as my blood pressure was too low.”

Did he not want to steer clear of long races after that? “No, I thought maybe I just have to prepare for such a race. But the next year, I couldn’t finish either.” Then in 2003, that race stopped and the Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc, or UTMB, began. It’s since become a world-famous event, often cited as the “Tour de France” of trail running. Ludo entered in 2004 but dropped out again, this time scuppered by tendonitis.

“Then I stopped long races. I decided to start doing smaller ones, to build up slowly.” It worked. Ludo was no longer getting injured and he started winning races. “That was the beginning of my running,” he says.

To his surprise, he started to experience that same passion and thrill that he used to get from snowsports once more but this time he was getting it from bombing down a mountain in his running shoes without a board or set of skis in sight. He loved the gradual anticipation of the climbs and running as fast as he could down the rugged and technical rocky terrain on the other side.

He now wins the races he once couldn’t finish, including last year’s UTMB, where he staged a never-seen-before, epic comeback, going from 50th to finishing 1st. It was this race, which had left him vomiting by the side of the trail seemingly stripped of hope. Yet with seemingly indefatigable spirit, he kept running, through intense summer heat, violent thunderstorms and disorientating darkness, to the most unlikely of victories.

How did Ludo keep going and maintain any semblance of morale when his chances of winning seemed so remote? “These races are so long and so much can happen. You just need to be there at the end and see.”

“Trail running is like life. You know you’ll have a bad moment in the race. Almost all races have a moment that’s difficult and hard to manage. In life, it’s the same, we have good and bad moments. Almost every time you have a bad moment, you’ll have a better moment to come.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the supportive and technical trail running Mafate Speed shoes Ludo wears.