CurraNZ athlete blazes to another four British and Scottish records at European Champs

British ultra-running sensation Joasia Zakrzewski (right) has blazed to yet more Scottish and British all-time records.

The expat Brit, now living in Australia, raced in the European 24-hour Champs last month, lowering four new records by running 247.985km on her event debut in Verona, Italy. 

Despite carrying a ‘significant’ knee injury, Jo beat the previous UK all-time record, set in 2011 by Lizzy Hawker, by 910m. 

Jo also took the 100mile/200km Scottish road records (beating them by an hour or more) and the British age-group record, previously stood at 227km.

Our golden girl learned in the latter stages of the race that the overall British record was also hers for the taking, which spurred her into upping her pace and securing title No 4 in the final three minutes of the 24 hours of running.

Jo says: “Somehow I managed to keep going and even pick it up for the last 10-15 minutes of the race, so I was moving faster than most at this point.

“When I crossed the line I wasn’t sure whether I’d actually broken Lizzy Hawker’s record, set 11 years ago, so when the final gun went I just lay down in the road and had a little weep! 

“The British team got me into drug testing as they thought I’d done it and I joined the new world record holder Aleksandr Sorokin in testing.” The Lithuanian shattered his own world record by running 319.61 km / 198.59 miles.

Jo’s achievement is all the more impressive, after she lined up with a significant knee injury, which put her participation in doubt. 

Jo holds the 24-hour records for distance covered in the track events, having broken the previous Scottish and UK records at the Australian 24-Hour Champs in 2021. This was her debut at a road-equivalent Championship.

“Not being able to run for a month before a championship event doesn’t do much for your confidence and mind set, so I started the race steadily as I had no clue how I would go,” she says.

“I set myself little targets, eg run to 100k, then run to 12 hours, then aim for the Scottish records as they came.

“Having passed the 100-mile mark almost an hour under the Scottish road record, I then passed the 200km point even further ahead, so I thought the Scottish road record was on.

“I must’ve broken 226km with a couple of hours to spare so I knew I could quit happy, but in another kilometre my crew told me I could have the British age group record of 227km. They told me to keep going, aim for the overall British record - I actually had no idea what it was, it was so far off my radar!”

Jo holds the 24-hour records for distance covered in the track events, having broken the previous Scottish and UK records at the Australian 24-Hour Champs in 2021. This was her debut at a road-equivalent Championship.

Amazingly, despite the huge effort, Jo felt she had recovered enough to run another competition the following weekend '....my legs even felt up to a wee local Parkrun and 10k trail race (second lady) the weekend after so yay for my CurraNZ!!'