Lauren Gregory Wins OCC in Epic, Come-From-Behind Sprint Finish

Lauren Gregory was nervous to move up to the 50K distance this year. But in the end, at the world’s most important “50K” (that’s actually a 60K), ironically it was her track speed that mattered the most.

Until just a few kilometers left, it looked like Naomi Lang (Scotland) had the W in the bag. But then Sara Alonso (Spain) went into turbo mode on the final descent, gobbling up a 90-second gap to less than 30.

That’s when Gregory said hold my soft flask.

She blitzed by Alonso and quickly caught up to Lang. After trailing her prey for a few minutes, Gregory attacked when they hit the pavement with less than a kilometer to go. Lang tried to answer, but in the end no one could match the leg speed or ferocity of the jovial American from Colorado.

“My legs were stubs,” Gregory told Trail Runner at the finish. “So I felt like it was just my stubs versus their stubs and mine had a little more juice left in them.”

Gregory is no stranger to trail running at this point. She won the finals of the Golden Trail World Series last year, the most competitive “short course” trail running circuit on the planet, and recently she took the win at the grueling Speedgoat 50K, nearly breaking Jenn Lichter’s course record. But through it all, she’s retained her speed.

In fact, the NCAA track star—who qualified for the 5,000-meter finals at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials—is coached by track legend Ben True. It’s an unconventional path that paid off big through the streets of Chamonix on Thursday, August 27. Gregory stopped the clock in 6:08:07—three seconds ahead of Lang. Alonso collapsed across the line just over a minute later.

“Ben’s little metaphor for me all year has been ‘be the hairy tortoise,’ like the fastest turtle,” Gregory told Trail Runner. “I was just trying to be the quickest turtle out there. It was really good advice; it helped me a lot.”

Gregory is the first American woman to win OCC, and just the second American athlete, along with Eli Hemming—who won the men’s race in 2024.

How Lauren Gregory Won OCC

As Germany’s Laura Hottenrott immediately blew open the women’s race with a blistering pace, Gregory, by comparison, bided her time. With Black Eyed Peas playing in her ears she ran nearly side-by-side with fellow NCAA speedster Makena Morley. She came into Champex-Lac (7.3K) in ninth, about two minutes off the lead, before picking her way through the field on the next climb to move into fourth. By the race high point at Col de Balme, 3:43 in, she was in third.

Meanwhile up ahead, Hottenrott got eaten up on the descents, two-time runner-up Judith Wyder (Switzerland) faded from the front, and Lang charged down Col de Balme in the lead with Alonso hot on her heels. Gregory, meanwhile, took it one section at a time on the burly course on a hazy day with temperatures reaching the low 80s Fahrenheit. It may have only been her third ultra, but she’s a quick student.

“I hit all the water stops,” she said. “I hit most of the creeks. I think at some point I just laid on a rock that water was coming down. I was really trying to stay cool and I was like, ‘Just don’t stop fueling.’”

Her diligence, along with a lot of hard work, paid off.

In the end, the (very fast) tortoise won the race in one of the most dramatic and memorable finishes in UTMB World Series Finals history.

“I think respecting how long it is allows me to get better as the race pays out,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to go further than that. That was 10K further than I wanted to go.”