Anne Crawford: From Belfast Escape to Team Ireland’s Backyard Ultra Warrior
At 49, she earned one of only two women’s places on Ireland’s squad for the 2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships in Enniskillen.
By Alicja Pilarska · · Runner Profiles
Anne Crawford started running as an escape. Now she’s one of Ireland’s backyard ultra standouts, and she talks injury, guilt, nutrition and why she keeps coming back.
Quietly Redefining What’s Possible
Some runners make a lot of noise. Anne Crawford just keeps quietly moving the line of what’s possible. At 49, the Malvern-based Irishwoman has become one of the bright lights of backyard ultras. She earned her place as one of only two women on Ireland’s 15-strong squad for the 2026 Backyard Ultra World Team Championships in Enniskillen. In a recent conversation on the Chasing Rabbits podcast, she spoke with real honesty about her journey, about what this relentless format asks of the body and the mind, and about why she keeps coming back for more.
It started, as so many of our stories do, with a need for a little space. More than a decade ago, with young children at home and family life pulling her in every direction, Anne bought a pair of trainers and slipped out the door. Sometimes she ran on the road, more often on the trails, and she was always looking for headspace. “You need something for you,” she says. The endorphins did the rest, and one run quietly became the next.
Running wasn’t her first escape. Growing up in Belfast, she had already struck out on her own by joining the military’s dental corps as a hygienist, and she never moved home for good. She met her husband, later divorced, and built a life in England with her daughters, and more recently her granddaughter, who calls her Mamo. Ireland has never left her, though. Representing her country at a world team event meant so much to her, and she speaks so warmly about hearing those familiar accents around her again.