Anya Culling IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE – I WAS WEARING AN ENGLAND VEST AND I WAS RACING FOR MY COUNTRY!
We’ve seen quick rises to stardom in this mag, but maybe none so meteoric as Anya Culling’s. She’s making a fair fist of smashing PBs, qualifying for big races, getting noticed by the powers-that-be at England Athletics… and it all started with a bit of simple lockdown running
Words: Rachel Ifans
warrior
Since I was a really little girl, my mum has had this pot called Anya’s Wedding Fund that she puts a little bit of money in every month. It was always a bit of a joke, but also a bit serious. And then last year, she changed it to The Commonwealth Games pot, and she’s now saving so that we can all get over to Australia for the 2026 Commonwealth Games.”
In three short years, Anya Culling’s life has changed immeasurably; the brand new lululemon ambassador now finds herself training for the Commies in 2026 and then – gulp – maybe the Olympics in 2028. From being a semi-keen hobbyist runner, the now-24-year-old suddenly found a real love for running in lockdown, started training and took two hours off her previous London Marathon time in the blink of an eye.
After a couple more stunning performances, she was contacted by Tom Craggs at England Athletics and asked if she’d run for her country at the Copenhagen Marathon this year.
Her rise to stardom is like a fairytale. Well, a fairytale with a lot of hard work behind the scenes.
Meteoric rise
“I think I always had the legs,” smiles Anya. “Like, I wasn’t a complete novice when I fell in love with running in lockdown.”
At the start, she says, it was all about her mental health. “I liked the quietness of running; I called it my utopia. I never went out with an expectation of a PB or anything. I removed all expectations and I think I got faster just by enjoying it.”
Well, there’s ‘faster’ and there’s ‘faster’. Anya took her prelockdown London Marathon time of 4:34 and slashed it to 2:36 in 2022, coming in as third British female and in a time that got her a signing with lululemon as UK Run Ambassador, as well as That Call from the top.
She says: “I never did English Schools running, I never ran for a club when I was younger, and never did county running or anything like that. But after London, I received an email from Tom Craggs asking if I’d be interested in racing for England.
“Apparently, he’d been asking other people who I was and who I ran with as they had no information on me. They didn’t want me to fall through the gaps, because I was new to it and I had no idea on qualification
