Grassy hills and boggy ditches are Megan Keith’s happy place.
For most of her running life she has considered herself primarily a cross-country athlete but, after winning the European Under-23 title two years ago, a reality dawned on her: if she was to be a professional athlete, she would need to look beyond mud and brutal ascents.
“Pretty much until the end of secondary school, I didn’t have any interest in the track. My entire running sphere revolved around cross country,” Keith, 23, told BBC Sport.
“But sponsors and British Athletics put their main focus on the track, so I’ve had to become a track runner and view cross country differently.
“It’s where my passion still lies but there’s expectations for me in the summer, so I can’t put all my eggs into being in peak form in the winter.”
The shift has proven fruitful. A European 10,000m bronze in the summer of 2024 preceded Olympic and World Championship appearances over the same distance, earning her British Athletics funding for the first time.
But the Inverness runner still makes time to follow her heart. She won European Cross Country individual and team silvers last month and will lead the British contingent at Saturday’s World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, which you can watch on the BBC (14:35-19:00 GMT).
Cross country, though, is no longer the prestigious discipline it once was and the number taking part at the top level has fallen. About 500 participants will line up this weekend across the various races, compared to a high of more than 800 at the turn of the century. Previously an annual showpiece event, it was cut to biennial from 2011.
Many nations do not send athletes to it, while others take skeleton teams, shorn of their leading lights, whose winter focus instead lies on training for lucrative spring road races or prominent summer track opportunities.
So, how did cross country get to this point and what does its future look like?
