On Saturday night, thousands of female athletes laced up their running shoes for the sold-out London leg of Nike’s After Dark city race series. Silverworks Island in east London was transformed into a 10k race across from the Royal Docks to Millennium Mills and down the runway at London City Airport.
As Nike’s co-founder Bill Bowerman (a track and field coach who personally trained 31 Olympic athletes) once put it, “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” In that spirit, female runners of all abilities – from absolute beginners to seasoned pros – including those from local women’s running clubs such as Athene and Club99 smashed their own personal bests.
PB-breaking performances aside, Nike After Dark is a global celebration of women’s sports style. Fittingly, glam teams were on standby, crafting hair, nail and make-up looks to take female runners from the race to the afterparty (a one-off live performance by London locals Nia Archives and Jorja Smith).
The global race series, which first launched in 2025, has come to cities including Shanghai, Sydney, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Manila and Mumbai. For the London edition, track and field’s brightest UK stars joined the start line to cheer the women on. Behind the scenes, we caught up with generation-defining female athletes, past and future Team GB athletes and Olympians Keely Hodgkinson, Amy Hunt, Georgia Hunter-Bell, Amber Anning and Imani-Lara Lansiquot, who shared their words of wisdom ahead of the race.
KEELY HODGKINSON, 24
What role does style play in your athletic performance?
Feeling good and looking good is a big part of my mentality and how I like to approach day-to-day living – getting through the tough parts of my job and looking cool whilst doing it.
Do you have a mantra for when things get mentally or physically tough?
One of my favourite mantras (which was on my collection with Nike this year) is ‘always earned, never given.’ In my sport, if you don’t do the work, you will be caught out. So if you’ve earned your way to a final, a start line, to a medal, a record or a fast time, everything you’ve put in has got you to that moment. That can be quite calming because there’s nothing you can change. It’s like, do or die, now or never.
Is there anyone that you go to for advice?
Probably my parents… When I was younger, I used to speak to Kelly Holmes a lot. Having her own struggles in her career and coming back from that; she’s a very mentally strong person and someone [I could] learn a lot from.
Any words of wisdom for your younger self?
‘Comparison is the thief of joy’ is one of my favourite sayings... Believing in yourself and doing things your way is what I found to be really important. You don’t have to follow a blueprint; there are other ways to do things. And you want to get the best out of yourself so back yourself to do it your way.
Who do you run for?
Running is a very individual sport. I have to put myself and my training first, and that means missing out on certain things. So I guess it’s everything I don’t get to do. I’m out there to prove that all the work was for something.
AMBER ANNING, 25
Do you have a mantra for when things get mentally or physically tough?
How I feel and how I look is key to feeling confident. I have a psychologist and we work really hard with words of affirmation and positive self-talk. Going through my race plan allows me to feel present and not afraid of what’s about to happen.
What words of wisdom would you give to your younger self?
Always better yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let people try to put you in a box or tell you what you can achieve; you can achieve anything you put your mind to. I think there’s so much power and confidence in self-talk. You have to be a bit delusional in this life but particularly in track, you have to think that anything is possible.
Who do you run for?
I run for everyone who has poured into me. I run for people who have sacrificed their time, their energy, their money. That covers a lot of people, from my friends to my family to my coaches to my physios to therapists. I wouldn’t be where I am now without them. I want to inspire the next generation of young women who look like me to achieve greatness.
Where’s the best place to run after dark in London?
Watching Nike After Dark will be amazing; thousands of women together celebrating us in an area where typically people don’t race – on a runway! I’d love to run an F1 course. It would make sense having fast athletes running on a fast race course for cars. A little F1 collab at Silverstone would be really cool.
IMANI-LARA LANSIQUOT, 28
Do you have any fashion or beauty rituals when you’re getting race ready?
How I present on the start line really feeds into the confidence I have in myself. Before every single season, I put together a folder of Pinterest looks that I want to try. It feeds into my confidence not just as an athlete, but as a woman as well, feeling like my most audacious and fierce self.
Do you have a mantra for when things get mentally or physically tough?
Even when I’m not racing, the things that really anchor me as a person are my values. On a big race day, I like to say my values out loud – the things I stand by and I stand on business by, no matter what happens. Whether it’s sport or something else, I just always like to be my most authentic and real self in every situation.
What words of wisdom would you give to your younger self?
I’d say to my younger self – and also to myself now – that the world can often make you feel like you’re not where you should be, or things should be happening quicker. You knew who you were when you were young, and [it’s important] not to let go of that just because you get a bit older. All of us have big dreams and I think it’s important to carry those and not be influenced by anything else.
Who do you run for?
I run for the little version of me, because she had such incredibly massive dreams, and I’ve been lucky to have achieved a lot of those things. I’ve been to multiple Olympic games, got multiple Olympic medals, but I always knew what I could be and that was to be the best in the world. I’m not going to stop until I can reach my best self.
Where’s the best place to run after dark in London?
Crystal Palace. Usain Bolt raced there. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce raced there. We’ve had the greats of our sport come to South London to track and field. Crystal Palace, for me, is where it all started.
AMY HUNT, 24
What role does style play in your athletic performance?
Sport, especially individual sport, can be a very vulnerable and isolating thing. So having the armour of the glam, of the hair, of the nails, of the jewellery… It makes you feel like you’re a superhero on the day and it elevates your performance to that next level.
Do you have any fashion or beauty rituals when you’re getting race ready?
I try to stick to my core products that I know work. I’m really strict on making sure I do really good skincare because race makeup can be quite heavy – it’s got to be able to cope with the sweat and the climate and the humidity. My biggest beauty hack, which no one, absolutely no one, should copy, is that like when it’s a really, really hot race, I use hairspray as setting spray.
Do you have a mantra for when things get mentally or physically tough?
I’m lucky enough that I went through a career-threatening injury and was able to come back. I think that’s allowed me to really have an understanding of how fleeting this sport can be and how easily it can all be taken away. I try to stay present and really savor every moment because you never know when it’s going to end.
Who do you run for?
I run for younger Amy and for younger girls to show that you can be muscular and have a full face of glam, that you can feel like you look really good on the start line and you can pursue an education, that you can be elite at sport and be all these different things.
Where’s the best place to run after dark in London?
I think it would be so iconic if we were able to get a track set up down Oxford Street or even a 100 hundred metre race down the Mall with Buckingham Palace in the background.
GEORGIA HUNTER-BELL, 33
Do you have any fashion or beauty rituals when you’re getting race ready?
I get ready for a race like I’m going to the club. I really like that process an hour before I leave; doing my skincare, my fake tan, my hair. On race day, I’ll go out with my hair half-up, half-down, and I tie it up on the start line. Then for me, it’s time to race.
Who do you run for?
I definitely run for myself. I have a very unique take on the sport because what I’ve achieved wouldn’t be possible on paper having given up and come back. I want to bring back medals for myself, my country and my team. It definitely makes me very motivated when I put on a Team GB outfit. I feel even more adrenaline than an average race because I want to do well for my country.
When the pressure’s on, how do you keep yourself calm?
When we go to train it’s serious, but off the track, you have to keep it chill. If I’ve got an evening race, I’m not even thinking about the race until an hour or two before, because I need to save it for the race. You have to be intentional and know that it's going to make you feel better.
Where’s the best place to run after dark in London?
London has got so many big running communities. I do laps around Battersea Park and it’s really fun to train there because it’s a great loop. I see so many people from the running community and they cheer me on when I’m running; people from when I was really young in my first ever run club to people I’ve met though Team GB. Even though London is a big city, we’ve got these hubs and Battersea Park is definitely one of them.