[2] Her career highlights include five wins at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), as well as the 2006 IAU 100 km World Championships.

[4] She stated that she first fell for mountains when visiting Zermatt in the Swiss Alps at the age of six.

She continued to work as a researcher for the British Antarctic Survey until 2007, when she relocated to the Laufschule Scuol, a training centre in the Swiss Alps.

[4] Hawker won the 2006 IAU 100km World Championships, and in 2007 set the record for running the 199 miles between Mount Everest South Base Camp and Kathmandu, Nepal, in 77 hours 36 minutes.

[4] While training for the UTMB, Hawker ran along the footpath of the Tour de Monte Rosa many times.

[11] This experience led her to create a new race, the Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, which runs for 93 miles from Grächen to Zermatt, on through villages in Italy, before returning to the start point.