The just-finished year 2025 saw trail running elites around the world keep rewriting records and making history from start to finish. Today we take a look back.
As the oldest hundred-mile trail race in the world, the Western States 100 draws many elites every year. In 2025 we were set up to see a showdown between Jim Walmsley and Kilian Jornet, but Jim unfortunately withdrew with an injury, so that matchup never materialized.
Although four-time champion Jim was absent, the men's elite field remained fiercely competitive. In the end American local Caleb Olson won in 14:11:25, the second-fastest time in the race's history and less than two minutes off Jim's course record. People also took notice of his Nike ACG kit — the perforated vest and prototype trail shoes. Kilian Jornet finished third, more than an hour faster than his winning time 11 years earlier — an impressive performance.
On the women's side, the title went to underdog Abby Hall. Her victory was moving not just for the result but for her story: two years earlier she suffered a severe leg injury in training — hyperextension of the knee, dislocation, torn ligaments and fractures. It's hard to fathom how much she endured to get back.
With 11 days to spare before his 50th birthday, French veteran Ludovic Pommeret claimed the Hardrock 100 title again. He broke the clockwise course record in 2024, and in 2025 he won again on the tougher counter-clockwise route. Looking back at his long trail career — nearly 20 years since 2007 — he has maintained an elite level and is rightly considered one of the godfathers of trail running.
A month after his Hardrock win, now 50, he appeared at UTMB and finished sixth. Despite being a year older his time was faster than last year and even over an hour quicker than when he first won UTMB in 2016 — truly someone who gets better with age.
In 2025, 35-year-old emergency physician Anne Flower competed in her first hundred-mile race (Leadville 100), not only finishing but breaking a 31-year course record with 17:58:19 — shaving eight minutes off the previous mark. Even more astonishing, three months later at the Tunnel Hill 100 she ran 5:18:57 to set a new women's world record for 50 miles (80.4672 km), averaging a 3:58 pace.
Anne Flower only started long-distance endurance running at 30, and with a very busy full-time job she still keeps breaking records — all the more remarkable.
At this year's UTMB, British runner Tom Evans wasn't among the favorites: he had DNFs in the past two years, changed sponsors, had a child, and had to squeeze training into a busy schedule with far fewer race starts.
But he kept his composure and powered to the UTMB title in 19:18:58, the fastest finish in the race's history (over 170 km). Having won CCC in 2018, he's one title away from the full set if he takes OCC. As the 2023 Western States champion, Tom is one of the few men to hold both UTMB and Western States titles; previously only Kilian Jornet and Jim Walmsley had done so. The image of him pouring Red Bull into his shoe and then drinking from it at the finish became an iconic moment.
Like Tom, New Zealander Ruth Croft wasn't widely tipped to win UTMB — her main rival was powerhouse Courtney Dauwalter, who has a habit of winning in odd-numbered years (2019, 2021 and 2023), and Dauwalter also appeared to be in fresh form.
Last year Ruth was runner-up, chasing Katie Schide in the second half but unable to catch her. This year she stopped being conservative; when the 'big sister' wasn't at her best Ruth overtook and won, becoming the first woman to claim titles in UTMB's CCC and OCC and the main UTMB race — completing the triple. She achieved this great milestone over a decade.
A month after UTMB, the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships were held in Spain. It's the highest-profile trail running event in the world. Jim Walmsley — the double champion of UTMB and Western States — even chose to skip the UTMB distance and race OCC instead to save energy and aim for world gold.
He took the 82 km long-distance title in 8:35:11, and his single-race ITRA performance score of 970 equaled the all-time high.
And his teammate Katie Schide, after winning the women's long-distance title, became the first athlete ever to complete the long-distance 'grand slam' (UTMB, Western States 100, Hardrock 100 and the World Championships long distance).
Even more astonishing was Sweden's Tove Alexandersson, who won the women's 45 km short distance race by a landslide and set the highest single-race women's ITRA score at 877. She even beat the 2024 OCC men's champion on time.
In October Swiss 'climbing machine' Remi Bonnet set a new Vertical Kilometer world record on a 1.92 km course with 1,000 m of ascent, clocking 27:21 — trimming 1:32 off the previous mark.
One of the world's best uphill runners, he posted a single-race ITRA high score of 970 in a 10 km race with 1,290 m of ascent in 2023, and that same year he broke a 20-year-old Pikes Peak ascent record (21 km, 2,360 m ascent), nearly dipping under two hours. At the end of September this year he won the World Mountain and Trail Championships vertical race for the first time, earning a very high 960 performance score.
Since its launch in 2018 the Golden League World Series has become the benchmark for short-distance trail series. Last year Moroccan Elhousine Elazzaoui won the overall title with a perfect 1000 points; this year he was even more composed, claiming four wins and another perfect overall championship.
Elhousine comes from a nomadic family in Morocco and stumbled into trail running; with exceptional downhill skills he keeps winning short-distance trail races. After the 2025 season he went back to Morocco, returned to a simple life, spent three to four months with his parents and family to recharge before setting off again.
Forty-five-year-old Irish runner Caitriona Jennings (who ran the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics) set a world record in her first-ever 100-mile race (The Tunnel Hill 100) with 12:37:04, lowering the previous mark by over five minutes. Her average pace was 4:43 per km — the equivalent of running four consecutive marathons at about 3:19 each.
American Rachel Entrekin also made headlines in ultras. In May she broke the Cocodona 250 course record (412 km, 12,000 m ascent) in 63:50:55, shaving seven hours off the previous time.
Four months later at the Mammoth 200 (344 km, 9,327 m ascent) she finished second overall in 46:50:55, broke the women's course record and extended her personal ultramarathon winning streak to 18.
Nepal's Sunmaya Budha had a standout year. She won HK100 in early January and set a new course record. In September's World Mountain and Trail Championships she took silver in the 82 km long-distance race behind Katie Schide. In November she traveled to South Africa to win the 100 km at the Cape Town trail race. All three performances scored over 800 ITRA points, career highs.
With wins at HK100 and the Cape Town trail race, Sunmaya Budha took the year's long-distance Grand Slam series title. From a poor, remote mountain area to the world's top trail stages, she continues to write her legend.
After finishing third at Western States, Kilian Jornet launched an unprecedented exploration project — the 'States of Elevation' — running and cycling to summit every peak in the continental U.S. above 14,000 ft (4,267.2 m). In the end he completed this unprecedented outdoor challenge in 31 consecutive days.
The stats hint at the challenge's scale: total distance 5,145 km (an average of 166 km per day), of which 1,012 km were run and 4,133 km cycled, total ascent 123,045 m, total activity time 488:52:07, yet an average heart rate of just 107 bpm.
Similarly, earlier French legend François D’Haene, supported by a crew, attempted the Nolan 14 FKT in the U.S. — a route linking 14 fourteeners in the Sawatch Range, Colorado (each over 14,000 ft / 4,267.2 m), roughly 153 km with about 13,700 m of ascent and an average elevation around 3,600 m. He finished in 35:33:41, setting a new supported fastest-known time and beating the previous record by three and a half hours.
2025 is now behind us — here's looking forward to an even more exciting 2026 in trail running.
