The day is here, we’ve made it to the tippy-top, the tallest step on the podium, the winners, the TROY Champions! 2025 brought us performances that left us speechless, unthinkable times, nail-biting finishes – and the two runners that climbed to the top of the podium this year did what’s even harder, staying on top. Previous champions, reigning champions, and runners who spent 2025 flexing their range in a way that still continued to delight and surprise us. We’re excited to celebrate their incredible bodies of work from the past year as we begin to dream about what may be possible in 2026.
If you’ve missed any of the countdown over the past nine days, you can find them here: second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth. Now let’s crown our TROY champs!
This year in first position we have On’s Katie Schide and HOKA’s Jim Walmsley.
Katie Katie Kaite Schide. What’s there to say? While 2024 felt like the year Katie ascended to the upper echelons reserved for the GOATs of our sport, 2025 marked her fourth straight appearance in the TROY top ten, her second year in a row at number one… getting to the top is hard, staying there is even harder. She mixed up her race calendar while leaning into the practices that she knows works for her. She was hyper specific in her focus on her goal races, and yet showed us that being fast is being fast independent of if the race takes just under 26 hours or just under 3 hours to break the tape. Katie had several significant races that will be doubly celebrated in our Trail Performance of the Year (TPOY) – but her July – August – September triple blew our minds.
If we zoom out Katie’s race season started back in April on the island of Madeira. The Madeira Island Ultra-Trail, or the MIUT 115-kilometer, is often referred to as “the little UTMB” for it’s punchy long climbs and descents and a late night start making it excellent training for mountainous 100-mile racing later in the season. Katie has been to the island several times before performing well in both the 115-kilometer and 80-kilometer version and this year was no different – kicking off her season with a victory and most impressively finishing seventh overall. From there Katie’s season turned state side where she spent time prepping at high elevation in Colorado for the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run. In her first attempt at the event Katie brought home a huge victory, establishing a new women’s course record (both overall and for the counterclockwise direction) and in doing so became one of just three runners, including Kilian Jornet and Courtney Dauwalter, to have won the four most iconic 100 milers in the world: Hardrock, Western States, UTMB, and Diagonale des Fous. While MIUT and Hardrock alone might have been enough to seal the deal for us on a world class year, Katie wasn’t done yet. Just about a month after Hardrock Katie showed up to one of the most competitive sub-ultra trail races in the world, Sierre-Zinal, and put on a master class performance finishing second dipping under the three hour mark in the process. Historically fast! To close out the season Katie lined up one more time at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships cementing her iconic season as she bested a world class field in the 82-kilometer event by 25 minutes. While the women’s field continues to level up we are excited to watch Katie at the helm and cannot wait to have her back state side again in 2026 as she looks to write her way in the Hardrock history books.
Like Katie this is Jim’s fourth consecutive appearance in the TROY top ten and in many ways 2025 felt like the season where Jim found himself back in the driver’s seat. Every seasoned trail runner can tell you that not every season goes to plan, but despite those highs and lows Jim’s ability to put performances on the board year over year continues to impress us. At this point, you have to go back several seasons to find a race Jim hasn’t won, but it doesn’t mean gaining that top step of the podium always comes easy. Part of what we love about Jim’s season is the variety and range he flexed during 2025 – five races, five wins, and five vastly different events – three of which could take home a TPOY (we can argue this point until the cows come home).
Jim kicked off his season not far from his US homebase in Arizona at the Mesquite Canyon 50-kilometer when a training race turned into a 21 minute course record. From there Jim headed over to Europe to the Chianti Ultra Trail by UTMB for the 120-kilometer race, and while he didn’t need a golden ticket into Western States having won the 2024 edition he was joined in the race by Kilian Jornet and Vincent Bouillard making it a great front end matchup. In what we think was sneakily one of the best performances of the year Jim ran away from some of the very best at Chianti winning by nearly thirty minutes over Kilian and Vincent. Unfortunately Jim also came out of that race with flareup of a recurring knee injury that ultimately would take him out of Western States and leave us with questions about what might happen to the rest of his season. In August he won the Meribel Trail Vertical Kilometer before stepping to the start line of a very interesting HOKA UTMB Mont-Blanc OCC. The field for OCC this year had a number of traditional favorites for CCC (101-kilometer) and UTMB (170-kilometer) due to many athletes doubling back to the World Championships just a month later. In addition to that weather moved in ahead of race morning and the race organizers made the call to change the route creating a longer (60-kilometer in total) race with a flatter faster finish. It also lead to a uniquely exciting race with tight racing all the way into the heart of Chamonix. Jim would come out the winner of OCC, joining the small class of athletes who have won more than one UTMB Final event, and sent him into the 82-kilometer race at World Championships confident in his fitness. Exactly a month later Jim brought home his fifth and final win of the season taking gold in the Long Trail race and capping off a roller coaster of a year.
While we’re not exactly sure what Jim has up his sleeve for 2026, we sure hope we get to see him back in Olympic Valley toeing the line at Western States in June.
Year after year, we are completely blown away by the talent that exists in this sport. Trail is made up of the most incredible athletes and the disciplines, you all are what make this sport so darn special. We’d like to give Katie Schide and Jim Walmsley one more great big HOLY COW – you both inspire us to tackle new challenges, embrace big scary goals, and to keep showing up!
Thanks to All Conditions Gear for their support of the 2025 Trail Runner of the Year awards!
The Final Standings
Women: (1) Katie Schide, (2) Ruth Croft , (3) Sara Alonso, (4) Abby Hall, (5) Nina Engelhard, (6) Miao Yao, (7) Madalina Florea, (8) Tove Alexandersson, (9)Judith Wyder and (10) Sunmaya Budha.
Men: (1) Jim Walmsey, (2) Francesco Puppi, (3) Caleb Olson, (4) Elhousine Elazzaoui, (5) Tom Evans, (6) Philemon Kiriago, (7) Rémi Bonnet, (8) Ben Dhiman, (9) Patrick Kipngeno and (10) Frédéric Tranchand.