The U.S.’s Jim Walmsley arrives at the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail after a summer slowed by injury but with a win at OCC just a month before race day. In the following interview, Jim talks about his recovery since OCC, the injury that took him out of the Western States 100 earlier this year, what he thinks about the Trail World Championships course, and his motivations for racing.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth men’s and women’s previews and follow our live race coverage on Saturday.
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Jim Walmsley Pre-2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Jim Walmsley. It’s a couple of days before the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail. We’re in Canfranc, Spain. How are you doing, Jim?
Jim Walmsley: I’m doing good. Yeah.
iRunFar: You’ve been here for a little bit. You’ve seen most of the course. You’re adjusting to Spanish Pyrenees life.
Walmsley: Yeah, yeah. I drove across France about a week ago. Got here early and have been scouting out the course.
iRunFar: You’ve been with Team USA running some of this course and said off-camera, you’re going to find it to be burly and long.
Walmsley: Yeah, yeah, definitely a chunky course.
iRunFar: Chunky.
Walmsley: And then, yeah, I think not really with Team USA, but a few of us Americans got here early on our own. And so I’ve run through it with Caleb [Olson] and Adam [Peterman] and talked about it a few times with them and stuff.
iRunFar: Cool. And then Spanish Pyrenees life, you’ve, at this point, adjusted to French Alps life.
Walmsley: Yeah.
iRunFar: How are you finding a new valley, a new village, a new life?
Walmsley: I mean, we know remote areas in the mountains are harder for maybe eating stuff that you’re more accustomed to. So we definitely came to the mountains fully loaded with groceries and stocked up for a week or so. And then know that we have to go into a bigger town to go get more groceries that we’re used to. But yeah, not a lot of things.
It’s pretty quiet. It’s off-season here. Plus, I think it’s a pretty quiet part of the Pyrenees to begin with. So the trails have been absolutely dead, and yeah, it’s pretty peaceful and really good views. Huge mountain range. Yeah, fun, new experience.
iRunFar: It wasn’t that long ago that the world saw you racing at UTMB, OCC. I think it’s like four weeks before race day, right?
Walmsley: Yeah, I think. So about three weeks ago. Yeah.
iRunFar: Yeah. So talk about a little bit about the transition from that to this. Was it just a pretty quick recovery from racing 60k that day, or did you need a little bit of transition time?
Walmsley: I think it’s … like I always say, recovery from races is always unique, and you have to feel how the recovery goes, but also being four weeks after that race, you have to set up the next race and have that in mind, even with the block and the taper beforehand. But I think as OCC was coming up and I was doing pretty regular workouts, that I was getting a little excited about it because workouts were going pretty good, but I think I gave a little more of an aggressive taper than I thought I was initially going to.
I thought I was going to run through it a little more, but then I wanted to make sure I put a better foot forward at OCC. So I started backing off a little earlier than initially planned. And then with that in mind, knowing that ideally I would like to get back into training rather quickly, so that it’s not too much recovery plus taper time off, and now all of a sudden, I’m not where I need to be. Ended up getting back into things, but having to really take care of getting my ankle healthy from a little ankle roll. And yeah, pretty banged up after OCC, but was able to get in just easy, moderate volume.
And then I think I’ve done what I can, and I think we’re finally race week, six days out or so, five days, six days, and yeah, it’ll be a shorter taper. It’s not like a two-week taper. I don’t have time for that. So hopefully, that race pop starts to really come back into the legs later this week as I back off volume and stuff.
iRunFar: Racing OCC like four weeks before Trail World Championships, it could go really good, or it could go really bad. Just in terms of if you have a tweak out there or have to, I don’t know, race late like you did. Racing to the line with Cristian Minoggio.
Walmsley: Well, I don’t know. I guess five out of the top six OCC guys are here at the World Championships in the Long Course. So lots of people in that boat. For me, it made sense because I haven’t had a summer full of racing, so I wanted to just get back on it with a bib on and go compete. So definitely got that and some, and then, yeah, I don’t know.
I think we’ll know in 2020 if I played things right or not with the World Champs, but I think, as we know in our sport, the World Champs are an event in our calendar, not the event in our calendar. So it’s okay. I think I’m in a good spot to be competitive, and I’m excited to compete, and that’s all I can ask for at this point.
iRunFar: It was a pretty fun race to watch you race at OCC. It was very dynamic, all race long, lots of passing and repassing, and then quite a late race to the line with Cristian Minoggio from Italy, who we’re going to see again here. Was it also fun for you to be racing that, to have it be so dynamic like that?
Walmsley: I think I wasn’t aware in the race of all the dynamics that were going on behind me or how close people were. I think at one point someone told me, a friend told me that I had three minutes, and I definitely thought I had three minutes, but then in retrospect, I’ve never had three minutes. And yeah, I think it was extremely dynamic when I analyzed the race, but in the moment after the first group and mainly Petter [Engdahl] dropped off, I definitely had the rest of it pretty much by myself until Cristian caught me on Argentière, and then the dynamics in the race got flipped upside down for a little while.
iRunFar: As a spectator, that was pretty fun for all of us to watch because it was back down in the valley where it was well documented, seeing back and forth. I guess it was probably fairly intense for you though, the last, was it 8k or so?
Walmsley: Yeah, maybe half of it was intense because the first half, even when he passed me, I wasn’t feeling good and pretty upset stomach and just wasn’t able to get in enough liquids all day. So I think gut was backed up a bit, but yeah, I haven’t seen any video of me actually puking yet, but I think someone does have video, but …
iRunFar: Who is it out there who has that?
Walmsley: Yeah. I say the puke and getting my stomach more settled allowed a bit of a rebound in energy and actually was able to run better because I didn’t have as much of an upset stomach at that point.
iRunFar: A bunch of stuff in your stomach mixing around and …
Walmsley: Yeah, not a bunch. I mean, it was a pretty low day. We made a lot of mistakes running through spots and expecting things to be more obvious, and yeah, apparently, UTMB blamed us for running too fast and not looking hard enough. So that’s surprising to me.
iRunFar: Interesting.
Walmsley: But it is what it is. We all had to deal with it, and yeah, you just roll with the punches and a little upset stomach, puke and rally.
iRunFar: Off you go.
Walmsley: Sprinted in on the end.
iRunFar: It’s a very exciting race from a spectator perspective. So thanks for providing that to the world.
Walmsley: At my cost.
iRunFar: At your cost. And so before that, one of your main goals of the year, I think, had been to race Western States, but you had to deal with a knee injury, DNS that, and then point the rest of your year toward this fall.
Walmsley: Yeah, I’ve still have struggled a long time, I guess, since Western States 2024 that really aggravated my pes anserine, which is like I get the pain near my knee but not really involved in my knee. But for simplicity, it’s like I have a knee …
iRunFar: Easier to say.
Walmsley: … pain, yeah, but it’s not. So yeah, that caused a problem at UTMB after that race. And then there wasn’t anything, and it took a long buildup during winter, and thought that I was getting through it and over it just in time for Chianti [Ultra Trail 120k]. Winter training was more boring than usual to control that, and had its ups and downs through that. But thought I was healthy enough to race Chianti, no problem. And on paper, I should have just reset and been able to build into Western States and gone from there. But yeah, it flared up again and hit reset again, unfortunately.
And then that really bit into summer racing plans, but that puts me in the fall. So OCC was my next race and wanted to do that since I hadn’t raced since March. So just getting my racing legs back and hopefully improve even from OCC. Hopefully, I’ll have more endurance at this race, I think, is how I envision how I’ve built my block and what I’m trying to do.
But yeah, and then I don’t know if this will be the last race or maybe one more race, which is not determined yet. But yeah, we’ll take this one, and hopefully I can get out of this race healthy and make the decision a week after this race.
iRunFar: Okay. Another interesting component of this event is that this is a world championships, so there’s an individual podiums to vie for and then there’s also the team aspect to it. It’s like throwing it back, at least for us who come from America, like the collegiate racing atmosphere. Have you given any thought to just the team aspect of this week?
Walmsley: Yeah, I mean, initially, when I look at the World Trail Champs, it’s more appealing to race a bit for yourself, actually, because it’s a really, really competitive race this year. However, after seeing the course, I think it dials things back and it’s almost more interesting to all of a sudden control what you can and try to just get a good time and a low score and yeah, actually the team side becomes a bit of a motivating factor when, I would say, after seeing the course, it’s a bit more meh or flat of a reaction that, yeah.
It’s unique, it’s burly, it’s never truly flowy. Yeah. It’s interesting as a World Championship course, so to have the team aspect has actually been, so far, a pretty bright spot to still be motivated for the race, but we’ll see. I think everything changes once they say go. I’m sure I’ll be plenty motivated in the race.
iRunFar: Yeah. Well, best of luck to you. It’s going to be fun to watch you all out there this weekend.
Walmsley: Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, it’ll be fun.
