You can see a focused toughness when watching Joyce Njeru of Kenya race, so it’s not a surprise to learn that one of her mantras is “queens never quit.” One of the world’s best mountain runners, with accolades including three Mountain Running World Cup titles and a Golden Trail World Series title, Njeru comes from a small village in a country with a strong history of both elite-level running and limited access to resources for economic development.
Joyce Njeru at the start of the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent. She would go on to take second place. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Like many Kenyan runners, Njeru — even from an early age — saw the sport as a way to improve her family’s financial situation. With a family that didn’t always have the money to pay school fees, she was determined to find a way to contribute. In running, with which she found early success in primary school races, she says, “The dream was to change my background, which I can say wasn’t that good. I just trusted that I was doing this for my future to be better, and not to give up.”
She was determined from the start. “I just decided that with the talent I have: You can do better, and your life can be better.” From first going to Europe to train and race with the run2gether program in 2017, to signing with NNormal in 2025, Njeru has experienced incredible success, as well as periods of struggle. Through it all, she’s stayed true to that “why.” With the 2026 race season just getting underway and a lot of lessons learned in 2025, she’s ready to embrace whatever the year brings.
Childhood Running
Njeru is the oldest of three children, and her parents sometimes struggled to make ends meet. Her father gathered wood to make charcoal, while her mother worked on a farm. Njeru would go help her father in the bush, but says she understood, “They are struggling so much for us to get the food and also to have clothes, so I just classified myself as a firstborn.”
This meant that even as a child, she says she faced the questions of, “What can I do, or what can I add for them [my parents] to be somewhere else, and also to help the young ones that are behind me?” Njeru continues, saying that after a day of working with her dad in the bush, carrying heavy loads on her back, “I felt like this is not where we belong, and I need to do something else.” She told her mother, “One day, one time, you will not be here.”
Njeru grew up in a small village in Kenya. Photo: Joel Badia Visuals
When Njeru started running at school around age 12, she was naturally fast. She says, “I knew that I have a talent that I can develop. I had to put more effort into it.” Njeru’s mother was also a runner, but eventually had to give up the sport because of a lack of support. Njeru says, “From her, I got advice and support. I wanted to do what she didn’t do.”
Njeru’s primary school had about 350 students and competed with neighboring schools at track meets. She says running was “something enjoyable” for her and that she was really good at it. She raced the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter races and was dominant in the events. She says of her teammates, “They could know that we have somebody who is strong and can beat all the other students, and they were happy.” Even at that age, Njeru understood, “If I develop [my running], that can change my family, my background, my life, and my future can be good.”
Moving Up the Ranks
After primary school, one of Njeru’s teachers, who saw her talent, introduced her to a coach at a running camp where she could study alongside training. The program focused on track and cross-country events and sent runners to Japan to compete. While providing training, Njeru says the overall situation at the camp “wasn’t that good.” But while there, Njeru met someone with connections to run2gether, an organization dedicated to providing European racing opportunities to Kenyan runners.
Njeru representing the run2gether team on her way to winning the 2022 Montée du Nid d’Aigle. Photo: World Mountain Running Association/Marco Gulberti
“He told me, there is a camp, and you can come and try your luck,” Njeru explains. “We were just trying to have any other options.” Njeru went to the run2gether training camp, and after excelling at one of the program’s trials — held to identify talent — was asked to join the team. Of her friend who made this connection for her, Njeru says with a smile, “He really helped me. The run2gether camp helped me in developing my career, and I can say it was a good idea for me.”
Njeru explains that prior to joining run2gether, “I wasn’t aware of mountain running. In fact, in my high school studies, I never knew about it.” It wasn’t until 2017, when she made her first trip to Europe to race, that she found the sport.
Racing in Europe
Njeru was focused on cross country when she first traveled to Europe with the run2gether team in 2017. The organization operates a facility in the Austrian Alps where Kenyan runners and guests live and run alongside each other, and Njeru was one of a handful of Kenyans training there.
About her first trip to Europe, Njeru says, “I was curious how I will find people behaving, how the things are, and more important, how to compete.” She learned early on that she’d also do some mountain running. “I was just curious, How is the mountain running? How are the courses? How will I perform?” The culture shock was real, but being surrounded by other Kenyans in the program helped. “Because we stayed all together, we can speak the same language afterward. It was just easy.”
Njeru and Philemon Kiriago of Kenya share a laugh at the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent start line. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Njeru loved racing cross country, and it suited her mentality. She says that for cross country, “You need that fighting spirit.” She explains, “It’s something cherishable, but a lot don’t have the persistence to the pain. So I have to be strong, and also be persistent with the pain.”
It wasn’t long until she tried her first mountain race, the 2017 Gernkogel Mountain Run in Austria. “I won. It was my first time racing in a mountain race. It wasn’t easy anyway, but I really felt good,” Njeru recounts. Soon after, she was second at the 2017 Val Gardena Mountain Run in Italy, and then won the 2017 Obergailtaler Mountain Run back in Austria. She laughs when she says, “I think Thomas [Krejci, the run2gether program director,] just decided, ‘She can be a good runner of trail.’”
Njeru raced in Europe again in 2018 and then returned home to serve in the Kenyan military for two years. She says, “I really desired to be among the forces, so I was lucky to join the Kenya Defense Forces.” She explains that many Kenyan athletes join the armed forces, receive support for their training, and complete all military training while holding down a job. She says it’s a way to “keep you moving in case there is something, maybe an injury or you just quit running, then there is another option.” Even from a young age, Njeru wanted to be a police officer when she grew up, and the Defense Forces offered a good fit.
Mental Toughness and European Success
When Njeru returned to Europe to race in 2021, she brought more training, experience, and mental toughness, allowing her to excel in some of the most difficult mountain races. Additionally, she was still employed by the Kenya Defense Forces, which provided her with economic stability and reduced the pressure to make a living solely from race prize money. Njeru explains that many of her fellow runners can’t survive just off their winnings, “You have to go maybe to do some kind of work to put the food on the table. It’s not always easy because the kind of work you do maybe is farming, and it’s always tiresome.”
Njeru on her way to winning the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace 23k. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Njeru says that with her return to European mountain running in 2021, “I just got back with a mind less stressed. There is less pressure about, ‘What will I eat, when will I get the money?’” Njeru thrived, winning the Mountain Running World Cup title. On her way to that world cup title, she won the Großglockner Mountain Run and Fletta Trail, and was fourth at the Trofeo Nasego.
In 2022, she again won the Mountain Running World Cup by winning Großglockner, Montée du Nid d’Aigle, Giir di Mont Uphill, and the Canfranc Canfranc Vertical, among other races. Then in 2023, she saw continued success when she won the Mountain Running World Cup for a third year in a row, placed third at the World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race, and was second at Sierre-Zinal.
Njeru finishes the 2023 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race in third place. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
In 2024, she won the Golden Trail World Series overall, winning the Broken Arrow Ascent and 23k and Mammoth Trailfest in the U.S. along the way. Her skyrocket trajectory perhaps reached its first major crest in 2025 when Njeru signed with the brand NNormal.
Njeru credits much of her mental toughness to her past and continues to draw on it when times are difficult. “I can say from whatever I passed through when I was young and all that I saw with my eyes, whatever you pass through always builds you up to stay focused. To have that big dream, it’s like you have some kind of craving, like you need to do something good, and you’re capable of doing it.” She continues, “You just have that persistence and to motivate yourself because we always say, ‘No pain, no gain.’ With the training, you must sacrifice yourself to get the success.”
Njeru running powerfully to second place at the 2025 Broken Arrow Ascent. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Mountain Running in Kenya
Njeru now splits her time between Kenya and Europe. During the racing off-season, she lives in Kenya, close enough to where she grew up that she can go home some weekends. While Kenya has a deep and rich running culture, much of it remains focused on road and track racing, and Njeru often trains alone.
She says, “When you try to tell [other runners], ‘Just come and do the training for trail and mountain,’ there is a kind of negativity. You will find a big group doing the road race training, and also the marathon and the track. But when it comes to trail running, there is extra you have to do to be on top.”
Njeru celebrates a win at the 2024 Val Bregaglia Trail, part of that year’s Mountain Running World Cup Final. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Njeru often trains only with someone who’s there to help set the pace of a workout. Each day, they review her prescribed training and decide on a route that best mimics her specific training needs. She says, “When you come to Kenya, it’s just an example, not actual, real mountains.” Still, she values the community and notes that while her competitors in other parts of the world may have access to better training grounds, she sees how far apart they live from each other, and she appreciates having fellow runners nearby.
Looking to the Future
Njeru’s racing in 2025 proved more difficult than the preceding years. At the 2025 Kobe Trail Golden Trail World Series (GTWS) race in Japan, she was in the lead until she went off course and ended up in sixth place. In the Jinshanling Great Wall race in China, also a GTWS race, she DNFed, and she didn’t finish the GTWS Il Golfo dell’Isola Trail in Italy three weeks later.
It wasn’t until the Broken Arrow Skyraces in the U.S. in June that things started to turn around. She placed second in the wind-shortened ascent race to start the weekend, and she lined up for the 23k event a couple days later with confidence. She says, “I was like, Joyce, this is the race. Just relax and do what you need to, and believe in yourself.” She went on to win and have a strong second half of the season, including a fourth place at the World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race, and a fifth in the GTWS.
Njeru climbing to fourth place at the 2025 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
She says of the season, “I learned sometimes things don’t go the way we want. I learned you can start from anywhere. I learned that being focused and remaining on the target is much more important.”
As Njeru herself says, “Queens never quit,” and whatever 2026 brings, Njeru will bring her trademark toughness and dedication to all the races she lines up for. She knows her “why,” she believes in herself, and she knows that her running will continue to change her life.
Njeru descends during the first lap of the 2025 World Mountain Running Championships Up and Down race. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Call for Comments
- Do you have a Joyce Njeru story you can share?
