Landing on the podium for the third year in a row, Malen Osa of Spain finished second at the 2026 Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon. In the following interview, Malen talks about what the race means to her as a Basque, how she found trail running from a swimming background, how she ran the race without a watch and paced only by feel, and how surprised she was to run the third-fastest women’s time in history.
For more on how the race played out, read our in-depth 2026 Zegama-Aizkorri Marathon results article.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Malen Osa Post-2026 Zegama Marathon Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Malen Osa. It’s the day of the 2026 Zegama Marathon. You’re the women’s second-place finisher. That sounds good, doesn’t it?
Malen Osa: Sounds great. Sounds great.
iRunFar: Congratulations on your third Zegama finish and your third podium.
Osa: Yeah. It feels a bit wild, honestly.
iRunFar: Does it?
Osa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
iRunFar: On a day of pretty, maybe not the worst conditions Zegama has seen, but very difficult conditions, you ran the third-fastest time in women’s race history over a race that has had 25 additions. That’s a lot of women running. How does that feel?
Osa: I’m going to repeat the word, but it feels wild. I wasn’t coming for any time or any position either, but seeing my time in the finish line, I was really shocked. Yeah, I feel like the conditions were tough, but maybe they suit me quite well, so maybe that helped. But even that, when you have dry conditions, it’s easier for everyone to run fast. So, I think, it’s pretty crazy that they had run so fast today, even if there was another monster in front of me. But, I think, I can be proud of myself as well.
iRunFar: That’s funny. Another monster.
Osa: In a good way. I really like Tove [Alexandersson].
iRunFar: Yeah. She’s a great monster.
Osa: She’s a great monster. That’s mind-blowing.
iRunFar: This is I run for our first interview with you, Malen. So, I’d love to just hear a little bit about you. You’re Basque. Or you grew up not far from here.
Osa: Exactly. Yeah. I grew up in Oñati, which is a small town, like half an hour from here. Very similar environment, very similar mountains. I mean, I’ve been running Aizkorri all my life from the other side, from the side of Urbia. But, it’s been my childhood basically. So for me, this race, that’s why it’s not that it’s home because I’m Basque, it’s home because it’s home.
iRunFar: Actually home.
Osa: Yeah. It’s like my place. So, it’s super special.
iRunFar: It feels like the Basque people have sort of adopted you as their, I don’t know, sister, daughter, friend, et cetera. Like, for instance, on Sancti Spiritu today, it was just, “Malen.”
Osa: Yeah. I think people like me, and that’s, I mean, yeah, that’s super nice. I just behave as I am and just having that support and that feeling, that love, and it’s just amazing. Yeah, you’ve mentioned Sancti Spiritu, but it’s so difficult to explain the feelings. You really need to get into the crowd to really understand what we mean when you say that this is crazy.
iRunFar: Well, I think I felt it today, because when you’re in with the crowds, you feel like the vibration of the sounds inside your chest. It goes all the way through you.
Osa: Yeah. It doesn’t seem even real. It seems like it’s, I don’t know, you have earplugs or I don’t know. It’s crazy. Yeah. And every year I come here, you come here knowing that this is going to be crazy, but every time you get into the wave, it’s like, “Okay, I didn’t remember this was as crazy.” Yeah. It’s amazing.
iRunFar: Did you come to mountain running and trail running from football? Is that how you grew up?
Osa: So my background is a bit different. I did swimming since I was a child, and I played football. I was a nerd, a football nerd. I followed everything in football. And my childhood dream was actually to be a pro football player. And that didn’t happen. But yeah, and then swimming, I think that helped me to reach the level I am. Kind of like it’s a very tough sport, and you need a lot of dedication, and also we were training at 6:00 a.m. in the morning when I was 11 years old, so it was very demanding, and you needed to be very organized because we were training before school. And, I think, that helped me a lot into the trails. But yeah, like nothing to do with running honestly.
iRunFar: Yeah. But it set the, I don’t know, it set the order of your life, and it set your mind to, “This is how we do sports, we take it serious.”
Osa: Yeah, exactly. You learn. Sport is sport. It’s true that football is pretty different because it’s a team sport. Trail running is, I think, it’s a team sport because you have your support team, and you have your brands, and everything, but, it’s about you. And that was also in swimming. Honestly, I was average/bad swimmer. Thank God I switched.
iRunFar: Yeah, you found a sport that you’re good at.
Osa: Yeah, it was very unexpected, because I started running … Well, I started running a bit with my mom because she used to run in summer and everything. And for me it was nonsense. It was like, “Why do you run? Just run. What’s the goal? What’s the objective?” And I didn’t really enjoy it at the beginning. But then, I started to run a bit more with COVID and everything. And there was a race which is a very special race. So I call it like the Petit Zegama kind of, because it’s like kind of the half.
iRunFar: What’s it called?
Osa: Aloñako Igoera. It’s pretty local, but it’s a big event and in the town. It’s super important day. And so one day I was like, “Wow, I want to be a finisher in this race. I really want to try what’s the feeling, like to push yourself in the mountains and everything.” And yeah, I went there, and I won. So I was 18 years old. The time was really, really good and just it hooked me up. I was like, “I want to do this.”
iRunFar: And so, now it’s several years later, and you have raced at this point around the world through the Golden Trail World Series and through just other racing opportunities. You’ve seen a lot of the world through your feet.
Osa: Yeah. I think it opens you so many doors. I was pretty young when I started with pro running thing. And at some point, I thought that maybe you are taking the steps too fast, or you should enjoy other things that teenagers do, or whatever. But, I think, that the experiences I could be living after, because of the trails and everything, it’s just amazing. I’ve been meeting so many places, but also people. Like nowadays, my best friends, most of my best friends, I’ve met them in trail running, and I think the community is one of the things I love the most from trails.
iRunFar: That’s cool.
Osa: Yeah.
iRunFar: So today’s race, I mean, you took it out with … I mean, of course, Tove was off the front. But, you took it out strongly, like in podium position basically from the start line. Did you feel good? Were you going for splits? Were you going for strategy? What was your mindset going out today?
Osa: I’m going to tell you a secret, and I ran without the watch.
iRunFar: Okay. Like, it’s not even on your wrist?
Osa: No, there was on my wrist, that was on for the data.
iRunFar: You just don’t look?
Osa: No, but like in my screen, I had like things that were not related to heart rate, or times.
iRunFar: Okay.
Osa: Until the very end, I didn’t know about my time. I had no clue about it. I did this because of, well, I’ve been dealing with some mental pressure and everything. So, today my only goal was to go with the flow, enjoy the race, enjoy with the crowds, and everything’s good. It’s going to be good. So, basically, I started running like, “Yeah.” It was like, “Focus on yourself, just keep the pace, don’t look to others.” And I was top 10 pretty early in the race, but it’s crazy how fast people goes after the gun. And I was like, “Yeah, they can go. For me, it’s just the motivation that I’m doing things correctly.”
iRunFar: That they’ll come back sooner when things calm down a little bit.
Osa: Yeah, exactly. And then, I started to overtake people, and first a couple, three of them in the first climb, and then in the downhills I was super strong today also. So, it’s true that today was surprisingly strong on the climbs, where usually maybe I’m not as good as others. But, I was pretty surprised I was already in the podium mid-race, kind of. That’s pretty early for me. Usually when I do podiums, it’s always in the last bit. But today it felt like everything was into the place. It was just amazing.
iRunFar: So, it’s like mid-race, you’re running in podium position, and you’re just feeling like, “Everything is just kind of working, I’m going to go with it.”
Osa: Yeah. At some point … I didn’t know all the times. So it was like, “Am I pushing too much?” Because the last two years I was running with the splits because I know very good this course. So, my strategy at Zegama always is like, “Just look to the split, you do your own race, you don’t care about others. If others are stronger, good for them, but you do your own thing.” And today I had this handicap, like I didn’t know about the timing, so I was like, “Oh, maybe I’ve over-pushed, and now I’m going to suffer from it.” It’s true that the last climb was pretty tough, but overall I think that I kept the pace very, very good, and yeah, I think it was kind of a perfect thing.
iRunFar: We spoke with Sara [Alonso], and she said that, well, she said a couple of things. One, she said that you helped her push, for her to run something that she didn’t think that she could do, especially in the second half. Like, run a split she didn’t think she could do. The fact that you were there and you two were pushing each other allowed both of you to be better today.
Osa: Yeah, 100%. Just, if you think about the times, I’m sure if I was running alone or she was running alone without Tove obviously, I don’t think we would run so fast. And it was super fun to have this kind of battle, because I passed her on a downhill, but after this downhill, which is pretty short, there was a flat and kind of a flattish part with a climb, and she’s usually stronger in this section. So, I was very worried that she was going to catch me again. So, my goal was like, “Okay, let’s hope I arrive together kind of to the last top so then I can attack again on the downhill,” where usually I’m stronger. So yeah, I think it was not just physical battle because we were not back and forth, but it was more for both of us mentally, like, “Okay, I need to push here, she needs to push here.” And I think we’re always, like thinking of the other, but for sure it was super fun, and I think it made us push more.
iRunFar: You arrived back to Zegama, there’s thousands of people here to cheer you in. This is a valley close to where you live. How did that feel? You had such a fast time too, like such a fast time.
Osa: Yeah, I didn’t know about it. But-
iRunFar: Yeah. Yeah. You didn’t know. That’s funny.
Osa: I was like, “Holy shit.” No, but Zegama’s finish line is always super special. Two years ago, it was my first podium here, and my mom was here, who passed away last summer. So, it’s always a lot of memories, and last year she wasn’t here, but it was also super special because it was a super nice course also. And today it was also like kind of, “Okay, I’m coming back, I’m here, I can run fine.” My mental health is good as well. And I enjoyed so much the race which was the main goal for today. So, I was just super emotional as always. I’m a drama queen. Always.
iRunFar: Self-admitted.
Osa: Yeah. Happy tears mostly all the time. But yeah, I can’t stop crying.
iRunFar: Congratulations to you on your second-place finish and your third podium at Zegama. That’s an incredible run of performance.
Osa: Hopefully, I can get the chapela home soon.
iRunFar: Yeah. Come on.
Osa: Without monsters.
iRunFar: No monsters …
Osa: No monster.
iRunFar: … invited next year.
Osa: I’ve talked to Tove, and it was like, “Okay, next year, you don’t come, please.”
iRunFar: Could you just take a year off, Tove?
Osa: I won’t take your record, so that’s good. You will have the record. But, I want the chapela.
iRunFar: Congratulations, Malen.
Osa: Thanks a lot.
