The year 2025 is almost over! This has been a big year for ultrarunning, with some truly exceptional performances across the trails, roads, and tracks which have objectively advanced the sport.
On the roads and tracks, runners set several world records across events ranging from 50 kilometers to six days, including Sarah Webster’s (U.K.) world record at the IAU 24-Hour World Championships, where she eclipsed the previous mark by a massive 8.259k (5.131 miles) in running 278.622k (173.127 miles).
While it is harder to objectively quantify top trail-ultra performances, numerous efforts broke longstanding course records and bested super deep fields, including American Anne Flower besting the 31-year-old Leadville 100 Mile record.
In this article, we look back at some of the barrier-breaking performances from 2025 across various surfaces and distances. iRunFar congratulates everyone who pushed the boundaries of ultrarunning several steps forward in 2025. Let’s celebrate!
American Megan Eckert on her way to setting a massive new women’s six-day world record, one of the top 2025 performances in road ultrarunning. Photo: Samuel L’hermillier
Top 2025 Road and Track Ultra Performances
Fixed-distance and time events offer runners a chance to test themselves under the relatively controlled environments of roads and tracks. These events make it easy to compare times and distances across various locations and years, and world records continue to fall regularly as runners dial in pacing, nutrition, gear, and even sleep.
24 Hours
The highlight of the 24-hour distance in 2025 has to be Sarah Webster’s (U.K.) world record at the IAU 24-Hour World Championships in France this October. She ran 278.622k (173.127 miles) to eclipse the previous record set by Japan’s Miho Nakata of 270.363k (167.996 miles) in 2023 by an incredible margin of 8.259k (5.131 miles). It was a phenomenal distance, almost unthinkable a few years ago.
Sarah Webster during the 2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships. Photo: John O’Regan
The 24-hour world record remained unbroken for the men, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of impressive performances throughout the year, and seven of the world’s top-10 distances were achieved at the IAU 24-Hour World Championships. Ukraine’s Andrii Tkachuk won the event this year by running 294.346k (182.898 miles), which topped the 2025 rankings.
Ukraine’s Andrii Tkachuk, 2025 IAU 24-Hour World Championships men’s winner. Photo: iRunFar/Deki Fourcin
48 Hours
Remarkably, at the UltraPark Weekend 48 Hour race in Poland, both the men’s and women’s world records were broken, by Belgium’s Matthieu Bonne and Poland’s Patrycja Bereznowska.
The men’s 48-hour distance had long been the domain of the legendary Yiannis Kouros of Greece. Prior to 2025, Kouros owned the six best distances ever recorded for 48 hours, with a best of 473.495k (294.216 miles) from 1996. Bonne broke Kouros’ record by over 11k (6.8 miles), recording 485.099k (301.426 miles). Bonne’s performance has renewed interest in the distance, and there is even talk of someone reaching beyond 500k in 48 hours when the stars align.
Matthieu Bonne sets a new men’s 48-hour world record at the 2025 UltraPark Weekend 48 Hour race. Photo: Jacob Zocherman
At the same event, Bereznowska took down the women’s 48-hour record by running 436.371k (271.148 miles), bettering the mark of American Camille Herron at 435.336k (270.505 miles), set in 2023. Bereznowska had now set the women’s 48-hour world record twice, the first time in 2022.
Patrycja Bereznowska on her way to setting a women’s 48-hour world record at the 2025 UltraPark Weekend 48 Hour race. Photo: Jacob Zocherman
Six Days
This year saw both the men’s and women’s six-day world records broken, by American Megan Eckert for the women and Russia’s Ivan Zaborsky for the men, at the Six Days of France race.
Ivan Zaborsky setting a new men’s six-day world record at the 2025 Six Days of France race. Photo: Samuel L’hermillier
Eckert improved the women’s six-day record by a massive 68.9k (42.8 miles) by running 970.685k (603.155 miles), while Zaborsky recorded 1,047.544k (650.919 miles), adding just over 2k to the prior record.
After breaking the women’s six-day world record at the 2025 Six Days of France race, Megan Eckert went on to run another 43 miles. Photos courtesy of Mount to Coast.
50 Kilometers
The 50k event, although recognized for rankings and record purposes, continues to struggle to attract significant interest. The postponement of the 2025 IAU 50k World Championships, set to be held this past month in New Delhi, India, but rescheduled to March 2026, has not exactly helped either. Gerda Steyn of South Africa was a clear world-leader at the distance this year as she topped the women’s rankings with her 3:06:57 split, taken as she won the 56k Two Oceans Marathon in South Africa, in April. The U.S.’s Charlie Lawrence set the year’s fastest time for men with a 2:49:02, which he ran at the USATF 50k Road National Championships at the MadCity 50k in April.
100 Kilometers
The IAU 100k World Championships alternate years with the 50k event, and this was an off-year for the 100k. Still, there were several top performances to note.
American Charlie Lawrence got close to a new world record in mid-December with his recent 6:07:10 at the Desert Solstice Track Invitational. While 95 seconds shy of a world record, it was a new American record and the fourth-fastest time ever for the distance.
Charlie Lawrence sets a new men’s 100k American record at the 2025 Desert Solstice Track Invitational. Photo: Aravaipa Running/Jubilee Paige
American Courtney Olsen became only the second woman to break the 7-hour barrier for 100k in a ratified event, recording a 6:59:55 split at the Tunnel Hill 100 and 50 Mile in November, setting a national record in the process. Barriers are being pushed with several women close to 7 hours in recent years. Olsen’s sub-7 will surely convince others that it is within their reach.
Top 2025 Trail Ultra Performances
While all the empirical distances and fixed-time events can be easily documented, ranked, and compared, it’s more difficult to create a top performances list with trail-ultra events. Still, course records and commanding performances among deeply competitive fields put certain performances in a league of their own.
100 Miles
In her first attempt at the distance, Ireland’s Caitriona Jennings set a new women’s 100-mile world record by running 12:37:04 at the Tunnel Hill 100 Mile. This bettered American Camille Herron’s mark of 12:42:40 from 2017.
Caitriona Jennings looking pleased with her new women’s 100-mile world record at the 2025 Tunnel Hill 100 Mile. Photo: Micki Colson/Colson Photography
UTMB is Europe’s, and arguably the world’s, blue-ribbon 100-mile event, drawing the deepest fields in the distance. This year, the U.K.’s Tom Evans put together a dominant victory after two successive DNFs at the event in 2023 and 2024. New Zealand’s Ruth Croft was an equally dominant winner in the women’s race. Interestingly, she worked with the same coach as Evans to dial in her training and racing strategy, and it’s interesting to look at their pacing in comparison to other top runners in the field.
Tom Evans after winning the 2025 UTMB. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Both the women’s and men’s course records fell at the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Seemingly coming from nowhere, Anne Flower broke Anne Trason’s 31-year-old course record by running 17:58:19, beating the old record by just over 8 minutes. Meanwhile, David Roche reset his course record from 2024 by running 15:12:30, just over 14 minutes faster than the year before.
Anne Flower on her way to setting a new women’s course record at the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photo courtesy of Anne Flower.
50 Miles
In September, Canfranc, Spain, hosted the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, and the event saw some of the most competitive races of the year over stunning and technical courses. In the Trail World Championships Long Trail event, which measured close to 50 miles, Americans Jim Walmsley won a race-long battle, and Katie Schide ran away from the women’s field.
Jim Walmsley, the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail champion. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
After setting a new course record at the Leadville 100 Mile in August, American Anne Flower set a new women’s 50-mile world record in November at the Tunnel Hill 50 Mile by running 5:18:57, beating American Courtney Olsen’s time of 5:31:56 by 13 minutes.
Anne Flower was all smiles after setting a new women’s 50-mile world record at the 2025 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile. Photo: Micki Colson/Colson Photography
50 Kilometers
The Trail World Championships Short Trail saw a technical and steep 45k course that felt anything but short. A pair of orienteers, France’s Frédéric Tranchand and Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson, took home victories, with Alexandersson’s race being considered one of the most dominant performances in ultra racing when she bested the rest of the women’s field by more than 30 minutes.
Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson on her way to winning the 2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Fastest Known Times
The fastest known time (FKT) or speed record concept has been around for longer than trail ultrarunning, with FKTs experiencing massive growth in popularity and competitiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Tara Dower’s overall supported record on Vermont’s Long Trail was a top women’s running-based FKT performance this year. For the men, the U.S.’s David Hedges’ supported Nolan’s 14 FKT was the top running-focused FKT. This was fascinatingly a record he’d held in the past, but it was topped earlier in 2025 by France’s François D’Haene, after which Hedges came back to reset the FKT for a second time.
David Hedges en route to a Nolan’s 14 fastest known time in 2025. Photo: Peter Maksimow
200 Miles
Americans Kilian Korth and Rachel Entrekin are the hands-down MVPs in the 200-plus-mile genre of trail running this year, another avenue of trail ultras that continues to increase in popularity and therefore competitiveness.
Korth won the 200-mile triple crown series this year, by winning the Tahoe 200 Mile, Bigfoot 200 Mile, and Moab 240 Mile, setting a cumulative series record of 156 hours, 30 minutes in the process. Entrekin set a new course record at the Cocodona 250 Mile in May, and then turned it around to win the inaugural Mammoth 200 Mile in September, among her other 2025 accolades.
Rachel Entrekin on her way to a new women’s course record at the 2025 Cocodona 250 Mile. Photo: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
At the event that is thought to have started the 200-mile genre and currently houses the deepest competitive fields for the distance, Italy’s 205-mile Tor des Géants, Belgium’s Victor Richard set a new course record of 66:08. Noor Van Der Veen of The Netherlands won the women’s race in 79:34, becoming only the second woman to run under 80 hours in the mountainous event.
Victor Richard, the 2025 Tor des Géants men’s winner. Photo: Stefano Coletta
Backyard Ultras
Backyard ultras are gaining popularity and also competitiveness worldwide. For those unfamiliar with the backyard ultra format, racers complete laps of a 4.1667-mile course every hour, starting each lap at the top of the hour. Runners continue until they either miss the one-hour cutoff or choose not to continue on. The winner is the person who completes one more lap after the second-to-last person has dropped out.
Sarah Perry setting a new women’s backyard ultra record at the 2025 Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra. Photo: Jacob Zocherman
For the women, the U.K.’s Sarah Perry ran 95 laps, or yards, to cover 637k (395.8 miles) at the 2025 Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra. She broke American Megan Eckert’s previous record of 87 yards, or 583.3k (362 miles), set in 2024.
The men’s record improved twice in 2025. In April at the Legends Backyard Ultra in Belgium, Poland’s Łukasz Wróbel finished 116 laps, or 777.9k (483.3 miles), to better the 110-lap previous record set by the Belgian team at the 2024 Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra World Team Championships. A month after Wróbel’s record, Phil Gore would go three laps further at the Dead Cow Gully in his home country of Australia, pushing the record out to 119 laps and 797.9k (495.8 miles).
Call for Comments
- What were some other standout performances from 2025?
- Which performances from this year will you remember for how they pushed the sport forward?
- Do you have any performance predictions for 2026 in ultrarunning?
