Articles by Ellie Greenwood

More than ever, tough and beautiful races are at the forefront of ultrarunning: UTMB, Broken Arrow, Hardrock and Grand Raid de la Réunion. Photos and videos can have you dreaming of running these events, but if you live in a city or an area with little to no hills, it can feel impossible.

Time off of training isn’t just a period when you don’t race. Make the most of it by creating a thought-out timeframe that allows you to recover and reset, while having a little fun.

Ever since I trekked to Everest Base Camp (EBC) some 20 years ago, I’ve been captivated by Nepal. The craziness of Kathmandu, the majesty of the Himalaya and the warmth of the people – I knew that I had to go back. Final...

More than ever, tough and beautiful races are at the forefront of ultrarunning: UTMB, Broken Arrow, Hardrock and Grand Raid de la Réunion. These are big mountain races with a ton of vert and technical terrain. Photos and...

From 1849 to 1860, the HBC Heritage Trail was used as an essential route through the Cascade Mountains for fur traders and resupplying HBC forts in the interior and north of British Columbia. A safer route was established not long after, and over 100 years later in 2016, the original route reopened with the goal of bringing visitors to the area.

When writing race recaps, runners often apportion a disappointing race result to race day factors such not fueling enough, starting too fast or pushing an early descent too hard. And while one can make many errors during...

The realization I am getting older as a runner hit me when I saw a race t-shirt in my closet that was well over 10 years old. How had I become one of those runners with race swag from ancient times? I guess that’s a star...

Bates runs to a 29:15 eighth-place finish at the 2023 High Lonesome 100. It’s hard to not be inspired by Becky Bates – her can-do attitude, dedication to training, deep-rooted involv...

For a classic point-to-point adventure run, largely above the treeline with epic mountain views, look no further than the Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. This impressive route can typically be h...

I first met Phil Parsons in 2018 at the Band of Runners camp. Established with the goal of sharing the community of trail running, Band of Runners provides military veterans and their family members with lessons about th...

In today's trail-dominant ultrarunning world, it’s easy to forget that the roots of ultrarunning lie in pedestrianism and road races. Events like Comrades, Spartathlon and Badwater are competitive and high profile, but t...

Newer ultrarunners might not know of Olga King, but if you were to go back 20 years, she was a mainstay of the North American ultra scene. In a sport that seems to transition from one generation to the next, this is a striking partnership across generations.

If you’ve been following 100 and 200-mile races in recent years, it’s hard to escape the name Annie Hughes. Hughes’s race results speak for themselves but it was her age that initially drew my attention – there are not m...

Roxy Vogel, a Seven Summits finisher from the USA, at about 16,000 feet altitude on Day 1 of the Snowman Race. In the lower right of the image, you can make out the rocky moraine and glacial lake left from th...

If a summer ultra is in your future, it’s time to start thinking about race-specific training. While it might be ideal to already have a plan and a base built, there’s still adequate time to prepare and reach your raci...

Eleanor Robinson, second from right, is seated with (L to R) Erik Seedhouse, Don Ritchie and Yiannis Kouros, the day before the 1990 Edmund Fitzgerald UltraMarathon (IAAF 100K World Cup and TAC National 100...

There is nothing better than running through a landscape and being completely immersed in it. In my prime running years, I was lucky enough to experience some amazing landscapes and trails, and one race that has stuck with me for its scenery and local culture is the Grand Trail des Templiers, a 50-mile race in the hills around Millau in southwest France.

I’ve worked as an online ultrarunning coach for the last eight years, and when I tell people what I do, they often make the assumption that most of my runners are in their 20s and finishing at the top of the field. Bu...

British Columbia’s Vancouver, Squamish and Whistler are all underrated world-class destinations for trail running, but North Vancouver has been my home for a decade, so I’m obviously a little biased. Winters here are m...

ERIC CLIFTON UROY: 1992 In 1992, I was honored with both the Ultrarunner of the Year and Ted Corbitt awards mostly for being the first to win four of the (then existing) 11 100-mile trail races in the US, finishing t...

How is another year drawing to a close so soon? It feels like we’ve been living in a time warp over the last 18 months, with the traditional annual markers missing. It throws me for a loop when anyone asks me the date....

The word “legend” is often overused, but in the world of ultra-distance running, the 65-year-old South African Bruce Fordyce is truly a legend. He is the nine-time winner of the 89k Comrades Ma...

Vancouver is a city famed not only for its oceanfront promenades, easily accessible beaches and towering high rises jammed into downtown, but also for its backdrop of magnificent mountain peaks. The North Shore Mountains...

Experience true mountain grandeur and majesty by visiting the Rockwall Traverse in Canada’s Kootenay National Park. I ran this 34-mile (55k) route 10 years ago, and it still ranks as one of my favorite days of mountai...

As humans, I fear we often have rather short memories. In the racing scene, if we’ve not heard from someone for 12 months, we’re prone to forgetting their former podium dominance. It’s too easy to get caught up in...

It’s 4:30 p.m. and I’ve been at work since 8 a.m. There are still emails to reply to and admin tasks to complete, but those don’t matter now – it’s time to quickly tidy my desk and head out the door. A brisk walk home...

It’s been a weird year. January and February were pretty standard for most of us, but by the end of March it truly seemed like the world had been turned on its head and nothing was anywhere near normal — whatever normal...

When you think of Western States (WSER), who do you think of? Maybe it’s Jim Walmsley and his outstanding course record from 2019? Or Ann Trason and her mind-boggling 14 wins? As with any race, elite competitors at Weste...

The North Coast Trail on Vancouver Island, BC, is a true backcountry experience. Don’t be deceived by the lack of elevation – it’s remote, wild and rugged. When I backpacked the trail last summer with three girlfriends,...

Ultrarunning as a sport has technically been around for over 100 years, but the format that most of us know as “ultrarunning” today (trail and road races, typically 50k to 100 miles) is barely 50 years old and evolving r...

Love them or hate them, treadmills are an excellent training tool and can be a lifesaver in winter. I’m impressed if you continue running outside when the temperature is hovering around zero – that’s dedication for sure....

Ultrarunning can seem like a selfish pursuit – heading out onto the trails for hours on end, we often leave family at home or defer social engagements with friends because we need to get our long run in. And all for what...

While I have my own thoughts on gender and its impact in ultrarunning, they are based on personal experiences. So, a short online survey seemed like the best way to see the bigger picture. Thank you to the 1,040 of you w...

At some point, maybe long ago or not so long ago, we all signed up for our first ultra. Maybe you chose a race because you thought it would be a challenge, or you wanted to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. I d...

As a mountain lover, the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) had tremendous appeal. The idea of connecting the mountain and high desert ranges through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana was irresistible.

To me, it’s vital that we all think about trail etiquette – how to respect and maintain the beautiful natural environments that we choose to run through, and how to respect our fellow trail users. It’s important to recognize that we share the trails with others.

There are many aspects of the ultrarunning community that I love, and one of the most important is the fact that at 99% of races 99% of the folks out there helping the runners are volunteers. It’s easy to take this for granted and just assume that races are volunteer run. But have you considered how a race might differ in atmosphere if the folks handing you water or issuing your bib number were paid employees?

Over the years, I’ve seen numerous runners who, in my opinion, have put undue focus on a race. They become totally fixated on doing well at a particular event that they almost feel that they should not enjoy the training, as if in some way suffering through hard training is part and parcel with doing well on race day. This is totally wrong.

I distinctly remember the finisher shirt I got at my very first marathon in Victoria, British Columbia. I remember it because it was a bit of a dilemma – I’d just run a marathon, a whole 26.2 miles, so I sure as anything wanted to go around proclaiming my accomplishment by wearing an item of clothing that shouted this fact to everyone who I so much as passed in the street.

If you ask ultrarunners why they got into the sport in the first place, you will hear a range of answers—for health, for a love for the outdoors, for a personal challenge, for an escape from the stresses of work. But I can’t imagine that many ultrarunners would say that they got into running because they wanted to be fast and competitive.

Time… wouldn’t we all love to have more of it? This can be particularly true when we have a full-time job, family and social commitments and we decide to sign…

If any of you are relatively new to running ultras, here are my top tips to ensure that you have fun and success at your ultras and come back wanting more!

You know those times when you innocently say something and are met by a really odd look, and then you realize that you’re not talking to an ultrarunner? Well, that was the case when I was talking to a local newspaper journalist recently and referred to running the Vancouver marathon as “a good, middle distance effort.” Well what else do we ultrarunners call a mere 26.2-mile jaunt other than “middle distance”?

As a reader of UltraRunning magazine for the past several years, one of my favorite issues has always been the January “Year in Review”; a look back at the past…

In an effort to make the most of my limited vacation time from work, the opportunity to combine a family vacation with a destination race just seemed too perfect to…

Oh, if only running and racing to one’s potential was just about running, wouldn’t that be wonderful? It would make life so much simpler and I truly believe that many more “weekendwarriors” would be up on the podium at competitive ultras. But the more I run, the more I realize that it’s the “extra stuff” that all goes towards truly fulfilling one’s potential as a runner, which is hard, as all I really want to do is run, and all I often feel I have time for is to run.

We’ve all done it, signed up for a race with the simple click of a button, carried away with the enthusiasm of a recent race result or inspired by beautiful images from a race website, and only after do you begin to consider the practicalities of racing at the event.