Copyright © 2026 OyList. All Rights Reserved.
Share
Items16
1
Bruce Fordyce
Born
Fordyce won the Comrades Marathon nine times in the 1980s, including eight in a row, on a hilly road course of roughly 90km where patience matters more than speed: he was famous for sitting well back early and reeling the leaders in. He also won the London to Brighton race three times and set a world best for 50 miles in 1984. Few ultrarunners have matched his mastery of pacing a long road race.
More about Bruce Fordyce2
Ann Trason
Trason won the Western States 100 a record 14 times between 1989 and 2003, often finishing high in the overall standings, and she was just as formidable on the road: two Comrades wins in the 1990s and a world 100km title. She also set track world bests and won Leadville, at altitude, in the same summers. Her range across trail, road and track, decades before the sport professionalised, is still the standard every versatile ultrarunner is measured against.
More about Ann Trason3
Yiannis Kouros
Born
Kouros dominated the longest distances for two decades. He won the 246km Spartathlon from Athens to Sparta four times, setting a course record in his first attempt in 1984 that lasted for decades, won the Sydney to Melbourne race several times, and set world bests from 24 hours to six days and 1,000 miles. His 24-hour marks lasted until Aleksandr Sorokin's era. For sheer duration, no runner has been better.
More about Yiannis Kouros4
Scott Jurek
Born
Jurek won the Western States 100 seven times in a row from 1999, then proved himself on entirely different ground: the Badwater 135 through Death Valley, three straight Spartathlon wins on the Greek roads, and an American 24-hour record on a loop course in 2010. Those are mountain trail, desert heat, long road and timed loop events, all won at the top level. His book Eat and Run brought that range to a huge audience.
More about Scott Jurek5
Lizzy Hawker
Born
Hawker, a British polar scientist by training, won UTMB five times between 2005 and 2012, yet she was equally strong on flat roads: world 100km champion in 2006, a British 24-hour record, and back-to-back Spartathlon wins with a women's course record. Mountain, road, timed and point-to-point events all fell to her within a few years. She also set a record on the long trail from Everest base camp to Kathmandu.
More about Lizzy Hawker6
Kílian Jornet
Born
Jornet's range runs from the 42km sky race at Zegama, which he has won more often than anyone, to the 100-mile mountain classics: four UTMB titles across 14 years, the 2011 Western States and multiple Hardrock wins. He added world titles in ski mountaineering and two ascents of Everest without supplementary oxygen in a week in 2017. No one has been elite for so long across such different mountain formats, though the runnable Western States course has been the hardest for him to repeat.
More about Kílian Jornet7
Ellie Greenwood
Born
The Scottish-born Canadian won the world 100km road title in 2010, then went to the trails and won the Western States 100 in 2011 and 2012, the second in a course record that stood for years. In 2014 she added the Comrades Marathon, beating a deep field on South Africa's road classic. Road speed, trail endurance and a championship-style tactical race all suited her, which is exactly the range this list is about.
More about Ellie Greenwood8
Camille Herron
Born
Herron came from the marathon and kept its quick, short stride all the way up to multi-day racing. She won the world 100km title in 2015 and Comrades in 2017, the Tarawera trail ultra in New Zealand, and set world bests at 100 miles, 24 hours, 48 hours and six days, several of them since lowered. Few runners have been at the very top at both 100km road speed and six-day endurance.
More about Camille Herron9
Jim Walmsley
Born
Walmsley built his reputation on fast, runnable courses: three Western States wins, including a 14:09 course record in 2019, and a world best for 50 miles on the road that same year. UTMB's steep Alpine terrain was a different problem, and after several failures he moved his family to the Chamonix valley to learn it, winning in 2023 as the first American man to do so. His career shows how deliberately range can be built.
More about Jim Walmsley10
Courtney Dauwalter
Born
Dauwalter's 2023 summer is the best single season in ultrarunning: she won Western States, Hardrock and UTMB within about ten weeks, setting course records at the first two. Earlier she had won the 240-mile Moab race outright by about ten hours and run 279 miles at Big's Backyard Ultra, a format where runners must complete a 4.17-mile loop every hour until one remains. Mountain 100s, 200-milers and backyard racing are three different sports, and she has mastered all of them.
More about Courtney Dauwalter11
Aleksandr Sorokin
Born
The Lithuanian is the master of flat-course ultras, and his range is measured in hours rather than terrain. Sorokin has held world bests from 100km through 12 hours and 100 miles to 24 hours at the same time, including 319.6km in 24 hours in Verona in 2022, finally going beyond Kouros's long-standing marks. His relentlessly even pacing on loops and tracks is the clearest example of why timed racing is its own discipline.
More about Aleksandr Sorokin12
Jasmin Paris
Paris, a vet who came through British fell running, has won across formats few others attempt. She set records on Britain's great mountain rounds, won the 268-mile winter Spine Race outright in 2019 in a course record, expressing breast milk at checkpoints, and in 2024 became the first woman to finish the Barkley Marathons, the unmarked, navigation-heavy race in Tennessee. Fell, winter non-stop and self-navigated races demand very different skills, and she has excelled at all three.
More about Jasmin Paris13
François D'Haene
D'Haene, a winemaker in Beaujolais, is the most complete mountain 100-miler of his generation. He has won UTMB four times, the brutal Diagonale des Fous on Réunion several times, and Hardrock in Colorado, and set a fastest known time on the John Muir Trail in California. Alpine, tropical and high-altitude American courses demand different strengths, and his calm, economical climbing and patient pacing have worked on all of them.
More about François D'Haene14
Katie Schide
Born
Schide, an American geologist based in the French Alps, has won UTMB twice, the second time in 2024 in a course record, plus the runnable Western States 100 that same summer and, in 2025, the high-altitude Hardrock 100 in a course record. With the Diagonale des Fous on Réunion also on her record, she is one of only three runners to have won all four of those very different 100-mile races, alongside Jornet and Dauwalter.
More about Katie Schide15
Tom Evans (runner)
Born
Evans, a former British Army officer, burst on to the scene with third place at the Marathon des Sables in 2017, a multi-stage desert race, and then proved himself on the road with bronze at the 2018 world 100km championships. On the trails he won the CCC in the Alps in 2018, the Western States 100 in 2023, the first British man to do so, and UTMB itself in a storm in 2025. Desert stage racing, road 100km and both of the sport's biggest mountain 100-milers make for an unusually wide record.
More about Tom Evans (runner)16
Ruth Croft
Born
Croft, from New Zealand, is equally dangerous at 50km and 100 miles. She came through the shorter, faster trail races, winning the OCC in UTMB week, then won the Western States 100 in 2022 and, after finishing second at UTMB in 2024, won it in stormy conditions in 2025. In 2026 she won the Tarawera 102km at home for a fourth time. Her speed from short trail racing, carried intact over 100 miles, is what sets her apart.
More about Ruth Croft
