Ruth Croft

Ruth Croft, a Kiwi who came of age in Taipei 🥝

Daughter of a road-haulage company boss, Ruth Croft inherits a solid taste for hard work and takes off fast on the track. National under-20 champion, she runs the 3,000 m steeplechase at the 2006 World Junior Championships, then the World Junior Mountain Running Championships in 2005 and 2007.

Off to the University of Portland, in Oregon, with a track-and-field scholarship in her pocket. After four years at college spent largely injured, and diploma in hand, she puts the spikes away and then flies to Taiwan 🌏 . Five and a half years there will be enough to rekindle her flame for running, outing after outing.

Victories follow: the Climbathon on Mount Kinabalu in 2013 and 2014, then the “CCC” in 2015, her first title in Chamonix. Two wins at the Festival des Templiers (2017 and 2021) and two “OCC” titles (2018, 2019) round out the collection. In 2019, in Miranda do Corvo, she takes silver at the Trail World Championships behind Blandine L’Hirondel, the first medal in the discipline in New Zealand history.

Meditate to bomb descents 🧘

With her, the difference is as much between the ears as in the calves. At the end of every season, the New Zealander heads off on a silent meditation retreat, pushing the experience as far as stays in complete darkness. Her definition of a bad race has nothing to do with placing: it happens when mind and body refuse to work together.

That serenity wreaks havoc on the trails. In 2021, at Tarawera, she wins the 100 km outright, ahead of all the men, in 9h21'03", with a record to boot. The same year, she discovers the 100 miles at the Western States: second behind Beth Pascall for a trial by fire. Twelve months later, she comes back to take the win in 17h21'30", under Californian heat that would melt gels 🔥 .

Between bibs, she knocks out the roughly 200 km of the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland in 2022. Enough to put any aid station into perspective.

Ruth Croft, around Mont Blanc in ten years flat ⏱️

Denied a start in 2023 by a virus caught a few days before the race, the Kiwi finally takes on the UTMB’s big loop in 2024: second behind Katie Schide, with the feeling she raced too cautiously.

On August 30, 2025, she goes out harder. Hail, snow and cold force the organizers to modify the 174 km course 🌨️ . In the second half of the race, she reels in Courtney Dauwalter, then opens the gap all the way to Chamonix to win in 22h56'23", more than 30 minutes ahead of Camille Bruyas. Ruth Croft becomes the first woman to win all three finals of the UTMB World Series. Ten years after the “CCC”, she celebrates it with a shot of peanut butter whiskey 🥃 .

In 2026, she notches a fourth win at the Tarawera “T102”, a year after setting the record there in 8h24'31". She then wins the “Half Lake Tour” at the MaXi-Race, 56 km and 3,310 mD+ around Annecy 🏆 . She has now set her sights on the Indian Ocean in mid-October, to try to go and claim victory at the Diagonale des Fous.

Will Réunion’s cirques offer her a new chapter? Keep an eye on the Kiwi, and in the meantime find your next mountain trail. It’s up to you to write your loop! 🏃