For the fourth summer in a row, Ruth Croft has the same goal, “to see what I am capable of at UTMB,” she told Trail Runner. That may make her sound stubborn or obsessed or even a little boring, but trust me, the salt-of-the-earth Kiwi doesn’t care what you or the rest of the media circus around Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) thinks. Despite returning to the Chamonix start line as the defending champion and a favorite to repeat, Croft, 37, has become an expert at tuning out the noise and just doing the work.

To be fair, though, it wasn’t always that way.

“When I was younger, I started wanting to go down the 100-mile route, chasing the hype,” Croft said. “I saw they were getting more coverage than shorter distances, but I realized I was not ready for them. Now I’m racing just for myself.” This shift has helped her stay grounded, blissfully unplugged, and focused on giving everything to the loop around the Mont Blanc massif.

“At the beginning of the year, I feel my body and look into things that actually motivate me; races that intrinsically motivate me, not external wants,” Croft said. “I decided to come back to UTMB because there were things that I didn’t do well that I want to do better. I left a lot of time on the table and my body broke down in the second half, so I’ve been working on improving durability in training.”

A Fresh Perspective On The Same Race

After a DNS due to sickness in 2023, second place in 2024, and a breakthrough win last year, Croft, one might assume, might be looking for the next big goal. One would be wrong. UTMB remains the race that motivates her to train the hardest, the primary reason she decided to return. However, she’s coming back with a fresh perspective, which makes her feel more like an underdog than a defending champ.

While at home in Wanaka, New Zealand, this offseason, she had a conversation with a friend that helped reframe how she would approach her fourth UTMB. “He said to me, ‘it’s not about defending your title, it’s about going back to win it again,’ which I really took to heart,” Croft said.

“If I go in with the mentality of defending my title, I would do everything I could not to lose the race, not take chances to win it,” she said. “On the start line, we’re all back at ground zero. Winning last year doesn’t give me an advantage. There were a lot of things that I felt that I didn’t do well last year, especially when it comes to gear. I looked like a mess all the time, so I’ve been working on it.”

“It’s Not Like We’re Curing Cancer”

As one of just eight athletes who has won both the Western States 100 and UTMB, Croft is a bonafide superstar of the sport. That hasn’t changed her nonchalant demeanor. When asked about her place in the trail running world at large, Croft replied, “it’s not like we’re curing cancer,” a not-so-subtle reminder to not take herself too seriously and to not let results define who she is as a person.

“At the end of the day, running doesn’t matter, but how you treat other people does,” Croft explained. “When I was young, I was more outcome dependent, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that none of it matters. Wins don’t change who you are and losses shouldn’t make you question your self worth. I still care about performing, but I also know that my results don’t define me. You have to be able to hold these two truths at the same time.”

This perspective helps Croft put less pressure on herself, too, especially through hard moments. “My DNF at [2025] Transvulcania was a big test for me, but afterwards I didn’t question my capabilities as a runner or even view it as a failure,” she said. “I was like, OK, that didn’t work out, it’s time to move on and focus on the next thing. I just took it as a lesson that you have to adapt, which helped me at UTMB a few months later. Beta is great, but you still have to use intuition and trust yourself to make calls in the moment.”

Training in a Heat Wave, at Altitude

Like previous years, Croft’s final training block before UTMB was in Tignes, France, living and training at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level in the French Alps. Meanwhile, France has had one of the hottest summers on record with a series of deadly heatwaves—far from ideal for high-intensity training.

“Stress can come from a lot of places and we [along with her coach Scott Johnston] are always trying to balance them,” Croft said. “Fortunately, coming to Tignes is sort of like a holiday for me. When I’m at home, I always have house projects and other things to do. Here, life is very simple. I just train, eat, sleep, and recover. Also, I’m running in a beautiful location with trails right out the door.”

Croft says that a big focus this year was not over-training: “I had a good year last year and so it’s natural to think you need to increase everything to level up. Like, what we did last year worked, so it’s easy to think that I should just do more of it, but I’ve been working on not falling into that mind trap.”

Giving Her Mind and Body A Break

A major secret to Croft’s success isn’t her training, but instead how she takes breaks. At the end of every season she’ll do a meditation or darkness retreat, usually in a new location. “My summer in Europe is structured, disciplined, and very masculine energy,” she said. “Stepping out of that rigidity brings me a lot of balance. In Europe it’s almost like tunnel vision and a retreat lets all that fall to the side.”

Since starting to race 100-milers, Croft has followed a strict rule to only do one each year. “When I do something, I go all-in,” she said. “It’s never just the race in isolation, it’s all the mental and emotional energy leading into it. That takes a lot, so afterwards I take four to five weeks completely off, which is more for the mental side than the physical, so I don’t burn out.”

Croft is also intentional about travel, structuring her year to minimize the number of flights she takes: “I usually start with a race in New Zealand, then I go to Europe and stay through the season. I don’t like to race a lot, so I pick them carefully to not spread myself thin.” During college and early in her professional career, Croft raced more often and battled injuries, which she learned from.

The Path Beyond Ultrarunning

Knowing that running won’t last forever, Croft started looking for career paths that she could transition into when the time comes. She’s currently enrolled in a naturopathy program in Australia and fits schoolwork in between training sessions, with hopes to bring more of what she’s learning—nutrition, herbal medicine, holistic work—to the sport after she retires from racing.

“Ideally, I’d love to work with female athletes and prevent them going down the path I did,” she said. “There’s a lot in the nutrition space that’s not optimized for female athletes. Right now I’m using many of the lessons from class on myself, like gut testing for general well-being, which at the end of the day also helps performance.”

“I’m really passionate about naturopathy,” Croft continued. “If I have a really strong baseline of health and wellness, that just means I can train more because I don’t get sick as much. More consistency means more improvement.”