The adventure game

Katie Schide talks to Euan Crumley about how a move from America to Europe, combined with a talent for endurance, led to her becoming one of the world’s best off-road runners

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Katie Schide had always known that she possessed the ability to run for a long time and cover large distances. “Growing up, I played field hockey really competitively, and my strength was always that I could run the whole field for the whole game without getting as tired as everyone else,” says the American. “I had this endurance capacity.”

What she hadn't realised, however, was that those athletic talents would eventually help to establish her as one of the finest trail and mountain runners in the world. The 33-year-old grew up in Maine and spent much of that time outdoors, regularly accompanying her father on hikes through the spectacular, mountainous scenery of New England.

She is someone who has always run, too, but it wasn’t until her PhD in geology took her to Switzerland in 2016 and she met her partner - fellow professional trail runner Germain Grangier - that a whole new world began to open up to her.

An unexpected fifth place at the prestigious Livigno Sky Race in 2017 highlighted her promise and provided a crucial springboard. “I’ve basically been living off of the sport since 2020,” she says.

Victory in some of trail running’s biggest events have come her way since. Twice Schide has come finished first at the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) - in 2022 and then last year, when she broke the 173.3km (108 miles) course record in a time of 22:09:31 across a route that also features a total elevation of 9525m. That same summer, she also won the Western States, the oldest 100-mile race in the world, in California.