An exclusive interview with army officer turned ultra-runner who has also been picked for the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
Ahead of the first ever joint World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand (November 3-5), there won’t be many better athletes in form than British ultra-runner Tom Evans.
Coming off the back of a horrific knee injury sustained at last year’s British Olympic trials, Evans returned to ultra-running at the fabled UTMB [Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc] and didn’t just complete the 170km rigorous mountainous course, but finished in third place.
Evans, who has a history with UTMB after triumphing over the 101km distance between Courmayeur and Chamonix back in 2018, clocked 20:34:36 and finished behind Spaniard Kílian Jornet and Frenchman Mathieu Blanchard, the pair running the 170km circuit in 19:49:30 and 19:54:50 respectively.
Such was the calibre of completion and his journey back from injury, it was impressive Evans finished on the podium.
Jornet is considered one of the all-time greats of ultra-running and is now a quadruple winner of the main event in France while three-time Western States champion – a 100-mile race in the US – was fourth.
For Evans, making the start line was one of the goals.
“Going in, my thought was always going to be what could I do to get to the start line [of UTMB],” he says. “You didn’t know if it was possible and I never thought I may be able to run 100 miles ever again. You can’t practice that every day.
“The longer I do the sport you can’t take things for granted. Just because you’ve had a really good training block and performed well in the build-up, that doesn’t guarantee success in a race like UTMB and especially against such an incredibly stacked field.
“Yes you’ve got goals and dreams you’d like to achieve, but just because you’ve been good in training it doesn’t matter. It’s not like an 800m runner when you know what you’re capable of and that you’ve done it 15 times in a season.”
Evans hadn’t run 100 miles since Western States in June 2019 and then in March 2021 his entire season was derailed at the British Olympic marathon trials.
At 22 miles he collapsed and spent the next 36 hours in hospital. A year ago, Evans decided to have IT-band lengthening surgery on a stress fracture to his femoral head and had cartilage removed, meaning he ended up on crutches for six weeks.
For someone who came third in the 251km…
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