When Nina Engelhard, clad in her Workforce Germany singlet, arm heaters, and shorts, crested the ultimate rise of the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race within the lead and crossed the end line 26 seconds forward of second-place Susanna Saapunki of Finland, there have been admittedly just a few whispers amongst the gathered crowd, together with myself, asking, “Who’s that?” The race was a part of the four-day 2025 World Mountain and Path Working Championships, held in Canfranc, Spain, in late September, and gathered the world’s finest mountain runners and path runners.
Simply three days later, when Engelhard ran to a commanding victory on the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Up and Down race — with a small, barely perceptible smile on her face for a lot of it — she had already made the transition from a relative unknown within the worldwide off-road operating world to an immediately recognizable face.
9 Engelhard solely meters away from profitable the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Then, a lot to the chagrin of members of the media and people curious to be taught extra about her, Engelhard, who has no social media presence and retains her digital footprint to a minimal, turned her telephone off for every week and went on trip to the Atlantic coast of Europe along with her household.
Per week after turning into a double mountain operating world champion, she returned to her full-time job as an environmental engineer and freely admits throughout our dialog, now a full month after the occasion, “I’m wanting ahead to when all of the issues are over and I can return to my each day life and routines.”
The 28-year-old from Kassel, Germany, who solely actually began path racing in 2023, doesn’t practice with a coach, incessantly doesn’t race with a watch, and solely runs 50 to 70 kilometers every week — supplementing her each day train with swimming, rowing, and biking. She says, “I can’t say what a common week seems like as a result of it’s actually determined each day.”
Opposite to most runners at her stage, she has no intention of leaving her common profession to pursue knowledgeable operating way of life. In a world the place social media presence is extremely valued and high runners proceed to chase their subsequent sponsorship deal whereas constructing their public persona, Engelhard is an enigma along with her quiet confidence and dedication to doing issues her manner.
One will get the sense that when the media consideration from the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships dies down, Engelhard will quietly resume her on a regular basis life, solely to return to the general public eye when it’s time to pin a race bib on once more.
Successful the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race, and turning into recognized to the larger off-road operating world. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Discovering Goal in Working
Engelhard grew up and lives in a small village outdoors Kassel, Germany. In the course of the nation, it’s not surrounded by the mountainscape that the majority mountain runners select as their coaching terrain. Nonetheless, Engelhard’s household was lively — her dad a climber and paraglider, and her mother a “interest runner,” as Engelhard calls her — they usually spent all their summer season holidays within the Alps. By age 11, Engelhard was becoming a member of her mother on common runs and getting sooner. Earlier than lengthy, she was recruited to hitch the native operating membership.
The 13-year-old Engelhard educated alongside runners of their twenties and older, however she thrived within the group surroundings. She says, “It was a very nice group, and as much as at present, a lot of them are good associates, although some left the membership.” The membership gave her operating some construction, and members would meet thrice every week to coach collectively. Earlier than becoming a member of, she stated, “I didn’t know what coaching for a objective was as a result of we have been doing all issues only for enjoyable — being outdoors, being in movement.” Whereas Engelhard participated in lots of sports activities, together with swimming, ping-pong, trampoline, and judo, she says, “In operating, I discovered my absolute favourite interest. I appeared to search out my objective,” and she or he participated in quite a lot of basic observe and highway operating occasions throughout her teenage years.
Driving bikes is simply one of many many cross-training actions Engelhard turns to. Photograph courtesy of Nina Engelhard.
After ending faculty, Engelhard took a spot 12 months earlier than heading off to college, however not of the normal sort. She says, “Different associates of mine did an au pair 12 months abroad or one thing like this, and I used to be, ‘No, that’s too fundamental.’” As an alternative, she joined the German Military for a 12 months, not for a profession, however as a result of she wished to introduce extra self-discipline and be taught a special way of life. She says she emerged from the expertise with elevated self-confidence and belief in herself.
Discovering Trails
All through the following years at college — the place she earned a bachelor’s in forensic science and a grasp’s in ecotoxicology — she reduce on her racing whereas nonetheless staying lively. It was within the couple of free months between ending her research in 2023 and beginning work that Engelhard discovered path operating.
She signed up for the 2023 Gamperney Berglauf race in Switzerland, an 8.8-kilometer route with 1,000 meters of elevation acquire. She gained the sub-one-hour race by greater than two minutes. “It was overwhelming and really thrilling for me,” she says with a smile. “I had a lot enjoyable. It was fairly totally different from all of the previous races on the road or on the observe, and I used to be like, ‘Okay, I’ve to strive extra of these.’”
Engelhard’s first path race, the 2023 Gamperney Berglauf in Switzerland. She gained and says she beloved the expertise. Photograph courtesy of Nina Engelhard.
Lower than 4 months later, she raced the 2023 Großglockner Mountain Run, an iconic mountain race in Austria, inserting second behind Kenyan mountain operating phenom Philaries Kisang by lower than a minute, forward of lots of the high mountain runners. It was additionally a race she’d return to in 2024 to win — this time forward of Kisang.
The German Athletics Federation instantly noticed her expertise and inspired her to attempt to qualify for Workforce Germany for the 2024 European Athletics Off-Street Working Championships Uphill and Up and Down mountain races. She gained the qualifying race and was on her option to characterize her nation, and says, “I had by no means dreamt of competing on a global stage as a result of sports activities for me have been at all times simply enjoyable.”
Going into the 2024 European Athletics Off-Street Working Championships as a relative unknown, Engelhard put no stress on herself and centered on having fun with the racing. Simply getting to start out was an honor sufficient. She gained the uphill race by 95 seconds, and as she places it, “It was an actual shock.” Two days later, she gained the Up and Down race, turning into a double European mountain operating champion, only a 12 months after her first foray into off-road operating.
After the weekend and with little fanfare, she returned to her job with Germany’s Autobahn, the place she assesses and mitigates the environmental impacts of latest roads.
A Completely different Strategy
Most of the racers Engelhard competed towards on the European Athletics Off-Street Working Championships have been skilled runners, making their residing from sponsorship and racing. Nobody would have been stunned to see Engelhard pursue one thing comparable. However she didn’t, and for very calculated and private causes.
She says, “I earn my cash working as a result of I don’t wish to be instructed which races I’ve to compete in.” She explains that she doesn’t need the stress to hitch social media, which appears to return hand in hand with sponsorship within the fashionable period. “I by no means obtained sucked into [social media] within the first place, after which I’ve by no means seen the purpose in being there and evaluating myself to others.” She additionally sees no motive for publicly sharing what she’s doing, saying, “I’m doing all of it for myself. I’m not that all in favour of what different folks do for each day coaching.”
Engelhard on her option to profitable the 2023 Hochfelln-Berglauf race in Germany. Photograph courtesy of Nina Engelhard.
Englehard is keen to acknowledge that there are potential advantages to residing a way of life of a completely skilled runner. She says, “I’ve six weeks of trip from work within the 12 months, and I’ve to distribute it cleverly if I wish to compete in lots of races. I’ve no actual trip as a result of the six weeks are principally spent on going to races.” However for Engelhard, the trade-offs of giving up her independence in alternate for being paid to run don’t appear price it.
Trusting Instinct
Engelhard’s coaching is way from conventional. She solely runs 50 to 70 kilometers every week, filling in the remainder of her train wants with cross-training actions like biking, rowing, and swimming. She doesn’t work with a coach, saying, “For me, an important factor is that I’ve enjoyable each day.” She’s additionally life like about most coaches, saying, “No operating coach would say 50 kilometers of operating every week is sufficient for competing internationally. So I’m staying with my manner of doing it.”
When requested what she thought would occur if she got a strict schedule, it’s clear that she is aware of herself nicely. “I simply wouldn’t observe the coaching, plan, or schedule so strictly. I simply comprehend it.”
That’s to not say that Engelhard trains in a very free-form method. She is an engineer in any case. She merely realizes that her life includes extra than simply coaching and racing; balancing all of the totally different elements permits her to thrive. She says, “I can’t practice on a hard and fast schedule as a result of I by no means know the way I’ll really feel after a protracted day of labor, so if there have been a hard and fast arduous interval coaching, I’d be like, ‘No, I can’t do something.” As an alternative, she does arduous operating exercises when she will be able to and does different sports activities on her straightforward days.
Engelhard descending within the lead throughout the first lap of the two-lap 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Up and Down race. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Engelhard believes that mountain operating requires far much less construction than highway and observe operating, which she did earlier in her life. “Within the mountains, no race is comparable to a different race. Occasions, paces, and coronary heart charges don’t depend that a lot. And that’s what I really like concerning the sport.”
Nonetheless, there’s a sure scientific strategy that Engelhard appears to take to the assorted elements of coaching, saying, “I’m all in favour of dietary issues and so forth, however I’m doing it for myself and testing it for myself and simply seeing what works finest for me.” She’s adopted the strategy lengthy sufficient to say, “I get a sense very quick what works for me or what doesn’t.” Whereas it might be straightforward to categorize Engelhard’s watch-free and coach-free coaching as fancy-free or whimsical, on nearer inspection, evidently it’s the right mix of science and instinct for somebody who values course of and information and nonetheless places the enjoyment of operating as her high precedence.
2025 World Mountain Working Championships and Past
After every week of rain and chilly climate in Canfranc, Spain, the morning of the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race — the primary occasion of the 2025 World Mountain and Path Working Championships — dawned clear and crisp. From 44 totally different international locations, 107 racers lined as much as race 990 vertical meters (3,248 ft) over 6.4 kilometers (4 miles).
Like she did on the 2024 European Athletics Off-Street Working Championships Uphill race, Engelhard wasted no time attending to the entrance of the sector. This got here as a shock to many followers, as she ascended the course forward of a literal who’s who of girls’s mountain operating. Maybe her efficiency ought to have been much less of a shock, provided that Engelhard had already earned double victory eventually 12 months’s European mountain operating championships. That stated, along with eschewing a public persona, she was but to compete in any of the highest international mountain operating and brief distance path operating sequence — just like the Mountain Working World Cup and the Golden Path World Sequence — the place most short-distance off-road runners at present reduce their tooth within the sport.
Engelhard says she by no means felt nice within the race, having to dig deep to remain forward of the chasing ladies. She explains, “I needed to push myself on my limits, past my limits.” The look on her face within the race’s ultimate meters was pure agony and struggling, however she broke the tape to win her first mountain operating world championships title. “I simply felt actually dangerous,” she says, and the following days ready for the Up and Down race have been powerful.
“I didn’t know if I may push myself so arduous once more,” she says, describing the psychological wrestle of the anticipation. However Sunday, the ultimate day of the competitors, noticed a very totally different Engelhard toe the road on the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Up and Down race. “Even whereas warming up, I felt nice and simply wished to benefit from the final occasion.” She took off from the gun, gaining the lead on the primary climb and increasing it because the race went on. On the second climb, one may nearly make out a smile on her face as she handed cheering followers.
With loads of daylight behind her whereas main the race, Engelhard ran with a smile throughout the second lap of the 2025 World Mountain Working Championships Up and Down race. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
She crossed the road to win her second mountain operating world champion title, with an enormous hole of slightly below two minutes forward of second place. She smiles when discussing the race, saying, “It was only a pleasure and a present.”
Per week later, after utilizing a few of her treasured trip days to spend time along with her household, Engelhard was again at work. Her co-workers threw her a celebration and instructed her they watched the livestream of her races when they need to have been working. After the occasion, all of them went again to their each day duties. For Engelhard, it was again to biking, swimming, cross coaching, and operating — daily a brand new alternative to do the issues she loves, on her personal phrases.
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