Abby Hall & Elhousine Elazzaoui | #4 Trail Runner of the Year
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
4.8 • 866 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is part of Freetrail's annual Trail Runner of the Year Rollout -- an opportunity to reflect on the 2025 season and celebrate the athletes who performed the best according to the global trail running community. We're proud to partner with All Conditions Gear to bring the awards to life.
Today we welcome the #4 Trail Runners of the Year, Abby Hall and Elhousine Elazzaoui.
Elhousine, our reigning 2024 Trail Runner of the Year, posted another amazing season, winning the Golden Trail World Series for the second year in a row, including victories at Zegama, Broken Arrow, Tepec Trail, and Golden Trail Final.
Abby's major highlight was winning one of our sport's most significant events, the Western States 100. She also posted top-5 finishes in two Golden Ticket events, and finished the year with an overall win and CR at McDowell Mountain Frenzy.
Note: Elhousine joined us from the Sahara desert without great wifi connection. We've cleaned it up as best as we could.
- Grab a trail running pack from Osprey
- Use code FREETRAIL25 for 25% off your first order of NEVERSECOND nutrition at never2.com
- Go to ketone.com/freetrail30 for 30% off a subscription of Ketone IQ
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, fam, happy new year and welcome to the free trail podcast. Today, we're kicking off |
| 0:18.0 | 2026 as we always do with the rollout of Trail Runner of the |
| 0:22.4 | year. And this year, we have companion podcasts with everyone in the top five. So five straight |
| 0:28.2 | days of podcasting to celebrate the 2025 season and recognize the athletes that the global |
| 0:34.4 | trail community deemed to be the best performers. Today, we're joined by the number |
| 0:40.0 | four trail runners of the year, Abby Hall from the U.S. and El Hussin, Elizawi from Morocco. |
| 0:46.8 | We'll start with Abby, whose major highlight, of course, was winning one of our sports |
| 0:51.6 | most significant events in 2025, the Western States |
| 0:55.5 | 100, where she ran the fourth fastest time in the race is history. She also posted top five |
| 1:01.9 | finishes in two golden ticket races, the Black Canyon 100K and Keonti by UTMB, and then finished |
| 1:08.2 | her year with an overall win and course record at the McDowell Mountain |
| 1:12.3 | Frenzy carrying great momentum into 2026. On the men's side, El Hussine, our reigning 24 |
| 1:19.3 | trail runner of the year posted another amazing season, winning the Golden Trail World Series |
| 1:24.7 | for the second year in a row, including victories at Zagama, Broken Arrow, Tepec Trail, and the Golden Trail World Series for the second year in a row, including victories at Zagama, |
| 1:28.8 | Broken Arrow, Tepec Trail, and the Golden Trail World Final. Another amazing season for the |
| 1:35.9 | Flying Camel will play Abby's interview first, followed by El Hussine, who joined us from the |
| 1:41.9 | Sahara Desert, no joke, and without great Wi-Fi and with a language barrier. |
| 1:47.5 | So we cleaned it up as best as we could and we'll play that in the second half of the show. |
| 1:52.7 | Before we get to it, thanks to all conditions gear for helping us bring Trail Runner of the year to life in 2025. |
| 1:58.8 | You will hear more from them during the show, but we really appreciate their |
| 2:03.3 | support. Thanks so much for listening. Abby Hall, welcome back to the program. Happy New Year. How are you? Thanks, Debo. I'm doing well. I'm excited to be kicking off 2026 with this chat. |
| 2:26.5 | Yes, and we are here to, yes, look ahead to 26 and also look backwards and celebrate your incredible 2025. |
... |
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