Caleb Olson & Sara Alonso | #3 Trail Runner of the Year
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
4.8 • 866 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 43 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 #3 Trail Runners of the Year, Caleb Olson of the USA and Sara Alonso of Spain.
Caleb established himself as one of the best long course athletes in the world, starting his season with a huge win and CR at Transgrancanaria before focusing his attention on the Western States 100 where he won in the second fastest time ever. To close the year, Caleb posted a dominant victory at Australia's GPT100 -- also winning the World Trail Majors overall.
Sara Alonso was arguably the strongest short course athlete on the women's side in 2025, finishing 2nd in the Golden Trail World Series with strong wins at Kobe Trail and Zegama. She also finished 4th at OCC and 2nd place at the Short Trail World Championship.
Sponsors:
- 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
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 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 year. |
| 0:22.6 | And this year, we have companion podcasts with everyone in the top five. |
| 0:27.4 | So five straight days of podcasting to celebrate the 2025 season and recognize the athletes |
| 0:33.6 | that the global trail community deemed to be the best performers. |
| 0:38.3 | Hey fam, today we're continuing our countdown with the number three trail runners of the year. |
| 0:43.3 | Caleb Olson from the USA and Sarah Alonzo from Spain. |
| 0:47.3 | We will start with Caleb, who established himself as one of the great long-course athletes in the world, |
| 0:53.3 | starting his season with a huge win |
| 0:56.0 | and course record at Trans-Gran Canaria before focusing his attention, of course, on the Western States 100, |
| 1:02.0 | where he won in the second fastest time in race history, one of the great single-day performances of 2025. |
| 1:10.0 | And then to close the year, Caleb posted another dominant victory |
| 1:13.7 | at Australia's GPT-100, where he also became the World Trail Majors champion for the season |
| 1:21.1 | on the men's side. Sarah Alonzo was arguably the strongest short-course athlete in the world |
| 1:27.0 | on the women's side in 2025, |
| 1:29.3 | finishing second overall in the Golden Trail World Series with strong victories at Kobe Trail in Japan and Zagama in her home country of Spain. |
| 1:39.3 | She also finished fourth at OCC and second at the Short Trail World Championships, a stalwart season for the Spaniard. |
| 1:47.5 | Both are great talents, both great competitors, Caleb and Sarah's first time being featured in our countdown. |
| 1:54.3 | And it was great to chat with them each about their seasons and their goals for 2026. |
| 1:59.6 | Before we get to it, thanks to all conditions |
| 2:01.2 | skier for helping a spring trail runner the year to life in 2025. You'll hear more from them during |
| 2:06.6 | this show, but we super, buddy. How you doing? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dylan Bowman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dylan Bowman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.