Ruth Croft & Francesco Puppi | #2 Trail Runner of the Year
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
4.8 • 866 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we welcome the #2 Trail Runners of the Year, Ruth Croft of New Zealand and Francesco Puppi of Italy.
We start with Ruth who is unquestionably one of the best to ever do it. This season, she started with a huge victory at Tarawera, another at the MaXi Race 60k, all building towards UTMB where she won in what felt like a flawlessly executed performance. In doing so, Ruth became only the second person to win all three of the UTMB world final events, showing her career-long consistency and range across distances.
Francesco Puppi posted the best season of his career. Nine races with six victories including impressive wins at both the Canyons 100k in April and CCC in August — the two best 100k performances of the year in the only to 100k races of his career.
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.
- 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 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 | Today, we're continuing our countdown of the number two trail runners of the year, Ruth Croft from New Zealand and Francesco Puppy from Italy. |
| 0:46.3 | We'll start with Ruth, who is unquestionably one of the best to ever do it. |
| 0:50.3 | One of only three athletes to be featured in Trail Runner of the year, all four years |
| 0:55.0 | that we've done it. And this year might have been her best season yet, a huge victory at Tara |
| 1:00.5 | Auerra, another at the Maxi Race 60K, all building towards UTMB, where she won in what felt |
| 1:07.7 | like a flawlessly executed performance in doing so, |
| 1:11.7 | she also became the second person ever to win all three of the UTMB world final events, |
| 1:18.2 | OCCCCCC and UTMB showing her career-long consistency and range across distances. |
| 1:26.2 | Francesco Poopi posted the best season of his career, moving up in distance and becoming |
| 1:31.0 | arguably the best mid-distance athlete on the planet. |
| 1:34.8 | Nine races with six victories, including stupefying wins at both the Canyons 100K in April |
| 1:42.1 | and CCC in August. |
| 1:44.6 | The two best 100K performances of the year in my mind in the only 200K races of his career. |
| 1:52.2 | I know we're all looking forward to seeing Poopie on the start line of Western States next summer. |
| 1:57.1 | You'll hear Ruth first, then Francesco after. |
| 1:59.9 | But before we get to it, thanks to All |
| 2:01.2 | Conditions Gear for helping us bring Trail Runner of the Year to life. You'll hear more from |
... |
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