Competing on a shorter course due to high winds, Christian Allen came away the champion of the 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent, in doing so qualifying to be a part of Team USA at the 2025 World Mountain Running Championships this fall. In this interview, our first with Christian, he talks about his history with various running disciplines, how he maintained a good attitude about the last-minute changes to the course, how he’s able to perform at a high level both on trail and on the road, his participation in this weekend’s 23k, and his upcoming season of mountain and trail running.
To see more about how the race unfolded, be sure to check out our 2025 Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent results article. Ahead of Sunday’s 23k, read our in-depth 23k preview and follow our coverage on race day.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Christian Allen, 2025 Broken Arrow Ascent Champion, Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Christian Allen. It’s the day of the Broken Arrow Ascent, where you were the Champion, and it’s a couple of days before the Broken Arrow Skyrace 23k, where you are also racing. First of all, congratulations on your win today.
Christian Allen: Thank you. I appreciate it.
iRunFar: There was a lot of wind up there on the ridge, but you seemed to just, I don’t know, strike right through it and have no problem with it. How was it out there today?
Allen: It was great. Yeah, honestly the conditions were pretty nice. Last year was like, pretty warm, so this year to have a little cooler weather, granted it was a little windy, but I didn’t feel like it was too bad until towards the end. So, the weather was great. I loved it.
iRunFar: The folks I have been talking to, they’ve said that like, the first part of the ascent up the valley here, it was fine. It was kind of like Eh, why is there like a shortened course? And then you hit the ridgeline and it was a little like [mimics wind noise.]
Allen: Yeah. Honestly I just tried to have a great attitude coming into it. Like, I got the news, you know, like everyone else just right before, a day before or something, and I’ve ran like two or three pretty big championship races actually over the last year and half where they’ve had to shorten or abbreviate the course either due to like, rain, weather, or fire conditions, and both the races went great. I just made the most of it. So, I think just having a good attitude about it and regardless of the distance going out there and having fun was like, my main goal and, so yeah. I just tried to have a good outlook on it.
iRunFar: Take what comes on the day.
Allen: Yeah, exactly. I’ve had so many races in my career where it’s like, you can fret over it and you know, put all your energy into focusing on the weather or the terrain or the course, but at the end of the day you can only control the controllables, so I just try to make the most of it.
iRunFar: I love that. This is our first interview with you. When I think of you as a runner, I think of you as sort of a dual sport athlete. Road running/trail running, or maybe road running/mountain running.
Allen: Mm hmm.
iRunFar: Tell us a little bit about your background with running.
Allen: Yeah, I come from a collegiate background, so I feel like in the U.S. it’s a little, there’s not a clear path to getting into this mountain running road running scene, but I was very fortunate to grow up in more of a mountainous country with the Wasatch in my backyard. And my wife and her family are really close to the trails, and I went to Weaver State, which was really close to trails. And eventually just over the summers building the base for cross country season I found a love for going in the trails and pushing it, and just taking in these beautiful views. So that’s kind of where my passion for trail running came about.
And then I think it’s just very important to implement that road running alongside the trails. I think they go hand in hand, and I think in order to be at the top of your game, you have to be able to implement that speed. Like, for today’s event we had the super steep climb, and then it levels out, and it really comes over to that leg turnover. So, I think in order to maintain that leg turnover for some of these races after you hit a punchy climb and you either have to bomb downhill or it flattens out, it’s really important to maintain that speed.
iRunFar: But there’s having competency in multiple disciples but there’s also being really high performing in multiple disciplines. I think you ran a 2:10 marathon just a couple months ago, and then you’re turning it around with qualifying for Team USA at the World Mountain Running Championships today. To me that’s high performing at very two different disciples.
Allen: Thank you. I appreciate it. I feel like I’m in a very fortunate realm and sphere of training out in Utah. Like I have Olympians to train with, Clayton Young and Conner Mantz, and other studs, medal holders, and Kenneth Rooks. You know, there’s all kinds of pros coming out of the BYU pipeline and just in that local area. Amazing females as well. There’s a great group that Ed Eyestone’s coaching out there, and so I’m very fortunate to be able to hop in with workouts and try to hang on to their coattails. These guys are ahead of me still at this point in my career when it comes to the roads, but I hope to eventually make those steps and try to get down in the 2:07, 2:08 realm. But I try to take things like, a year at a time and a season at a time, and build on fitness from previous years, and I think the roads and the trails can translate to an extent. I think you can take that fitness and that running economy and then obviously put it into like, some uphill training, and then you’ve got to train the downhill legs and stuff, but it goes hand in hand.
iRunFar: Talk to me a little bit about the couple years that you’ve been spending doing some mountain running stuff. I think mountain running and I guess shorter distance trail running. I think last year you won three National Championships in the mountain and trail disciplines. Maybe it was half marathon, 10k, and then one of the Mountain Running Championships. What has your mindset been? Is it like, anything that’s out there, I’ll try it once, or are you expressing some sort of internal focus?
Allen: Yeah, I think if you maintain that speed, you can do pretty well from anywhere from a VK up to a 50k is kind of what I cap it out at. I think you could probably still do pretty well at like a 50 miler, depending on what it’s at, but where I still have some of this leg speed, I try not to go too long because eventually it kind of goes into just time on your feet, and it’s a little harder to maintain that speed. But, I mean, Joseph Gray’s an awesome example of that. You look at him and his longevity in the sport and he trains a lot with the, I’m blanking on the exact name, but a lot of those army guys that come out of that realm over there, like Sam Chelanga.
iRunFar: Who was in today’s race.
Allen: Yes, exactly. So, you get a lot of those army Nike guys out there that are super fast, that he gets to train with. And so, I think implementing that speed, you can do really great things for these Ascent races, along up to like the 50k and maybe even a little past that.
iRunFar: So that’s where you’re sort of thinking about is your focus right now is the shorter stuff, maybe creeping up to 50k once in a while.
Allen: Yeah, exactly. And even last year, I mean, we saw the amazing things that Jim Walmsley did, you know, a week out from Western States, he came out here and ran a phenomenal Ascent race in itself. And Kilian [Jornet], I think, did amazing today. Granted, no one’s mentioning it, but this guy just got off like a 24-hour flight from Norway. He got in last night.
iRunFar: Last night.
Allen: So yeah, exactly. So, I think you see some of the top talents being able to stretch themselves all the way from these short distances, even up to the 100 milers. I won’t put myself in that category.
iRunFar: Not yet.
Allen: No, not yet. But yeah, I think it’s great. It’s a versatile sport. And ultimately, you have to be able to push those climbs and run the descents regardless of the distance. And as you start to see these 100 milers get more and more competitive, where these guys are pushing 7:30 [per mile] pace, even with like, their elapsed times are 7:00 pace. You know, you have to be able to push the climbs hard and be able to recover and hit those downhills.
iRunFar: Yeah, still run hard on the downhills.
Allen: Yeah, exactly.
iRunFar: So, putting this weekend’s races in context with your year of racing, you qualified for the World’s team for the Uphill World Championships. So that’s probably going to be a focus of your season. But also Sunday’s a Golden Trail World Series race. And I think you’re going to compete in the series this year?
Allen: Yes, I had a little hiccup I was mentioning in my training just coming back from an injury. So, I was going to go run the Italy Golfo dell’Isola one, but I had to pull out of that. And then I was even going to maybe do the Mexico one, but just haven’t felt super confident about some things that evolved around that. So, I pulled out of that one. So right now, I just have three Golden Trail races. And so, I just got to knock them out of the park, you know, to qualify for the final this year. And that’s what I did last year. But hoping to kind of perform a little better going into it. So I got this one, and then I’m going to head out to Innsbruck and [Sierre-]Zinal and make those my three Golden Trail races.
iRunFar: And then September will be the World Championships, right?
Allen: Yes, that is correct.
iRunFar: And then the finals for Golden Trails is after that, I think.
Allen: Yes. I think the Golden Trail and the WMRA are usually in October, pretty close to each other. So I’ll usually try to tack both of those on, assuming I can accommodate my schedule.
iRunFar: I think, yeah, I’ve seen you pop up in some of the WMRA World Cup races around Europe here and there in the last couple of years also, right?
Allen: Yeah, I’ve been in a couple of those. They’re super phenomenal. I love WMRA. I feel like sometimes they don’t get the props they deserve. They were probably some of my first experiences over in Europe. I qualified for a U.S. team and I tacked on some WMRA races, and they’ve been super great at accommodating and supporting athletes. So, it’s fun to do those races as well when I can.
iRunFar: Congratulations on your win today at the Broken Arrow Ascent. Best of luck on Sunday at the Golden Trail World Series 23k.
Allen: Awesome. Thanks, Meghan. Appreciate it.
iRunFar: Thanks for this interview.
Allen: Thank you.
