On November 9, 2024, American ultrarunner Courtney Olsen entered the history books by setting a new women’s 50-mile world record of 5:31:56 at the Tunnel Hill 50 Mile in Vienna, Illinois, breaking the record set by the legendary Ann Trason in 1991.
We caught up with her a few days later to see how she’s recovering, hear about her run, and the training and sequence of events that led up to it.
Courtney Olsen crossing the line to set a new women’s 50-mile world record at the 2024 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile. All photos: Micki Colson, Colson Photography
iRunFar: It’s a few days after your world record run at the 2024 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile. Congratulations! How do you feel now, both physically and mentally?
Courtney Olsen: I’m nervous to say that I feel good, but it’s not without awareness that a junky fatigue could set in any time this month. I tend to recover pretty quickly after a race, and especially this year — a testament to the super-shoe foam, eating well, and being properly prepared for the effort, perhaps. Mentally is always a challenge. I got pretty low post-Comrades [Marathon]. Yet, so far, these past few days — likely because I’m so busy — I haven’t waded in the post-race blues.
It helps that I got thrown right back into work, that my husband and I are prepping for Vegas this weekend to celebrate his birthday, and that I’m finalizing logistics toward the IAU 100k World Championships next month. Distraction is key. I’m apprehensively excited that I feel this way, because I want to show up at the IAU 100k World Championships next month as recovered and capable as possible in order to help out my team.
iRunFar: Did you have your sights on the world record going into this event? If so, when did you set your sights on this goal, and why was Tunnel Hill the race of choice?
Olsen: I’ve had my eye on the American records for the 50k, 50 mile, and 100k for a few years. In prioritizing the marathon and the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon qualifying times since my late 20s, it was hard to fit in ultras where I could pursue the records for the 50k to 100k, and, there’s limited opportunities to race them. When Des Linden ran the [mixed gender] 50k world record, I let that dream die. I’ve spent a lot of time visualizing Ann Trason’s 7:00:48 American record in the 100k, and her 5:40:18 world record in the 50 mile.
But again, the opportunities to run on savvy courses, at a preferable time of year, for these distances are rare. I’d had the 50-mile world record specifically in mind since I did the 2021 IAU 6-Hour Solidarity Run for the U.S. and ran 53 miles around Lake Samish in Bellingham, Washington. That effort made me feel like it was possible. It’s taken the three years since to organize it as a real possibility. After Comrades this past June, it furthered my self-belief, and there’s nothing more sick than momentum. I thought about trying at JFK 50 Mile, but ultimately chose Tunnel Hill for its extra recovery between my two races. It also helped that the race director, Steve Durbin, was immediately and consistently communicative, helpful, and overwhelmingly kind. I felt a pull toward Tunnel Hill.
Courtney Olsen with Tunnel Hill 50 Mile race director, Steve Durbin.
iRunFar: I’d like to hear about your training. You are a fast marathon runner, with a P.B. of 2:36. Was your training for this 50 miler much different to marathon training? What did your build-up look like?
Olsen: It feels as if 2:36 isn’t fast anymore. I had dreams of being a 2:30 marathoner, and I haven’t let it go completely, but I also don’t want to waste these precious years trying to force fit a result just because I like the number. For the last four years I’ve been coached by Jay Sloane, here in Bellingham. I would consider the training simple, nothing wild.
I’ve spent the last few years trying to get strong enough to handle consistent higher volume weeks, which was not working well in the beginning because of recurring debilitating plantar fasciitis and long haul COVID-19 symptoms. It’s only this year that I’ve broken through in health and resiliency to be able to handle the training that I think serves me best, which is higher volume. My training for this 50 miler was largely marathon-esque, i.e. track work, hill strides, traditional workouts like 6 x 1 mile, 10 x 1k, 3 x 3 miles, and tempos around race pace or faster within long runs.
The longest long run I got in was racing my local Bellingham Bay Marathon in late September, at a sustained effort, with a warm-up and cool-down to equate 50k for the day. The rest of my long runs were only 20 to 25 miles. I was a little anxious about this, but it worked out. I kept pretty under the radar, which is especially easy to do when no one knows or cares about you, haha. I wasn’t professing my goal or how training was going outright, because it was going well, and I was afraid to jinx it.
I went from feeling pretty flat after Comrades, as if it was taking forever to find my flow, to having one of, if not the best, builds of my life leading to Tunnel Hill.
iRunFar: I saw you picked up an injury late last year, running the IAU 50k World Championships. What was that and were you out for long recovering?
Olsen: I’m still shellshocked from that; angsty with a side of PTSD. At the IAU 50k World Championships one year ago, in Hyderabad, India, I was playing it safe pacing, because I had the goal to go for the Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier at California International Marathon a month later. The first half felt within my means, and then I noticed the gap between myself and the lead pack was starting to shrink. It emboldened me to re-sync. That was at halfway. Then I stepped on a most-bulbous speedbump and felt a sudden, shocking pain in my calf.
The U.S. team leads/medical thought it was a knot and tried to massage it out. I took like 10 salt tabs and bloated wildly. I found a pace I could kind of do in fits and starts. It was an incredibly painful 15 miles. I’m sure I furthered the damage by continuing, but I was idiotically operating under the notion that I was nursing a knot/cramp. Somehow, I ended up scoring for the team, as third U.S. woman. There was bruising after, and the pain did not subside normally, so, once home I got an MRI. The result was a grade two tear of both my soleus and gastroc. They were perplexed by the gastroc, seeing as I was far from being explosive, haha.
This injury cemented the end to my Olympic Trials Marathon dream, and took me out for a few months. It took a toll on my mental health, battling feelings of worth and identity, as is common. Yet, all of these wonderful training months and results happened within a year of that, so I can’t be too upset — just needed a timeout, I guess.
iRunFar: You ran close to a 10k personal best earlier this year too, at 34:46. How did that fit into your training or plan for the year?
Olsen: My 10k PB is 34:40, but that time at the Vancouver Sun Run 10k this year was my best showing there, by way of time/place. I followed that up with my best time/place at the Bloomsday Run, and the two together leading into Comrades left me thinking — I’m either training to ace these short distances, or these are good signs for Comrades. I want training and racing to be fun, and I sign up for things that interest me only. The Vancouver Sun Run and Bloomsday are beloved and historied events near to me; I felt like adding them in kept my speed alive, helped me practice with competition, but also didn’t break my bank by cost or travel time.
iRunFar: You went on to take third at the 2024 Comrades Marathon. Can you tell me a bit about how that went, from your perspective?
Olsen: Comrades was unreal. I didn’t want my first Comrades to be on the uphill route, but that’s how the timing landed. Because I hadn’t made the Olympic Trials this year, I had June free, and because I wasn’t excited to run the uphill version, I thought I would use it as a learning opportunity only, so that I could soak in as much of its nuance as possible and apply it the following year, to the version I was excited about — the downhill course.
I think that this attitude, this flippancy, like, Surely this won’t go well, let’s take the pressure off, be curious, playful, eyes wide open … was what helped me have that kind of a day.
During the race, I locked into a pace that felt sustainable. I loved those first few hours of black morning, the sun rising against a climb. I never knew where I was in the field of women until the last 10k. I’d get told I was a multitude of different places, and as the race went on, I kept visualizing and hoping for a top 10.
Near the top of the final climb on Polly [Shortts hill], I saw a blonde bobbing ponytail and panicked. It was my beloved Carla Molinaro, and another, and in passing them on the tip of that hill I came into third. Suddenly I had cyclists and a film crew, and I kept thinking, Don’t step in a crack and fall, and, Do I want this? When I crossed the finish line, I had to inhabit a person who talks to other people well, answers questions, be likeable enough, you know? Haha. Carla crossed shortly thereafter, dropping to the ground. Tears and fatigue abounded. We popped Gerda [Steyn, the women’s champion and new course record holder]’s gargantuan champagne bottle and passed it around.
There’s so much more to this I’d like to talk about, but one of the most important aspects were the people. I’d heard unbelievably positive things about the people of South Africa, and I can confirm they are a wonder that left me with more faith in humanity than I’ve felt in long time.
iRunFar: It definitely sounds like so many more wonderful stories, thanks for sharing. And then back to Tunnel Hill, did you have a strategy going in, in terms of pacing and nutrition? Did you manage to stick to it?
Olsen: I planned to stay within a pace range of 6:30 to 6:45 minutes per mile, whatever felt right without overreaching. Going in I knew that there was another woman, Andrea Pomaranski, going for the record as well. She’s an incredible runner, was on the IAU 50k team with me last year, and took second there. This added quite a bit of anxiety for me … It would have been easier to go in focusing on myself alone, but I had to think of her. In the end I knew there was nothing more I could have done, and I tried to get into a place of peace with however it would play out. I knew there was a 10-mile stretch on the second half that had about a 2% grade that could slow me down, so I maintained an effort that felt within myself, with the ever-present knowledge that it would get harder, especially there, and that I might slow.
Nutrition-wise, I set myself up for a maximum of 1,945 calories (478 grams carbs) across 5.5 hours, which broke down into 353 calories per hour and 86.9 grams of carbs per hour. This did not include pre-race, or on-course aid. My bottles allotted for 80 ounces of liquid.
Somehow, I was able to take in about 95% of this. I interchanged between SiS Neutral flavor gels and Maurten Gel 160s, with little bags of gummy bears and a few bottles of Tailwind Dauwaltermelon. I also took in two bottles of Ketone IQ. My husband, Matthew, acted as race sherpa. I usually go to races alone, but I let him come this time, and I have to say he absolutely nailed it.
Courtney Olsen on course for a women’s 50-mile world record at the 2024 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile.
iRunFar: How did the race play out from your perspective? Any major highs or lows?
Olsen: I often, if not always, find myself alone in races. Perhaps it’s the length of my stride, or the limited numbers up front, but it’s lonesome. So, I was thrilled to have Andrea for the first two miles before she shot off like a demon and gained minutes on me quickly. Thereafter, I shared 18 miles with the two lead 100-mile men. The time with them was full of get-to-know-yous, heckling, and laughter. We played at a pee fartlek, where each would pull off to pee and then surge (slowly, smartly) to catch back up.
Then, around mile 18, without telling me, they both peeled off to do 100 miler prep things and I never got to run with them again. There followed 32 miles alone. The positive regarding their absence was that I could then pee myself instead of taking a more demure relieving.
It took me nearly 30 miles to reel Andrea back in. This was around the start of the climbing. From there on, I played with pushing and preservation. I felt strong enough to cut it down, but my calf (perhaps a subtle haunt from its Indian demise) seized for a step, and I had to make the decision to stay more reserved than I’d have liked to. I took in some salt tabs, extra water, maintained nutrition, but knew that if I picked it up like I wanted to, I might lose the ultimate goal.
I ran with this fear and concentrated preservation for 10 miles. At mile 49 on the dot, my toe exploded, causing me to land awkwardly in the footfall. It’s maddening how dramatic a toe can be.
One of the best things about Tunnel Hill is that because of its [double-out-and-back]r nature, you get to interact with everyone in the race when you flip. Every single person said words of affirmation to one another in passing. In long stretches the cheers were endless, and though it was lonesome to run that effort mostly alone, I was not alone out there. I felt very loved and supported, and I hope I offered the same feeling to some or all.
In that last long mile, the end in sight so far down, racers yelled, “You’re going to do it!” They’d stop and watch. Take their cameras out of their packs to film me finish my race in the middle of theirs. It made me laugh. The support of it all!
In the end, all I suffered was a slight haunting of the calf, a toe explosion, and peeing myself. I’d say that’s a damn near perfect execution.
iRunFar: What was it like finishing? Did you know straight away that you’d set a world record, and if so, how did you feel?
Olsen: I had been under record pace nearly every mile of the race, but had Andrea ahead of me for 30 miles. For those 30 miles, I was coming to terms with what second place would feel like, that even if I was under the record, I might not be under it enough.
It wasn’t until passing her and gaining ground that I felt like I could relax into the tangibility of the record. Those last 20 miles were a dance of numbing out and tuning in. It’s such a long time to be out there, in your head, especially as a depressive, but I had this one delicious thought circling – What would it feel like to cross that finish line having achieved a world record after I’d just lost my contract? It was good old blue collar, full-time working, little fanfare, needing no one or nothing angst. And it’s confusing, but it’s a good story.
iRunFar: Wow, that is a good story. Once you have had a chance to recover, what’s next?
Olsen: I’ve dabbled in active recovery faster than I would normally, because I’ve got the IAU 100k World Championships on December 7, in Bangalore, India. I’d like a pair of Team Golds there. After that, it’s Comrades downhill, babyyy.
iRunFar: Thanks so much, congratulations, and good luck in India!
