Ekaterina Mityaeva is racing the 2025 Transvulcania Ultramarathon. It’s her fifth time at the race, where she took fourth last year. In this interview she talks about what brings her back to this race again and again, her training, and her how her coaching work and lifestyle fits in with training and racing.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth women’s and men’s previews and follow our coverage here on the website and on Twitter/X over the weekend.
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Ekaterina Mityaeva Pre-2025 Transvulcania Ultramarathon Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Kate Mityaeva. It’s a couple of days before the 2025 Transvulcania Ultramarathon. Hi, welcome. You just arrived last night. How are you?
Ekaterina Mityaeva: Hi. Thank you. Yes, I arrived just only last night and feeling good, because yesterday I had trained and feeling better. And I hope I have time for recovery, and before the race, my shape will be better.
iRunFar: The island of La Palma, where we are, is a familiar place for you. You’ve been here several times. You were here at the race last year. You’re the returning fourth-place women’s finisher. How does it feel to come back to a place you know quite well?
Mityaeva: Yes, I really like this place, because La Palma is a wonderful place, and the race was so beautiful because the track goes in very, very beautiful places where we get and see beautiful sunrise, yes. And I think, for me, it’s very great when I’m back in this place because I really like this race, and this race is at the beginning of my season. And I am very happy to come back here and run again and again because, for me, it’s so interesting because I can see my time, my shape stay more better or not, for example. [laughs] Yes, and I really like to meet with all guys because it’s big celebration for all of us.
iRunFar: So this is a race that you’re familiar with. I think you have four finishes of it, is that correct?
Mityaeva: Yes.
iRunFar: And each time that you have finished this race, you’ve gotten faster and faster, such that now you finish the race more than an hour faster than the first time that you ran it. Do you attribute that to becoming a better runner, with more familiarity with how unique this course is? What makes you get better and better each time you do the race?
Mityaeva: I think for me, for example, I change my training plan. [laughs] I change my nutrition, for example, because, yes, in this race, I think if we can show the rank of women, the rank all time, all years, so high.
iRunFar: Keep going up and up.
Mityaeva: Yes, yes. And of course, it’s so interesting because you can push. You can open your maybe highest point because you work so hard and your time stay, for example, my time stay more better and better. And for me, it’s a big goal to better my time, for example.
iRunFar: Each year?
Mityaeva: Yes, each year. Yeah. [laughs]
iRunFar: And because this is a very unique course, you start here at the ocean at sea level, you go all the way to almost 2,500 meters. Lots of elevation change, but a very runnable course. The preparation must be unique compared to some of the other more technical, slower moving races that you do.
Mityaeva: Yes. For example, this race is more runnable. Okay, first part maybe not so runnable because we ran with sand, and the sand in this part, you need more power.
iRunFar: Yeah, more power.
Mityaeva: Yeah, power. And yes, we had a very steep uphill and very steep downhill, and with more technical parts. But for example, my preparation was good, and I had the same, a little bit, parts during the training. I did more training with faster downhill and so good uphill because my focus was short intervals and long intervals. But long intervals was maybe before 10 minutes. And downhill, I had training for speed downhill with technical parts. And I feel better because sometimes you feel during the training, sometimes you have some problems, and you cannot run faster, for example, technical downhill. But my training was good. And I hope I can show a good result in this race. And I hope my muscles recover well. And we’ll see.
iRunFar: I’d love to ask just a little bit about your lifestyle. You and your husband, Dmitry [Mityaev], you are both professional runners for about 10 years now. In addition to that, I think you coach training camps for runners. And maybe your lifestyle is to move from location to location, stay in a place for a couple of weeks, go to coach a training camp, move to another location. It’s a very, what’s the right way to say it? It’s like this robust, very flexible lifestyle. You’re always on the move. How do you work in staying professional and keeping your training as rigorous as it is when you’re moving all the time around?
Mityaeva: Yes, it’s not easy, of course. But if we have this lifestyle, of course, for us, it’s not a big stress. Because we, all the time, change places for training, for our training camp, for our Project Trail Running School. And we train a lot of people. And sometimes, for example, we have our plan for this season. And we choose in which months we can have, for example, a training camp. And of course, between the races, we can do a training camp. And for us, it’s okay, because in this time, we didn’t have any intensive training. This is more a block for relax.
iRunFar: Need the blocks for relaxing.
Mityaeva: Yeah. Relaxing. But you lost a lot of energy because you talk about how we can run, about technical parts, and we learn about trail running trails. And I think in this part, it’s very important to take maybe time for training, for trail running camp, for example. And it’s better if you change more often places. Because sometimes if you stay in one place, a lot of time you spend in one place, it’s so difficult because you’re mentally so tired.
iRunFar: So I think what I’m hearing is you like to move around. It just makes life exciting and makes your training exciting.
Mityaeva: Yeah. [laughs]
iRunFar: My last question for you. You have seen the island of La Palma in many different ways. You’ve run the course several times. What’s the thing that you’re looking forward to the most for the race on Saturday? Besides the finish line. [laughs]
Mityaeva: [laughs] Yeah, but I think for me, for example, more beautiful and I really love the part downhill.
iRunFar: Like the really long downhill from Roque de Los Muchachos all the way to the sea?
Mityaeva: To the sea, yes. From this part, it’s a vertical kilometer.
iRunFar: Yeah, but it’s almost a double vertical, more than a double, I think from Roque.
Mityaeva: Yeah. And I really love this place because I think all the time I feel so good. My feeling was good and my muscle work good. And I really love this part because it’s more runnable, it’s more technical. And if you can focus on these trails, it’s perfect. And all time, I think I had a good time for these parts. Yes, and I really enjoyed this.
iRunFar: I love it. We’ll be watching for you on the downhill then.
Mityaeva: Yeah, thank you so much.
iRunFar: Best of luck to you on Saturday.
Mityaeva: Thank you so much. Thank you.
