Allie Ostrander
Mountains overlooking the Mediterranean Sea weren’t the only thing Alaska’s Allie Ostrander hustled up this week.
She also climbed the Golden Trails World Series standings after two strong performances on the Il Golfo dell Isola Trail in the Final of the races that draw many of the best mountain and trail runners in the world.
Ostrander, 26, who grew up in Soldotna and into a legend at Kenai Central High, entered the Final ranked 28th despite having competed in just two of the six races that preceded the Final.
Ostrander, who is sponsored by outdoor manufacturer Nnormal, finished seventh in Thursday’s Prologue, an 8.7-kilometer (5.4-mile) race that featured more than 400 meters of vertical gain. Her time of 43 minutes, 18.26 seconds boosted her to 22nd in the overall World Series standings.
Saturday, Ostrander seized 19th in the long race at the Final, covering 26 kilometers (16.2 miles) that included more than 1,400 meters of elevation gain in 2:40:38.32. That lifted her to 20th overall in the final World Series standings – the top 20 receive free entry to all World Series races in 2024.
Ostrander qualified for the Final by virtue of a 20th-place finish at the Pikes Peak Ascent in Colorado in mid-September and her ninth-place finish at the Mammoth Lakes 26K in California just a week later.
She first made her mark in mountain running before she was even a teenager. Beginning in 2009, when she was 12, Ostrander won six consecutive junior girls titles at Mount Marathon, the annual Fourth of July race in Seward. At 17, in 2014, she beat all the boys too and set a junior girls record that still stands. She later won a junior mountain running world championship and the senior women’s race at Mount Marathon. Ostrander, who won three state cross country-running championships, still holds the state high school track records in the 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters.
Ostander at Boise State won the NCAA Division I steeplechase title three times and competed in that event for Team USA at the 2019 World Championships. She was also a runner-up at the NCAA Division I cross country championships in 2015. In all, she was a 10-time NCAA track All-American and a three-time NCAA cross country All-American.
Since, she has battled through injuries and treatment for an eating disorder to return to competition. Ostrander, who has also dabbled in road racing, has said she intends to race a diverse schedule for Nnormal, which was co-founded by former Mount Marathon men’s record-holder Kilian Jornet, who is widely considered the greatest mountain and trail runner in history.
You can usually catch up on Ostrander’s career on her YouTube Channel, where she posts frequently.