© Migu Run Skyrunner World Series/ David Gonthier

When it comes to versatility of racing, you’d be hard to find someone who can switch it up as successfully as Russian skyrunning and ultra trail athlete Katya Mityaeva, who has triumphed in both short but brutal vertical kilometer™ races and long, extremely mountainous ultras. She just came 4th at this year’s 170km UTMB and, although you’ll mostly find her on a mountain trail (sometimes with her successful skyrunning husband, Dimitri Mityaeva), she’s also got a mean road marathon time of 2:36!

I caught up with the successful skyrunner via email to talk skyrunning, training and UTMB.