Unstructured Joy: Jon Albon’s Pre-2026 UTMB Interview

The post Unstructured Joy: Jon Albon’s Pre-2026 UTMB Interview appeared first on iRunFar.

Jon Albon, originally from the U.K. but living in Norway, arrives at the 2026 UTMB after a DNF last year, but prior wins at the 2023 CCC and 2021 OCC. In the following interview, Jon talks about his race last year, his relatively unconventional training leading up to this year’s event, which involved plenty of adventure, and some big changes in his future — including a new puppy!

For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth men’s and women’s previews and follow our live race coverage starting Friday, August 28.

[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to watch it.]

Jon Albon Pre-2026 UTMB Interview Transcript

iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Jon Albon. It’s before the 2026 UTMB. We’re here in Tignes, France. Hi, Jon.

Jon Albon: Hello.

iRunFar: How are you doing?

Albon: I’m fine. How are you?

iRunFar: I’m really well.

Albon: Good.

iRunFar: So here we are before UTMB again. This is going to be your second lineup for this race.

Albon: Yep. So what is it? Second time’s the charm or, I don’t know. We’ll see.

iRunFar: Second time is hopefully the charm.

Albon: I’ve got that mandatory DNF out of the way, so we’ll see what happens this year.

iRunFar: I mean, almost nobody gets UTMB right on their first go. I think the statistics were in your favor last year to not be successful.

Albon: I’d like to think so. And the weather wasn’t in my favor, either. As much as people say, “Oh, but you’re British, you must be used to the rain.” Yeah, that was … No.

iRunFar: The weather was extraordinary last year.

Albon: It was terrible.

iRunFar: Yeah. So rehash for us your race last year. You came in as one of the men’s favorites. You ran in the men’s top five for a good long way, but I think eventually a lingering injury took you out in the second half of the race.

Albon: Yeah, that’s my excuse. Yeah.

iRunFar: Okay.

Albon: I mean, everyone needs an excuse, and then some B and C excuses too.

iRunFar: Okay. So was that A, B, or C?

Albon: That was A. I mean, the knee was my, “This is really painful. You can’t move well, if at all, and you could be doing lasting damage.” I didn’t know what damage I was doing to it. So that was the deciding factor that said it’s stupid to continue.

iRunFar: Okay.

Albon: And to death hike it in with a bad knee from Champex-Lac just isn’t how I want to go racing. But apart from that, I was really tired. I don’t think you can run UTMB and not be really tired. So there was definitely a part of me that wanted to quit because I was destroyed. I got really cold twice coming through to Courmayeur. Me and Germain [Grangier] both struggled a lot in the cold, and it really saps the energy. So to try and get the energy back again after Courmayeur was a real struggle.

And then, when the knee started, and then you start to sort of like … I had a couple of slips where you jar things. It’s not nice. And then you’ve got the long stretch through Fouly, and if you have a little something, you don’t get any respite. It’s just a long, long way with the same sort of running stride. So my day was done in Champex.

iRunFar: Okay.

Albon: That’s the way it went. It was a bit upsetting at the time, but yeah, it is what it is. And like you say, UTMB is a tough one the first time around.

iRunFar: When I think of Jon Albon, I think of somebody who’s been around this sport for quite a long time, been around professional sports for a long time, but you’re relatively inexperienced at 100 miles. You waited for a long time in your career to take on these uber-long ultras.

Albon: Yeah, I think so. This will be my third official trail 100 miler. So, there’s a lot to learn and a lot changes year on year. And everyone is learning really fast. So, I’m trying to gain as much experience as possible. It would probably have helped to have done some smaller 100 milers to sort of get some practice. But it seems that I kind of feel like you only get a couple of these to really go for in a year. So, if you’re going to go for one or two, at least go for the biggest ones. So, here I am back at UTMB again.

iRunFar: Yeah. And you went for the grandmother and grandfather of hundred milers. Western States 100  a few years ago, and then UTMB last year and this year.

Albon: Yeah, I go big or go home, I guess.

iRunFar: Yeah.

Albon: Last year, I went home.

iRunFar: Yeah. Ouch. That wrote its own joke. You have a lot of experience in Chamonix. You have a lot of experience racing at the UTMB festival, running on the trails. Is this race for you, is UTMB for you about putting together late race, the second half of the race, putting together the extra hours that accumulate? Or what do you think is the defining factor for you?

Albon: I don’t think there is just one defining factor.

iRunFar: Okay.

Albon: I think it’s a really long race, and I think I have to get right in my mind that this race isn’t good for you and you destroy your body by doing it, but that’s okay on this one day of the year. So I have to …

iRunFar: You get to break yourself.

Albon: I have to push past and just think, “Okay, I’m going to completely destroy myself. It’s completely fine. This is kind of normal, and this is almost necessary. It’s a necessary evil.” So once I push past that sort of threshold, and I’ve started destroying myself, normally things get a bit easier because then you’re in it then. It’s just sort of like getting over that barrier, because it doesn’t come naturally.

You spend all year training, monitoring yourself, trying not to get injured, making smart decisions, not doing too much, not doing too little. And then you come on this one day, and you think, “Okay, now body, I’ve taken care of you all year. Now I’m going to completely destroy you.” So just hope I can do that. Normally, people say, “What are you going to be like the week after UTMB?” And the answer’s normally like, “Well, hopefully completely destroyed, because then it’s all gone to plan and I’ve emptied the tanks.”

The worst-case scenario is three days after UTMB, you’re just bouncing around completely fine, having quit at Champex.

iRunFar: Which sounds like kind of what happened last year.

Albon: Last year I had a scare, because I woke up the next day and I walked to go and see the team, and I thought, “My knee’s not so bad.”

iRunFar: Oh.

Albon: And then actually, after 10 minutes of walking, I was hobbling. So then I was like, “Oh, thank God, my knee’s destroyed.”

iRunFar: “I’m actually injured.”

Albon: But then I still did manage to bounce back. I went to Ultra Pirineu 100k and raced there six weeks later maybe, maybe less. And the knee did flare up in that race, but I just kind of pushed my way through. And that’s what you can do in a 100k race. But in a 170k race, it’s not like you can just push through sometimes. So that’s the way it goes. It’s one of those things, it could flare up. Again, you don’t know, you do all this training, but you never really run that far in the training. Thankfully it was fine in Transgrancanaria, and it’s been fine in training. And I don’t want to have to use it as an excuse again, but I’m just hoping that I can push through even if it is a bit painful. And it doesn’t sort of just limit how I can move, because if you can’t move well, you are stuffed.

iRunFar: It feels like you’re in fairly good company, if you’re thinking a little bit about the knee. It seems like all the men’s favorites have knee niggles they’re managing.

Albon: Yes. Maybe true. Yeah, maybe it’s a good thing. I don’t know. Yeah. Knees are tricky things. And, I haven’t had that many injuries in my career, I’d say. Normally managed to stay pretty injury-free. So it is tough when you’ve got that in the back of your mind. But as of now, I’m 100%, so I do not want to use that as an excuse. I’ve been checking the weather a lot, and it looks like it might be crap again. So maybe that’ll be another tough one, but we’ll see. You don’t know until we get to the day.

iRunFar: So we’re in Tignes, France. This is sort of a hub of recreation for the French Alps. This town is teaming with people training for the various UTMB festival races. But, we were talking off camera about how sort of the zone that you’re in with your running and your training at the moment is more like wanting to do things for fun and by feel and not stick to super regimented training. So there’s a dichotomy there, isn’t there?

Albon: Yeah. I’ve been training for some years now, trying really hard to train with a lot of structure and train well. And at some point, it just is at war with what I want to do, or what I enjoy doing, or what I thrive doing. And I’ve often found that when I’m in my best shape, I have my worst races. And when I’m in my worst shape, sometimes I have my best races. So normally, the outcome is relatively similar. So I kind of wanted to find a better balance there. Enjoy more of my life when I’m not racing, and then hopefully sort of not completely ruin my chances in the race either. So there’s definitely been a balance that’s had to be found over the past couple of months because how I was continuing, for me, just wasn’t sustainable.

Some athletes, they can see trail running as a job and they go out and they do it and they do exceptionally boring training. They do it day in, day out, and they get to the race, and they still have all of their soul to push as hard as they can. Whereas when I train like that, I get to the race and I’ve used up some of my soul in the training, and there’s not much left for the race. So, let’s see if I’ve struck a good balance now.

I’m still a bit fragile after the Mont Blanc 90k. That was a real tough experience. The heat really got to me, and I was a real wreck up there, and it wasn’t very fun. Even from the start of the race, I wasn’t there. I don’t know. I just wasn’t me. I wasn’t willing to push. I just wasn’t enjoying myself. It wasn’t a nice experience. So, the whole thing just kind of sucked. Whether that’s because I had UTMB as the main goal and in the back of my mind, I didn’t really care about Mont Blanc 90, or it’s just a culmination of not really taking any downtime since COVID really. Maybe it all just sort of accumulated in me. But who knows? I’m still not sure where I’m at now, but I’m going to give it my all and see how the race goes.

iRunFar: You said before we started this interview that after Mont Blanc, you sort of just turned off the training plan and did some adventures, did some hut-to-hut big runs. You climbed that mountain right there when you got here. And I think you said you did a bike, hike, scramble, almost a full day out type of thing.

Albon: Yeah. So the numbers at the moment say I’m technically in the same shape as I was last year. I’ve done the same amount of training, that’s sort of built up to now, but I’ve done it in a very different way. So I’ve done more, yeah, adventures, less structure. More kind of trying to get out there. Still put in big days, but have days which sort of reward me in other ways as well. So yeah, I did these hut-to-hut kind of routes, a couple of 60k mountainous runs there. And then that big scramble day, that was really fun. So, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but just have always sacrificed it so I could train properly. And now I just thought, “Well, it’s going to be good training for UTMB anyway, so we’ll just go and do that.”

So kind of felt like that was more training for the second half of UTMB. Whereas, in all my training last year, I was training for the first half of UTMB. Kind of shorter long runs, a bit more sort of peppy, a little bit faster. So it’d be really interesting to see whether I can manage my way through the first half this year and then capitalize on that training I’ve done for the second half. But I mean, just who knows? It’s so far. You don’t know how you’re going to react, and you could react differently day to day as well. But I mean that long thing I did, it was 19 hours. So to know that I can just move …

iRunFar: Well, that’s UTMB.

Albon: I did 55k. So, it wasn’t the same, but at least I spent some time moving, and I had a lot of fun, and I can think back to it with really fond memories. So, I’m sure that’s going to help. And there’s a lot of exciting stuff that’s going to be happening for me after UTMB as well, which I’m really looking forward to. So this is just the beginning of a journey of a new chapter of my life. So I’m really stoked for what’s to come.

iRunFar: Do you want to sneak peek that?

Albon: Yeah. We’re buying a camper van, which is the second big thing, but the other one is we’re going to get a dog.

iRunFar: And a herding dog.

Albon: Yeah. We’ve been wanting a dog our entire lives, but with the lifestyle we’ve had, traveling around, training camps, racing, it’s just never sort of been on the cards for us. And we normally make too sensible decisions. And now we’ve decided to sort of switch up how we organize our lives, how we do things. And do some stuff away from running that’s going to reward us. So we’re going to be getting a little puppy three days after UTMB. And in which, in those three days I need to drive all the way from Germany up through to Norway and pick up said puppy.

iRunFar: Well, you have your recovery sorted then.

Albon: I have my recovery. My hamstrings will go from this long to about this long by the end of it already.

iRunFar: But then taking the puppy out to go potty over and over, will lengthen them out again.

Albon: Exactly. Let’s just hope so. No, it’s going to be a tiring but exciting month, that’s for sure. And let’s hope we can kick it off with a bang with at least finishing UTMB, but I won’t promise anyone anything.

iRunFar: An effort to get around the loop.

Albon: I think if I get around, I’ll probably have a relatively okay position as well. So I think I’ll just be happy. But I’m certainly, I say this every time I line up on the start line, “I’m going to run my own race. I’m not going to care about racing.” And then as soon as you get going, you don’t want to get dropped off the front. And that was the big danger with last year was, it was too easy to stay at the front. So then, when I felt like I should have dropped off the front to save a bit of energy and make some smarter decisions, you don’t want to because you’ve spent hours and hours running at the front. So you feel like that’s where you should be. So, going to try and make some smarter decisions this year. I think it helps that there’s such a deep field.

Except for this interview, I think I’m going to get left alone hopefully.

iRunFar: We found you.

Albon: “I’ll hide up in Tignes. It’ll be great. There’ll be no one up there. I’ll just turn off a couple of days before UTMB, smash and grab.”

iRunFar: iRunFar makes it Tignes, too.

Albon: But no, we’ll see. I’m actually, part of me is dreading it obviously, but part of me is also looking forward to the challenge that it’ll be. And hopefully, I can approach it with a clear mind and try and execute as well as I know I should be able to.

iRunFar: The psychology part, just listening to you talk about the fresh approach to your running, and trying to run with feeling and joy as opposed to focus and all the details on the numbers. It sounds like you have all the mentality to get around a pretty adventurous 100 miler.

Albon: Maybe. I feel like my psychology is my weak spot now. It used to be my stomach, but now maybe it’s my mind, but then maybe I have worked on it and improved it in my own way. But, I just don’t know how I’m going to respond until you get into the moment. And yeah, I’m looking forward to finding out, I guess. So, I’ve done what I can. I would have liked to have done more training, but then I could certainly have done less training. And the shape is what it is now. It’s hard to really tell what the shape’s like when I’m up here, because normally living at sea level, I feel definitely a lot peppier than living up at 2,100 meters.

So I’m looking forward to going down a little bit lower and finding out how the body feels. And even if it doesn’t feel great, knowing that this race, that’s just one small piece of the puzzle, and there’s so much more to it that can go right or wrong. And no matter how the body feels, I’ll just have to put one foot in front of the other and grind it out. And at some point, everyone will feel the same anyway.

iRunFar: Off we go. Best of luck to you.

Albon: Thank you very much.

iRunFar: And see you out there on the big loop.

Albon: Yeah, it’ll be good. I’m looking forward to it, kind of.

iRunFar: Kind of.

Unstructured Joy: Jon Albon’s Pre-2026 UTMB Interview by Meghan Hicks.