| Ruth Croft | |
| Birth Date: | 15 January 1989[1] |
| Birth Place: | Greymouth, New Zealand |
| Country: | New Zealand |
| Event: | Ultramarathon, trail running |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
Ruth Charlotte Croft (born 15 January 1989) is a New Zealand ultramarathon and trail runner. Croft was the silver medalist at the 2019 Trail World Championships. Her victories at major international races include the Tarawera Ultramarathon, Western States, and Ultra Trail Cape Town.
Born on 15 January 1989 in Greymouth, on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island, Croft grew up in the small town of Stillwater.[2] [1] She attended Rangi Ruru Girls' School in Christchurch, where she ran track and cross country.[1] As a junior, she was the under-20 national champion and competed for New Zealand at the 2006 World Junior Championships in Athletics in the 3000 metres steeplechase.[3] She also competed as a junior at both the 2005 and 2007 World Mountain Running Championships.[1]
After finishing high school, Croft briefly enrolled at Lincoln University near Christchurch, but returned home to the West Coast to work instead. She moved to the United States after receiving an athletic scholarship to run for the University of Portland in Oregon. After graduating from Portland, Croft moved to Taiwan to teach English. She lived there for five-and-a-half years, eventually moving to a job working in marketing for the technology company Garmin.[4]
Croft began competing in more trail races while living in Taiwan, and eventually became a sponsored athlete with Garmin.[5] She won the Mt. Kinabalu International Climbathon 50k in Malaysia in 2013 and 2014. She also won the 100-km CCC event at UTMB in 2015, and followed that with a fourth-place finish at the highly competitive North Face 50 in San Francisco, California. She moved away from Taiwan in 2017, splitting her time between Europe and New Zealand.
In 2017, Croft won the Translatlantau 50K in Hong Kong, the 62-km event at Tarawera in New Zealand, and the 73-km Les Templiers event in Millau, France. She returned to Tarawera in 2021, winning the 100-km event in a course record time of 9:21:03. She won Tarawera again in 2024. She won the 55-km OCC in Chamonix in both 2018 and 2019.[6] At the 2019 Trail World Championships in Miranda do Corvo, Portugal, Croft won the silver medal behind Blandine L'Hirondel of France.[7] It was the first medal for a New Zealand athlete in trail world championship history.
Croft competed in her first 100-mile race at Western States in 2021, having a successful debut in finishing second behind English runner Beth Pascall.[8] She returned the next year to win Western States in a time of 17:21:30.[9] [10]
Croft won the 100-km Ultra Trail Cape Town in South Africa in November 2023. She was scheduled to run UTMB in 2023, but came down with a virus days before the race and did not start.[11] She returned to UTMB in 2024, finishing second behind Katie Schide.[12] [13]
Croft ran the length of the 125-mile Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland in 2022.[14] In 2023, she ran the historic Nakasendo Trail in Japan along with Tim Tollefson and Olympians Magda Boulet and Desiree Linden.[15]
As of 2021, Croft was studying for a career in naturopathy.[16] [17] [18]