Some might recognize Coree Woltering, a professional ultrarunner from Ottawa, IL, who graced the cover of the September 2020 edition of UltraRunning Magazine. Others may be most familiar with Woltering clad in his iconic Speedo that he wore during several of his top race performances, including his win at the 2016 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile, where he ran a blistering time of 5:30:15. Should a trail running memorabilia museum ever exist, Woltering’s Speedo surely deserves a place with other iconic garments such as Courtney Dauwalter’s basketball shorts (the Shortney) and Jim Walmsley’s hole-riddled Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run racing singlet.
Aside from magazine covers and signature apparel, Woltering may be best known for his humble Midwest nature as a #cornfieldcowboy and inspiring feats on long multi-day running efforts. One such feat was setting a Fastest Known Time (FKT) on Wisconsin’s 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail, proving himself not just capable of fast running but ultra endurance strength.
Most of us know Woltering as an ultrarunner, but there’s more to his story than ultrarunning. In fact, he never knew ultrarunning existed until after he finished college. This article is about how Woltering came to know ultrarunning, what it means to be a professional athlete, and how he continues to find purpose and set new goals in sport and life.
Tri. Track. Trails.
Although Woltering is most recognized for his athletic achievements in ultra-distance running, his athletic background is in middle-distance track and field events. Woltering represented Illinois’s Greenville Track Club, which competed in the NCCAA (National Christian College Athletic Association) Championships. He holds personal records of 50.57 in the 400 meters and 1:55.37 in the 800 meters, which is serious speed compared to most ultrarunners. To put his 800-meter speed into perspective for non-track folks, that’s running an average of over fifteen miles per hour for almost a full two minutes!
While in college, Woltering befriended triathlete Suzy Walsh, who introduced him to the world of longer endurance competitions. He still recalls their first bike ride together, a 40-mile ride that unexpectedly turned into 80 miles, “I had never ridden anywhere near 40 miles before, but I figured with my track fitness I could give it a go. She ended up pulling me along for 80 miles, which I completely never would have thought I could do. Then after finishing the ride, she asked ‘So, I’ll see you next Saturday?’”
It was the start of a new athletic chapter for Woltering. While continuing to train on the track for 400 and 800 meters, he met up with Walsh for long weekend bike rides. Before he realized it, he was in Ironman shape.
Woltering competed in his first triathlon in 2010 and immediately showed national caliber potential. By 2012, he qualified for the Ironman World Championships, which he competed in twice in 2012 and 2013. The expanse of flat farm roads in Illinois made for great road biking and running training grounds, but Woltering knew that to reach his full potential in endurance sports, he would need to move closer to better competition and train with other professional athletes.
After graduating college in 2013, Woltering moved to Boulder, Colorado, one of America’s major hubs for all types of endurance sports. It’s the kind of place where the odds of bumping into an Olympic distance runner or world champion triathlete at a grocery store are greater than not.
While Woltering put his focus solely on triathlon training, the community in Boulder also introduced him to a broader range of endurance sports than he ever knew existed. It was the place where he was first exposed to the sport that would one day become his calling, trail running. Woltering describes this chapter in his life, “When you live in Boulder, you’re gonna run into mountain bikers and trail runners. Coming from small Midwest Illinois, it was wild for me. I didn’t realize there were such organized off-road bike and running races and communities. I saw people running on hiking trails for the first time and had no idea that it was called trail running until some friends introduced me to a race called the Leadville 100. They asked me to help pace and crew them at this race, and I said yes.”
Little did Woltering know that saying yes to helping his friends at the 2014 Leadville 100 would expose him to a sport that, only a few years later, he would dominate.
Leadville Love
Woltering paced his friends in the Leadville 100 at the Winfield aid station, mile 50. Winfield, a ghost town surrounded by the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains, is one of the most iconic places along the Leadville 100 course and exposed Woltering to the beauty of trail running in a way he never knew. Woltering discovered trail running was a sport he could definitely dedicate more time to, “I had no idea that pacing at Winfield was going to be such a huge moment for me. I got a chance to run up and over the high point of the course, Hope Pass, and down to Twin Lakes. That was the moment that I absolutely fell in love with trail running. I decided that I didn’t want to focus on triathlon anymore. I wanted to switch over to trail, and I phoned my triathlon coach immediately after the race to say it would be my last year of triathlon-specific training.”
In awe of his Leadville pacing experience, Woltering moved to Leadville in November 2014 to further his training on trails. He found instant success, winning every single 50-kilometer race that he signed up for in 2015.
What does it mean to be a professional athlete?
Woltering’s success in trail running brought about his first of many sponsors, INOV8, a U.K.-based trail running shoe brand. After winning the 2016 Tunnel Hill 50 Mile, Woltering was approached by INOV8 and represented the brand for two years. He describes his experience with INOV8, his first major sponsorship opportunity, “It was a super solid company. They were trying to make a splash in the US when they signed me to their team. Unfortunately, they just didn’t really have the funds to put together a larger team, but it was still a great opportunity to get picked up by them early in my distance running career.”
Woltering played the game that many professional athletes do, searching for sponsors and brand deals. In 2018, The North Face (TNF) signed Woltering to their trail running team and his exposure as an athlete began to skyrocket. Woltering has since signed contracts and landed deals with major brands including Ford, Leki, Smartwool, Kodiak Cakes, Naak Bars, and SunGod.
Woltering shares what it meant to him to make the TNF team and how this partnership helped grow his career, “My time with INOV8 was when I started to feel like I could do more as an athlete while making it onto the TNF team confirmed that trail running is something I should be doing with my life. I remember thinking ‘whoa’ this giant outdoor brand wants to support me and my projects. This could change my life.”
During his time with TNF, Woltering formed his identity as a professional athlete, which was always about more than just race results. Woltering describes what being a professional athlete means to him, “I think that the definition of a professional trail runner is changing. Some pros are simply focused on results. This is a wonderful thing, and they’re establishing extremely fast times. Then there are also people who are in the sport for storytelling and people who are opening up doors for communities that have been underrepresented. The definition of a pro trail runner doesn’t have to be some old Anton Krupicka-like mountain man. Anton is a wonderful human and amazing runner, but not everybody in our sport has to look like him, and we’re seeing that there’s more and more definitions and images of what a professional trail runner can look like and do for the community.”
In 2023, Woltering’s contract with TNF came to a close, but his professional career was far from over. Merrell, a major trail running shoe brand that currently sponsors athletes around the world, including Rachel Tomajczyk, Morgan Elliot, Mercedes Siegle-Gaither, Sara Aranda, Sanna El Kott Helander, and Aum Gandhi signed Woltering to the team in January 2024.
Woltering speaks excitedly about his new partnership with Merrell, “While I’ve definitely felt like a professional now for many years, this new partnership with Merrell has been what I’ve always been looking for in a brand deal. Merrell is investing a lot in the sport right now, developing solid products for trail running and building a team around not just the fastest athletes but athletes with compelling stories and who will make impacts on the sport. There’s certainly a time and place for wins at UTMB or Western States but there’s also still plenty of space in this sport for storytelling and doing things in the community to get more types of people involved. That’s what I feel the focus really is with Merrell.”
For an athlete such as Woltering who has secured many brand deals in his career, it’s exciting to see that he is still developing new partnerships that align with his goals and place in the trail running community.
More speed, distance, or both?
At 34 years of age, Woltering is teetering on a sweet spot between leg speed and ultra-endurance strength. Two major goals in Woltering’s training couldn’t actually be further apart—hitting an Olympic trials marathon standard time and setting a record on the 2,100-plus mile Appalachian Trail.
With over ten years of ultrarunning experience, Woltering describes his legs as feeling more durable than ever. He’s already set Fastest Known Times (FKTs) on two major trails in the US, Wisconsin’s 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail and Alabama/Georgia’s 350-mile Pinhoti Trail. He now feels ready to take on the Appalachian Trail, one of the most challenging and longest trails in the US. Woltering hopes to join a group of incredible athletes who all currently hold or have held records on the trail, including Kristian Morgan, Karl Meltzer, Scott Jurek, and Karel Sabbe.
Woltering is making plans for his Appalachian Trail FTK attempt in fall 2024, but he also feels the speed from his track days is very much still in his legs, and he still has a strong desire to run an Olympic trials marathon standard time. With a current road marathon best time of 2:26, this is certainly not a far-fetched dream.
Woltering describes his current struggle between a rock and a hard place, or in more specific terms, a long trail and a fast race, “Some days I tell myself I want to knock out an Olympic Trials qualifying standard. I am super motivated to get that speed back, but at the same time, my training for the Appalachian Trail is not exactly conducive to that. From the physical side, I think that I’ve built some solid ‘old man’ strength. The experience of running ultramarathons for over ten years now has made it easier to transition to longer, multi-day running efforts. That said, there’s an internal battle that I don’t think that my fastest days of road running are behind me. I think I can still run very fast should I work on the mechanics of road running again.”
Ultimately, Woltering’s decision of where to focus his training goes to where he feels he’ll get the most enjoyment. The trail running passion he discovered in Leadville is still very much alive, “Even though I like running fast on roads, I get the most enjoyment taking my pack and running for four to eight hours on weekends. I like playing in the woods, and I know I’ll be doing this for a long time even after my speed is gone.”
Running by the minutes, hours, days, and weeks
An increasing number of recreational and elite trail runners are challenging themselves with multi-day runs and races. The Fastest Known Time (FKT) movement has aided in this approach, setting an established platform for runners to find routes or challenge their times against others. Multi-day races, including both stage and extreme distance (100 or 200-plus-mile races that take more than one day to complete, such as the Cocodona 250), have also increased in popularity.
Woltering describes his passion for multi-day racing and what it brings to the sport, “I love multi-day runs because it’s a series of problem-solving on the fly. You can come up with a plan, think things are going to go well, and something always goes wrong. Something you didn’t plan for always happens. Weather can be a huge, unpredictable factor with these multi-day/week challenges. You have to be adaptable, flexible, and used to training in all types of conditions. These challenges always go better when you can draw on past experiences from your training.”
“Then there’s the mental side. It’s really a test of who is willing to dig deep inside themselves and keep on pushing on even when they think they have nothing left. That’s where growth as a human happens.”
[PROTIP: Interested in completing a 200-mile race? See our training tips here!]
Spotlight speedy Speedo
In his current build-up to his PCT FKT attempt, Woltering opened his 2024 racing season with a serious endurance test, competing in the 50/50 challenge at the Nine Dragons Ultra on February 16 and 17, 2024. This challenge involves running back-to-back 50-mile and 50-kilometer distances over some of Hong Kong’s toughest terrain. Participants accumulate over 23,000 feet of elevation gain in the two days of racing, most of which in the form of what Woltering describes as “soul-crushing stairs.”
In 2019, Woltering attempted the race and received a DNF (did not finish), citing it as one of the toughest courses he’d ever run. This time, he reached the finish line of both races and jokingly reflected afterward about the stairs, “I never want to see stairs again. Team Elevator from here on out…that said, I can’t wait for the next event in Hong Kong. I absolutely love it there. The trail community is special, and the sights are stunning!”
Woltering’s season is off to a strong start, and he’s feeling prepared to tackle some of his toughest running goals in 2024. In addition to running the PCT this fall, he will also compete at Georgia’s Cruel Jewel 100 Mile on May 18.
Now, to end with a moment that many of you have been waiting for. Did I chat with Woltering about his iconic Speedo? This small piece of fabric has rocked a look all trail runners I know have respect for or secretly aspire to don one day on the trails. Although Woltering no longer races in his Speedo at every race, I just had to know—will he rock this speedy look in 2024? His answer was, “Absolutely, the Speedo will make a return.”
All photos in this article have been generously provided by Coree Woltering.
