Best Trail Running YouTube Channels to Watch in 2026
Trail running has become unusually good at making films about itself.
YouTube is full of beautifully shot race documentaries, brand films and ten-minute edits from Chamonix. But the more interesting development is happening on the athletes' own channels. Some of the best runners in the sport are increasingly taking cameras into training camps, altitude blocks, race weeks and occasionally the darker corners of an ultra that polished race coverage tends to miss.
The quality varies wildly. That's part of the appeal.
Some channels now employ serious production crews. Others still feel like someone remembered to turn the camera on five minutes before a workout. The best give you something neither live timing nor Instagram can: enough time around an athlete to understand how they actually operate.
These are the trail running YouTube channels we think are worth subscribing to.
Hans Troyer
Best for: Personality, training and genuinely entertaining race videos
Hans Troyer might have the most entertaining channel on this list.
He's funny as hell, doesn't seem particularly interested in polishing away his personality, and gives a surprisingly good look at what life actually looks like for a young professional trail runner. Training, travel, racing, bad decisions — it's all there.
More importantly, the videos are getting noticeably better. The editing and storytelling have improved from upload to upload without losing the slightly chaotic quality that made the channel good in the first place.
And Troyer has increasingly serious performances to document. His rise has included wins at Bandera and Black Canyon alongside an eighth place at Western States in 2025.
There are more cinematic channels on this list. Few are as much fun to watch.
Hold W rating: 9.5/10
Ben Dhiman
Best for: Cinematography, mountains and seeing how one of the world's best actually trains
Ben Dhiman has seriously stepped up his YouTube game.
The landscapes alone make the channel worth following. Big Alpine terrain, excellent running footage and some of the best mountain imagery you'll find on an athlete-owned trail channel.
But the production isn't carrying weak material. Dhiman gives viewers genuine access to training and racing rather than simply releasing another slow-motion mountain montage.
That distinction matters. There's an increasing amount of beautifully shot trail content that tells you almost nothing. Dhiman manages to deliver both.
If the recent trajectory continues, this could become one of the benchmark athlete channels in trail running.
Hold W rating: 9.5/10
Hannes Namberger
Best for: The work behind elite ultrarunning
Hannes Namberger is comparatively new to YouTube. His first proper channel introduction arrived in October 2025, but he's quickly built one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes channels in the sport.
And “behind the scenes” actually means something here.
Altitude training, nutrition, equipment, workouts, preparation and the less glamorous work between races all get screen time. Namberger describes the channel as a look inside his life as an athlete, including both the successful parts and the setbacks.
The main barrier has historically been language. Namberger speaks German, but YouTube's increasingly good subtitles, translation and dubbed-audio options make that far less relevant than it once was.
For anyone interested in how an elite mountain ultrarunner prepares rather than just watching the race afterwards, this is one of the channels we'd recommend first.
Hold W rating: 9/10
Max Jolliffe
Best for: Proper ultrarunning films
Some athletes make YouTube videos. Max Jolliffe makes films.
His channel sits toward the professional end of the spectrum, with ambitious long-form productions around the kind of races that lend themselves particularly well to documentary storytelling.
And there is plenty to work with. Jolliffe has won and set course records at both Moab 240 and Badwater 135, alongside winning Angeles Crest 100. His own site now effectively treats filmmaking as part of the Max Jolliffe project rather than an occasional side product.
The Moab material is the obvious place to start.
This isn't necessarily the channel we'd open for a casual Tuesday training update. It's one we'd save for the television.
Hold W rating: 9/10
Mathieu Blanchard
Best for: Adventure films and some of the best photography on this list
Mathieu Blanchard understands that trail running looks very, very good on camera.
His films are beautifully produced without completely disappearing into outdoor-brand-film territory. There is still a person at the centre of them.
Historically, that has meant accepting that much of the narration is in Blanchard's native French. More recently, he has experimented with English narration, making the films considerably more accessible internationally.
That's interesting because content is increasingly part of Blanchard's wider career. He now describes storytelling and creative formats as an important part of what he's building alongside racing and adventure.
The result is one of the most visually accomplished athlete channels in the sport.
Hold W rating: 9/10
Sally McRae
Best for: Big ultras and the back catalogue
Sally McRae deserves a place here even before considering what she's uploading today.
Her back catalogue contains some of the films that helped define modern ultrarunning on YouTube. Her 200-mile era in particular turned into an enormous content project: a 14-week series followed by films documenting the races. McRae says the push brought more than 60,000 new subscribers to her channel during 2023 alone.
Mind Over Miles, documenting the Moab 240, has subsequently passed a million views.
There's history beyond her own channel, too. Billy Yang's Western Time, following McRae's first Western States in 2014, remains one of the important films from the earlier wave of modern trail-running filmmaking.
McRae isn't producing at the same relentless rate all the time, but when a big project lands, it's usually worth watching.
And if you're completely new to trail running YouTube, there is an excellent archive waiting for you.
Hold W rating: 9/10
Kilian Jornet
Best for: Kilian Jornet being Kilian Jornet
It's Kilian.
That's probably sufficient justification for subscribing.
The channel itself is an interesting mixture. Some videos are short and almost homemade. Others offer superb access to races, training and the absurd mountain projects that make Jornet's career difficult to compare with anyone else's.
His race reflections are particularly good. Rather than simply showing what happened, Jornet is often willing to explain the decisions, mistakes and physiological thinking behind it.
The channel is also becoming more ambitious. His 2026 season is being documented as a YouTube series covering training in Norway, racing, product development and work away from competition.
Then there's In Conversation, where Jornet has begun sitting down with other elite athletes. A recent episode with Rachel Entrekin ran for around 27 minutes, taking the channel into territory somewhere between athlete vlog and proper trail-running media.
Not every upload is essential viewing.
The good ones absolutely are.
Hold W rating: 8,5/10
David Roche
Best for: Training nerds and frequent updates
David Roche takes almost the opposite approach to the polished cinematic channels above.
He uploads. A lot.
Training updates, workouts, physiology, racing, life and whatever happens to be occupying his brain that week. If you want a window into the day-to-day process rather than waiting three months for a 38-minute documentary, Roche is your guy.
His coaching background also means there's usually more going on than a standard “here's what I ran today” vlog. He explains the thinking behind the work.
Then, occasionally, David and Megan Roche go in completely the opposite direction and release a properly long race film.
Those are usually the ones to clear some time for.
Hold W rating: 8.5/10
Honorable Mentions
Lauren Gregory is worth keeping an eye on. The channel isn't yet extensive enough for us to put it alongside the names above, but Gregory has the personality and racing career to make it very good if she continues investing in it.
Francesco Puppi belongs in much the same category. One of the most interesting personalities in elite trail running, with enough training knowledge and opinions that we'd happily watch considerably more of him on YouTube.
And if you're interested in great trail-running YouTube rather than strictly professional athletes running their own channels, the list gets much longer. Jeff Pelletier, Billy Yang and Freetrail all deserve attention — but that's probably another article.
Where we'd start
If you want entertainment, start with Hans Troyer.
If you want cinematography, try Ben Dhiman or Mathieu Blanchard.
For training and preparation, Hannes Namberger and David Roche.
For long-form ultrarunning films, Sally McRae and Max Jolliffe.
And for an unusually detailed look inside the mind and life of the greatest mountain runner of his generation, there's Kilian.
The encouraging part is that this list would have been considerably shorter a few years ago. Elite trail runners are slowly figuring out that they don't need to wait for a sponsor to make a film about them.
They can just turn the camera on.
