In what seems to be her first try on the 100-mile distance, Eire’s Catherine Jennings set a brand new ladies’s 100-mile world document on the 2025 Tunnel Hill 100 Mile with a time of 12:37:04. She eclipsed the earlier document of 12:42:40, which was set by Camille Herron on the identical occasion in 2017.
Caitriona Jennings wanting happy along with her new ladies’s 100-mile world document. Photograph: Micki Colson/Colson Images
Jennings ran an impressively evenly break up race, averaging 7:34 minutes per mile (4:42 minutes per kilometer) for the complete 100-mile distance (160.9 kilometers). Whereas temperatures had been cool on the 7 a.m. CST begin on November 8, issues obtained heat all through the center of the day, however this didn’t appear to sluggish Jennings in any respect.
Whereas the 100-mile distance could also be a step up for Jennings, she’s no stranger to extremely distances. She set the present Irish 50k document in February 2025 on the Donate 50k when she ran 3:16:33. The occasion served because the Irish 50k Nationwide Championships. She additionally holds the Irish 100k nationwide document with a time of seven:43:01, set in 2021. In 2022, she received the Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners (IAU) 50k European Championshipsand he or she’s completed within the high 10 of the Comrades Marathon at the least 4 instances.
What is maybe probably the most spectacular about Jennings’s 100-mile run was her consistency. For practically the primary 80 miles, her tempo by no means wavered greater than a second or two away from 7:26-minute miles. And after 80 miles, or about 10 hours of racing, her tempo solely barely crept up. For the whole race, she was capable of hold her tempo beneath that of the world document.
Caitriona Jennings stops her watch with a brand new ladies’s 100-mile world document. Photograph: Micki Colson/Colson Images
The 100-mile race is held at the side of the Tunnel Hill 50 Mile. Earlier within the day, American Anne Flower set a brand new ladies’s 50-mile world document in 5:18:57. The course is held on the Tunnel Hill State Path, which is a rails-to-trails gravel path with a crushed gravel floor. Probably the most well-known landmark on the course is an outdated rail tunnel that runners go via. The race consists of a flat double out-and-back beginning in Vienna, Illinois, and the 100-mile racers full each out-and-back legs twice. The course has garnered a fame for pace, and a number of other world information have been set right here within the 50- and 100-mile distance in recent times. The course is USA Observe and Discipline-certified, and the document will have to be ratified by the IAU.
