BLAZING A TRAIL

Growing up as the youngest of six children in a home perched halfway up a mountainside in Liupanshui, Southwest China's Guizhou province, Yao Miao spent much of her childhood carrying a bamboo basket into the highlands.

She dug for potatoes, foraged for wild vegetables and picked corn to help feed her family. In those days, her deepest wish was to leave those mountains behind and embrace a wider world.

Today, she runs toward the mountains as a professional trail runner — no longer to escape them, but to let them define and crown her.

In late August, Yao claimed the women's title in the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) Orsieres-Champex-Chamonix (OCC) — a 61-kilometer race around Mont Blanc. It meant that, along with her women's victory in the 100.1km Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix race (CCC) in 2018 and her women's OCC title in 2024, she made history by becoming the first and only Asian athlete of any gender to win three UTMB titles in different event categories.

At 16, Yao enrolled in a sports school in Liupanshui, training to compete in the 5,000m and 10,000m. However, in Guizhou, often referred to as the "cradle of China's endurance athletes", she faced a hugely talented field and, ultimately, failed to make for Guizhou provincial track and field team.

After graduating in 2016, Yao went to Jiangxi province to live with one of her sisters and attempted to make a living as a makeup artist. Reluctant to give up her sporting dream, though, she insisted on getting up at 5 am every day to run.

That year marked a period of rapid growth for trail running competitions across China.

In pursuit of prize money, at the end of 2016, Yao borrowed 1,000 yuan ($141) from a friend and took a 33-hour hard-seat train ride from Jiangxi to Zhangye, Gansu province, to participate in her first 100km trail race. Exhaustion from the journey and altitude sickness forced her to withdraw midway through.

Unwilling to accept the failure, she resolved to challenge another 100km high-altitude race around Gongga Mountain in Sichuan province just three weeks later. Unexpectedly, Yao secured her first women's championship title with an overwhelming lead — 90 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.

"That remains my most unforgettable race to this day. After winning that race, I gained more confidence and became even more determined to dedicate myself to trail running," Yao recalled.

Over the following year, she dominated China's trail running scene, competing in races ranging from 20km to 120km. She claimed victory in all but two short-distance vertical races, where she finished as runner-up.

Pursuing glory overseas

In 2018, Yao, already known as "China's Queen of Trail Running", began competing at regional and international events.

In January that year, she won the Hong Kong 100 Ultra Marathon, breaking the course record by 40 minutes. In August, the then 21-year-old Yao not only won her first UTMB CCC race, but also set a new course record, becoming the first Asian female runner to win a UTMB event.

Yao's dominant performances revealed her innate talent for the sport.

"Trail running requires runners to judge changes in terrain and quickly adjust their pace and route. I feel that my reactions on the course are faster than most people I train with, and I can adapt to different mountain environments, both domestic and international, in a very short time," she reflected.

However, frequent high-intensity competitions, a strong eagerness to win and a lack of scientific nutritional support led to her experiencing a slump in 2019, during which she often had to withdraw from races due to various unexpected issues or injuries, mainly vision problems.

"During that period, I actually had very little confidence. I was quite beaten down. I didn't really want to run trail races anymore, but I still wanted to run," she recalled.

Yao then accepted an invitation from the provincial track and field team of Hubei to switch to marathon running.

Although her relentless training allowed her to make a name for herself in the marathon scene, even standing on the podium at some domestic marathon events, trail running remained her true passion.

"Compared to road running, I enjoy trail running more because along the way you can see many different landscapes, and the changing terrain brings me more excitement. Marathon races, on the other hand, mostly require you to maintain a steady pace and rhythm," Yao added.

Shen Ni, Yao's teammate on the Hubei provincial team, said that, after finishing a trail race, Yao seemed to glow.

"Even after running over a hundred kilometers, it was hard to see fatigue in her eyes. But at the end of a marathon, as soon as she crossed the finish line, she would lower her head, raise her wrist, and the first thing she would do was checking her watch to see her finishing time," Shen observed.

Driven by her passion, Yao returned to the trail running stage in 2022, participating in the Tsaigu Trail held in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, and won the 115km division championship.

It wasn't long before she regained her dominance, and, with China's trail running market thriving, it has given Yao a bigger platform, as well as more opportunities to sign endorsement deals.

Thanks to her impressive results and growing reach among followers of the sport, the once injury-plagued Yao signed a cooperation with sports nutrition brand M-Action, owned by China's leading dairy company Mengniu, in 2023.

It has been assisting Yao in her training, competitions and recovery with its professional sports nutrition products, a scientific support team comprising sports nutritionists and rehabilitation experts, thus solving many of the issues she faced.

"After experiencing the injury layoff, my mindset changed a bit," Yao said. "I have learned to approach nutritional supplementation more scientifically. I think winning is important, but so is enjoying the process of the race."