Meet Eszter Horanyi. She is an unbelievable individual, to place it frivolously. I heard about her when she was on her solution to a second-place end on the Ouray 100 Mile in 2017. Somebody stated she was a legend within the bikepacking world, and I questioned: Who is that this girl who can also be actually good at ultrarunning?
Over time, Eszter has turn into not solely somebody I look as much as, however an incredible good friend prepared to go the gap for almost anybody. And he or she is all the time up for any journey. A pair years in the past, she showcased her endurance skillset by snagging the ladies’s unsupported Quickest Recognized Time for the Nolan’s 14 route in Colorado.
You’ll additionally see her work as an editor, author, and photographer throughout the out of doors world, overlaying every thing from races to bikepacking, packrafting, and fastpacking adventures. And also you’ll by no means see her with no digital camera! Her arduous work as a inventive and as an endurance athlete of any sport is inspiring, to say the least. She’s now working full-time for iRunFar as its managing editor.
With out additional ado, Eszter Horanyi:
Moonrise over the Grenadier vary in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. All images by Eszter Horanyi.
You wish to take images and you want to jot down. The place/how did your inventive endeavors start, and the way have they advanced via your life and right into a profession?
I really feel like that is a kind of sneaky questions, as a result of I can’t keep in mind a life with out taking images and writing. A few of my earliest recollections are squandering away rolls of movie in my dad’s digital camera and spending hours writing web page after web page of tales as a bit child.
Again within the period of blogs in my school and graduate faculty years, I used to be the unofficial documenter and record-keeper of mountain bike and backcountry ski adventures of the motley crew of people I lived with — seven folks in a five-bedroom home in Boulder, Colorado. I paid $250 monthly for my room, and it was the very best of occasions. I wrote so much and took images of the (mis)adventures all of us went on, however being at school for physics and engineering, I didn’t actually take into account writing or images as a viable profession path, although, for probably the most half, I hated what I used to be learning and cherished telling tales.
Finally, I ended having the ability to faux being a well-adjusted member of society, stop grad faculty, and moved to Crested Butte, Colorado, to be a ski bum. I used to be racing bikes — considerably efficiently — on the time and making an attempt to make some form of residing writing in regards to the racing world, nevertheless it took the higher a part of a decade to construct up my writing and images expertise to the purpose of it being one thing I thought-about myself adept at. I banged my head towards lots of partitions through the years.
Race images gives its personal set of challenges and studying. Joyce Njeru on the 2025 Damaged Arrow Skyrace.
I’m nonetheless glad to confess that each time somebody buys a photograph from me or hires me for a images job, I sit in disbelief for a second. I’m unsure if it’s the always-present impostor syndrome that refuses to consider somebody values my images, or simply appreciating the place I’ve discovered myself in. I began by capturing images of my buddies in lovely locations, and in some way that become a profession.
The identical goes for writing and enhancing for iRunFar, and now having the very grown-up title of managing editor. I nonetheless sit down at my laptop most mornings and ask myself (to the tune of the Speaking Heads, in fact): How did I get right here?
B-roll picture of Meghan Hicks in the course of the first photoshoot for iRunFar she ever employed me for in 2021.
Inform us about your love for endurance sports activities. You’ve bikepacked super-long distances, profitable every thing from the Tour Divide, the Arizona Path Race, the Colorado Path, the Iditarod Path Invitational, to call just some. What made you turn into ultrarunning, and the way has that advanced into different adventures past racing? What will get you most excited nowadays? And in the event you might select just one mode of transportation — bike, foot, or packraft — which would it not be, and why?
I obtained burnt out on bikes!
I raced bikes for variety of years, every thing from stage races on highway bikes to 45-second dual-slalom downhill occasions to cross-country mountain bikes to 24-hour races to cyclocross to bikepacking. Apart from BMX, if there was bike self-discipline to race, I in all probability tried it a minimum of as soon as. I considerably unintentionally found that I used to be actually good on the long-distance stuff, particularly the multi-day, self-supported bikepacking occasions, which had been primarily contests of who might eat probably the most whereas driving, and who might greatest take care of the worst climate circumstances/bikes breaking/every thing going sideways. I used to be actually good at consuming lots of snacks.
However well being points in 2013 pressured an unplanned retirement from racing, and a four-month bike tour in 2014 left me not ever desirous to see a motorcycle once more. So I purchased a pair of Altra Olympuses and promptly spent the following two years injured as a result of I had no idea of zero-drop footwear. Or moderation. Working doesn’t reward stupidity in the identical approach that bikes do. The sheer proven fact that I caught with working is a testomony to my … stubbornness? Yeah, we’ll go together with stubbornness.
Packrafting with Meghan Hicks in Utah.
However I instantly cherished the locations that my ft might take me that my bike couldn’t. Plus, going uphill is so much simpler if you’re not pushing a motorcycle!
I made a number of bids at working racing early on and made a few of my greatest working buddies on the Ouray Ultras occasions, and in some way managed an unsupported quickest identified time on Nolan’s 14 in 2023 as a result of all my working buddies had been in Europe for UTMB and I wanted some form of distraction in my life, however I feel I’ve settled into the non-competitive aspect of sports activities fairly fortunately nowadays.
Taking pictures images on the Ouray 100 Mile is simpler than working it.
I actually love the large adventures that mix lots of ability units, whether or not that’s packrafting and foot journey, working and scrambling, bikes and working up peaks, bikes and packrafts, no matter.
Making me select between bikes, ft, and packrafts is form of like asking me to decide on between mountains and deserts. I couldn’t think about my life with out all of them!
Multisport outings, like a five-day bike and packraft loop across the Lake Powell and Escalante, Utah space, are the very best. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Inform us a bit bit about your life, shifting to the U.S. if you had been two and the way your upbringing helped you persist in each life and work?
I feel in lots of methods, I’m a fairly basic first-generation immigrant with all of the emotional points that come together with that. My mother and father migrated to the U.S. from Hungary in 1984, so in the course of the Soviet occupation and the peak of communism.
They positively instilled (whether or not deliberately or not) the notion of doing all your greatest at no matter you’re doing, and making an attempt to be the very best at no matter you’re doing, which on one hand, has made me a tough employee and somebody who retains making an attempt to get higher and higher at my craft(s), however alternatively, I’ve no endurance for myself once I mess one thing up. Which — I do know — isn’t wholesome.
Taking images in the course of the 2021 Colorado Path Race bikepacking occasion within the very early days of making an attempt to make it as a photographer.
However I feel I’ve a really visceral understanding that had my mother and father not immigrated, I might by no means have been offered with all of the alternatives that I’ve had, and so I really feel a little bit of a accountability to myself to take advantage of what I’ve obtained.
Who’re a few of the influences which have impressed you to chase huge objectives, whether or not in work, in life, creatively, or athletically?
Eddie Clark is an incredible biking photographer who was readily available to {photograph} lots of the bikepacking races I did. After I first began doing paid images gigs, I went to him for recommendation, and my mantra at any time when I had a digital camera in my hand was, “What would Eddie do?”
Athletically, I really like the folks doing inventive initiatives within the mountains. Justin Simoni, together with his 14ers by Bike venture after which Colorado Centennials by Bike venture, was an enormous inspiration in combining two sports activities I really like in a self-supported model that I’ve all the time appreciated. Joe Grant and his under-the-radar romps across the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. Hannah Inexperienced for her all-around badassery, however particularly the Sangres traverse and her Grand Canyon traverse.
Hannah Inexperienced enjoying mannequin for a gear photoshoot. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Meghan Hicks, iRunFar’s Editor in Chief, has in all probability believed in me as a author/editor/photographer in addition to a human and journey accomplice greater than anybody else on this planet. I like the shit out of that girl for every thing she does, and she or he’s taught me extra in regards to the crafts of writing and enhancing, in addition to backcountry journey and being human, than anybody else in my life.
In case you might return in time and provides younger Eszter some recommendation, what would it not be?
You’ll get to precisely the place you need to go, it’s simply not going to have a look at all the way you anticipate it to.
Meghan Hicks stands on a ridgeline on a moody morning outdoors of Silverton, Colorado. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Since you have got a stake in documenting the world of ultrarunning, in the event you might see any change occur, what would you wish to see?
I’d love to determine a solution to inform the tales of individuals placing collectively inventive runs/initiatives. There’s a lot give attention to racing and kit, that are very simply comprehensible and digestible solution to discuss working, however there are such a lot of folks doing actually attention-grabbing non-racing issues that aren’t getting any consideration. How can we inform these tales?
In case you might write a narrative about or {photograph} anybody individual, topic, or subject proper now, what or who would it not be? It doesn’t should be working associated!
Ian Evans. Ian, alongside together with his spouse Jane Evans, began up the working store, Kinisi Working, in Wanaka, New Zealand, a few 12 months and a half in the past. I considerably unintentionally stumbled into their world simply because it was opening, and it’s the primary place that I’ve actually felt like I’ve been “dwelling” within the working world. I feel what he’s constructed is wonderful, and I really feel an enormous quantity of gratitude for having turn into a part of that household.
Journey images of buddies was how it began, and hopefully won’t ever cease. Adventuring with Lorna Hill, New Zealand summer time, 2025. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
And my favourite query, in the event you may very well be a tree what sort of tree would you be?
A New Zealand Mountain beech tree. They stay proper at treeline within the New Zealand mountains in actually spectacular areas on unbelievably steep slopes, they usually have these super-shallow root programs that intertwine with all of the roots of the timber round them. The entire forest primarily holds itself up on these mountains by advantage of being interconnected. And I feel there’s a metaphor to be present in that someplace.
