Meet Esther Horanyi. She is an unimaginable individual, to place it calmly. I heard about her when she was on her option to a second-place end on the Ouray 100 Mile in 2017. Somebody mentioned she was a legend within the bikepacking world, and I questioned: Who is that this girl who can also be actually good at ultrarunning?
Through the years, Eszter has turn into not solely somebody I look as much as, however a tremendous pal keen to go the gap for nearly anybody. And he or she is at all times up for any journey. A pair years in the past, she showcased her endurance skillset by snagging the ladies’s unsupported Quickest Identified 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, masking every part from races to bikepacking, packrafting, and fastpacking adventures. And also you’ll by no means see her and not using a digital camera! Her laborious 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 photographs by Eszter Horanyi.
You prefer to take photographs and you want to put in writing. The place/how did your inventive endeavors start, and the way have they developed by way of your life and right into a profession?
I really feel like that is a type of sneaky questions, as a result of I can’t bear in mind a life with out taking photographs and writing. A few of my earliest reminiscences 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 individuals in a five-bedroom home in Boulder, Colorado. I paid $250 per 30 days for my room, and it was the very best of occasions. I wrote lots and took photographs of the (mis)adventures all of us went on, however being at school for physics and engineering, I didn’t actually contemplate writing or images as a viable profession path, regardless that, for probably the most half, I hated what I used to be finding out and cherished telling tales.
Ultimately, I ended having the ability to pretend 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 kind of dwelling 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 loads of partitions over time.
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 undecided if it’s the always-present impostor syndrome that refuses to imagine somebody values my photographs, or simply appreciating the place I’ve discovered myself in. I began by capturing photographs of my mates in lovely locations, and in some way that become a profession.
The identical goes for writing and modifying 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, after all): How did I get right here?
B-roll photograph of Meghan Hicks throughout 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, successful every part 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 developed into different adventures past racing? What will get you most excited lately? And when you may select just one mode of transportation — bike, foot, or packraft — which would it not be, and why?
I acquired burnt out on bikes!
I raced bikes for variety of years, every part 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. Other than BMX, if there was bike self-discipline to race, I most likely tried it at the least 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 have been primarily contests of who may eat probably the most whereas using, and who may greatest take care of the worst climate circumstances/bikes breaking/every part going sideways. I used to be actually good at consuming loads 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 eager to see a motorbike 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 undeniable fact that I caught with working is a testomony to my … stubbornness? Yeah, we’ll go along with stubbornness.
Packrafting with Meghan Hicks in Utah.
However I instantly cherished the locations that my toes may take me that my bike couldn’t. Plus, going uphill is lots simpler while you’re not pushing a motorbike!
I made a couple of bids at working racing early on and made a few of my greatest working mates 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 mates have been in Europe for UTMB and I wanted some kind of distraction in my life, however I feel I’ve settled into the non-competitive aspect of sports activities fairly fortunately lately.
Capturing photographs on the Ouray 100 Mile is simpler than working it.
I actually love the large adventures that mix loads of talent 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, toes, and packrafts is type 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. while you have been two and the way your upbringing helped you persist in each life and work?
I feel in loads of methods, I’m a reasonably traditional 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 throughout the Soviet occupation and the peak of communism.
They positively instilled (whether or not deliberately or not) the notion of doing all of 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 then again, I’ve no endurance for myself once I mess one thing up. Which — I do know — isn’t wholesome.
Taking photographs throughout 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’d by no means have been introduced with all of the alternatives that I’ve had, and so I really feel a little bit of a duty to myself to take advantage of what I’ve acquired.
Who’re among the influences which have impressed you to chase huge targets, whether or not in work, in life, creatively, or athletically?
Eddie Clark is a tremendous biking photographer who was readily available to {photograph} loads of the bikepacking races I did. Once I first began doing paid images gigs, I went to him for recommendation, and my mantra every time I had a digital camera in my hand was, “What would Eddie do?”
Athletically, I really like the individuals doing inventive initiatives within the mountains. Justin Simontogether with his 14ers by Bike challenge after which Colorado Centennials by Bike challenge, was an enormous inspiration in combining two sports activities I really like in a self-supported model that I’ve at all times 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 HicksiRunFar’s Editor in Chief, has most likely believed in me as a author/editor/photographer in addition to a human and journey companion greater than anybody else on this planet. I like the shit out of that lady for every part she does, and she or he’s taught me extra in regards to the crafts of writing and modifying, in addition to backcountry journey and being human, than anybody else in my life.
In the event you may 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 count on it to.
Meghan Hicks stands on a ridgeline on a moody morning outdoors of Silverton, Colorado. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Since you may have a stake in documenting the world of ultrarunning, when you may see any change occur, what would you prefer to see?
I’d love to determine a option to inform the tales of individuals placing collectively inventive runs/initiatives. There’s a lot concentrate on racing and equipment, that are very simply comprehensible and digestible option to speak about working, however there are such a lot of individuals doing actually fascinating non-racing issues that aren’t getting any consideration. How will we inform these tales?
In the event you may write a narrative about or {photograph} anyone individual, topic, or subject proper now, what or who would it not be? It doesn’t must be working associated!
Ian Evans. Ian, alongside together with his spouse Jane Evansbegan up the working store, Kinisi Working, in Wanaka, New Zealand, a few yr 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 “residence” within the working world. I feel what he’s constructed is superb, and I really feel an enormous quantity of gratitude for having turn into a part of that household.
Journey photographs of mates was how it began, and hopefully won’t ever cease. Adventuring with Lorna Hill, New Zealand summer season, 2025. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
And my favourite query, when you might 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, and so they 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.
