Riley Brady will tell you that one of the “least interesting” things about them is that they identify as non-binary. A few days before their record-smashing victory at Black Canyon, in early February, Brady wrote the following on Instagram:
“Excited to RACE in the female division as a nonbinary athlete.
Usually, this is not the part of myself I want to draw attention to, especially not on social media. But given the current attempts to erase people like me from the public eye, I feel more obligated to be visible.
Trail and ultra runners ought to contribute to the culture of the sport, and I understand people may have competing views about which values are worth upholding. I want a sport that values empathy and mutual support, and ultras are the perfect sport for expanding our ability to empathize. People already have to wrap their minds around running 30, 60, 100 miles in impossibly short time frames. If we can imagine (and complete!) these feats, imagining a life different from your own, a gender different from your own, should be a comparatively small leap.”
Brady, when recollecting what led to the post, said, “It just felt like there was this onslaught of hatred. So, I guess I felt compelled to do that post. Not that I’m changing anybody’s mind on social media, but I definitely felt an increased urgency, I guess, to be visible just because there’s such a clear push to make trans athletes and people invisible. There is a long history of discrimination towards people in the queer community and a history of arresting people for doing things like cross-dressing, and are we really going back to that era? That’s just so messed up.”
Brady adds, “I recognize that I have somewhat of a platform in the (ultra) community and having had people come up to me and say, ‘Your representation matters so much to me. It matters so much to see people who look like me to be able to do this and just exist.’ I feel like that made me feel more obligated to be more open about this. Because I’m a fairly private person, and also, this is the least interesting thing about me. It’s part of who I am. But there are a lot of parts to who I am.”
Brady says their thoughts “definitely fueled some of my running” at Black Canyon.
“I was actively thinking at Black Canyon, ‘Well, if you don’t want us to exist, then I’m going to go out and win,” Brady says. “It was fuel for my fire.”
Those who know Brady say they weren’t necessarily surprised by the post. In fact, they say, their words become more poignant given how Brady is not the most active social media presence, nor has ever actively engaged with the keyboard warriors of the nation’s culture wars.
“Riley is living their authentic truth and is shining a light that is incredibly inspiring to so many thousands of people, including gender binary athletes,” said Brady’s coach, David Roche. “Within our sport, within this little niche, we can have inclusiveness and love at the forefront. And that’s what Riley represents because of the person they are, and they lift up others because of that.”
There has always been a quiet certainty in the pursuit of the current moment Riley Brady is in. Having a strong sense of what they wanted in becoming one of the sport’s finest competitors has always been there, even when Brady was a college student majoring in anthropology at the University of Vermont, taking those early steps into competition and racing on trails.
“I’ve been doing this almost 10 years now,” Brady says. “I started when I was in college, and I’ve been pretty laser-focused on it. From a pretty young age, I was like, ‘I’m going to get paid to run. I’m going to do this professionally,’ even when it was completely delusional of me.”
Brady’s path to this moment, fresh off Golden Ticket races at the Javelina Jundred last October and Black Canyon 100k in February, followed not long after with a headline-making signing of a groundbreaking contract with Nike, hasn’t necessarily been one that’s been predictable. But it’s been one that Brady knows has been their own.
Photo: Stephen Higgins
Although their agreement with Nike is confidential, Brady’s agent, the Boulder, Colorado-based Kelly Newlon of RAD Boulder, says that in very broad strokes there are some things included in it that should help Brady amplify topics that define them.
“I think Kelly has been really influential,” Brady says of their relationship with a Newlon, a professionally trained chef and nutritionist who, in a very short time, has become one of the most respected agents in ultrarunning. Newlon makes it clear she only works with athletes who embody care for their sport and compassion for all people. “She understands the big picture in ways I don’t,” Brady says. “She’s thinking two steps ahead.”
It’s hard to imagine a story quite like Brady’s. The 29-year-old who, at one point in their life, was a bike mechanic and had to move back home to their hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania, to live with their parents during the pandemic. They’ve since come to represent an interesting duality in the sport: the community-based old school ethos and the new wave electricity of ultrarunning.
Brady earned their first Golden Ticket with a second-place finish at the Javelina Jundred in 2022 in 14:45 and in the last year, they have been on a rocket-ride of incredible performances. Brady’s 14:19 victory at Javelina in October was the second-fastest time in race history. And at February’s Black Canyon 100k – in what many considered perhaps one of the most talented women’s fields ever assembled – Brady shattered Keely Henninger’s course record by nearly 30 minutes, and bested runner-up Tara Dower by almost 10 minutes, in 8:16.
“I was definitely going for the course record,” Brady says. “I had the historic splits written on my arm. But I thought that if I did get the course record, it was going to be like by 2 minutes, maybe 5 minutes. So, it was as surprise when I crossed the finish line.”
“All day long, I couldn’t do the math while I was out there, so for a lot of the day, I was just running on vibes.”
Brady’s performance didn’t come as a surprise to Roche, who knew his athlete had prepared well.
“Not only is Riley talented and tough and always puts in all the work, they just have a commitment — an intellectual commitment — in doing all things they need to do to succeed,” Roche says. “Riley is willing to learn from everybody. There is this intellectual curiosity to everything that Riley does. They keep an open-mindedness to the approach that helps balance the ups and downs as they are figuring things out.”
Brady is part of a youngish, talented and driven group of elite runners who are re-writing the sport’s history. Course records seem to be crumbling by the hour. Finishes that once seemed other-worldly are being replaced every weekend. Of Brady’s place in the sport at the moment, Roche says, “They are beyond the upper edge and they are re-setting what’s possible. It’s inevitable where their future is going. It’s going to be fun, and it’s going to be a wild ride.”
Roche, whose optimistic nature is evident whenever he speaks of Brady’s running prowess, is also well aware that Brady isn’t one-dimensional as a runner, or as a human being. Sure, there have been clear refinements in Brady’s nutrition and hydration since their Western States debut in 2023, where stomach issues led to a 14th-place finish in 20:59. “It was just so bad that year,” Brady says. “That was the first time I’d thrown up so much—and so violently.”
Just as important, though, in Brady’s great running over the past year has been their ability to never forget who they are, and what makes their life enjoyable.
Newlon calls this sort of the essence of who Brady is: “Riley, just being sweet Riley.”
Adds Roche, who also lives in Boulder, “They treat everyone in their lives so well, and so thoughtfully. After Black Canyon, and really, all the time, Riley will just stop by at our house and drop off cookies or frozen cookie batter for us for later. It’s just a 5-minute stop usually, but it’s just because they care so much about us and our kids. They do that for everyone.”
Longtime Vermont 100 race director Amy Rusiecki experienced this all first-hand, long before Riley Brady was smashing course records and signing major deals.
Rusiecki, who has been a top-level runner and who can count her involvement with the sport back nearly 20 years, says Brady’s presence at Rusiecki’s races has usually gone well beyond the times Brady has just run.
“Riley is the type of runner who is involved in the race beyond being a competitor,” Rusiecki says. “I recall them taking a long weekend to volunteer, Thursday through Sunday, in one of the previous editions of the Vermont 100, where they helped out with many behind-the-scenes aspects as well as aid stations.”
“Obviously, Vermont (which dates to 1989) has a ton of history, which I think is cool,” Brady says. “I love that it’s a race that’s based out in a field with no cell signal.” Brady pauses, then adds with a laugh, “You are trapped out there with everybody else. You can’t be on your phone, you have to interact, or at the very least, just kind of have to be present. It’s beautiful in a different way.”
Bill and Ann, Riley’s parents, quickly overcame their initial hesitancy when Riley began running ultras while still in college.
“They’ve crewed me ever since. Having people to support you at these events is so beneficial. Just knowing that my parents aren’t the kind of people who are like, ‘Why aren’t you going to med school? Why aren’t you becoming a lawyer? Why aren’t you following this traditional track?’ Just that they’ve emotionally supported me, ‘Yeah, we think you can do this, and we want to see you succeed in this field.’ I think is so important to have people who are not shooting down what you want to do and not saying, ‘Why aren’t you taking the safe road here?’”
Brady included course-record splits written on their arm during the 2025 Black Canyon 100k, and beat the record by almost 30 minutes. Photo Howie Stern
“Ann and Bill are honestly the best humans I’ve ever met. In retirement they’ve embraced what their kids are doing (Brady has a younger brother, Christopher). They have spreadsheets, they know where the different places on the course are, that’s the meticulous part that I’ve seen from that family. But they’re also very unassuming like Riley, very friendly, very, very intelligent. Very caring, kind of unassuming – I see where that comes from with Riley,” said one of Brady’s long-time friends, Ellie Pell, who is also an elite ultrarunner.
Rusiecki says that Vermont’s long and storied history was only enriched further by Brady’s run there in 2018.
“I believe Vermont 100 was the first hundred where Riley could register as they identify, as non-binary,” Rusiecki says. “And that gave Riley the freedom to be their true self and have that recognized and honored. Both Riley and their parents went out of their way to ensure that the Vermont 100 understood how important this type of inclusivity is. And I’m thrilled to see this becoming more standard across the trail and ultra scene.”
If the past few months have felt like a whirlwind for Brady, it’s only beginning. They will be racing Western States in June with greater familiarity and with a heavy dose of respect for one of the world’s most iconic races. In many ways, the wrecked Western States stomach of a few years ago set the stage for what we are seeing today. For all of its history, many of the stories of success at Western States often begin with memories of painful disappointment. Courtney Dauwalter dropped out at the Green Gate aid station in 2019 with an injured hip and hamstring. The next time she ran the race in 2023, she made it out of Green Gate – and then went on set a new course record.
Brady has Green Gate memories, too.
“I think the key moment was I was coming up from the river to Green Gate, and I just tried to refill my bottles and get out of there,” says Brady, who had been suffering from stomach upset for hours. “And I made it maybe three steps out of the aid station, and I was just violently throwing up. I couldn’t hold my body up.”
Brady will arrive at Western States this year knowing that their last two races were run in hot conditions – Javelina saw record temperatures around 100 degrees – and that both races ended in adding yet another bend to the inflection point of premium performances that the sport is now experiencing.
“If Western States wants to be 120 degrees, that’s what I want,” said Brady.
Brady adds of their competitive mindset for Western States that, “My whole feeling at Black Canyon was, ‘We’re just running out here. That’s all we’re doing.’ I want to carry that into Western States. Obviously, I have competitive goals there, too, but when you focus too much on that, it’s so easy for that to slip through your fingers. You have to like the process. You’re out there for a really long time. I’m looking forward to the different sections of the course and just running.”
Part of the savor is remembering where this journey all started. Brady is part of today’s bold new wave of fast ultrarunners yet still incredibly old school. Even with racing commitments, Brady wants to continue to find ways to volunteer, to help others achieve their goals and to provide the support they’ve received over the years from friends and family.
Brady knows that they have had an incredible year already. Yet, as the past decade has shown, there have been clear ebbs and flows in their life. “All of that seemed to point me in the direction I’m in now,” Brady says.
The goal was always to become a full-time runner, to race the best and maybe redefine the possible. And now that much of this has happened, it feels as if Brady isn’t the only one who has been transported by this somewhat unlikely journey that started a decade ago.
“Being at this sweet spot now,” Brady says, “is kind of the result of chipping away at it for years. In some ways, it’s only just beginning.”