ITRA Index and UTMB Index, explained

The ITRA Performance Index

The ITRA Performance Index is published by the International Trail Running Association. Each of your race results is scored from your finish time against the measured difficulty of that course - not from your finish position, and not from the strength of the field. Winning a small race and placing mid-pack in a deep one can produce the same score if the times relative to the course are the same.

Your index is then a weighted mean of up to your five best scores from the past 36 months. Better results count more, recent results count more, and anything older than about 12 months progressively loses weight until it drops out entirely at 36 months. So the index decays if you stop racing, which is intended: it describes current form, not a career.

You get a general index covering races above 20K, plus separate indexes per distance category. Someone strong at 50K and untested at 100 miles will show that in the category breakdown, which is the part most people forget to look at.

ITRA points vs the ITRA index

ITRA points rate the race, not the runner. Every race ITRA evaluates is worth 0 to 6 endurance points, set by its km-effort: the distance in kilometres plus one for every 100 m of climbing. Every finisher earns the same number of points, whatever their time. The ITRA index is the opposite: it rates you, from 0 to 1000, on how fast you ran.

ITRA's bands: 0 points under 25 km-effort, then 1 point from 25, 2 from 45, 3 from 75, 4 from 115, 5 from 155 and 6 from 210 km-effort. UTMB Mont-Blanc, at 174 km with 10,000 m of climbing, comes to 274 km-effort and is worth 6 points. ITRA can award fewer to a race with an unusually dense chain of aid stations.

Points used to be the entry ticket for UTMB Mont-Blanc. They no longer are: its lottery now asks for Running Stones and a UTMB Index, below.

The UTMB Index

The UTMB Index is a separate score, run by UTMB World, and it is built from results at UTMB World Series races. It uses the same 0-1000 presentation, which is exactly why the two get confused, but it is computed by a different organisation from a different pool of races. A high ITRA index does not give you a UTMB Index, and the two numbers will not match.

The UTMB Index is also not the same thing as Running Stones. Stones are a qualification currency awarded for finishing designated races, by race category rather than by performance. The Index says how fast you are; Stones say whether you can enter the lottery.

What is a good ITRA index?

Treat these as rough bands rather than thresholds, and remember they shift by distance category. Elite international men sit around 900 and above, with the elite women's scale calibrated separately. A competitive regional runner is broadly in the 600s and 700s. A solid mid-pack ultra finisher tends to land somewhere in the 450-550 range, and a first ultra finish inside the cutoffs commonly scores in the 300s.

The useful comparison is almost never against the whole world. It is against your own index twelve months ago, and against the people you actually finish near.

How to check your ITRA index

Go to itra.run and search your name in the runner search. Your profile shows your general Performance Index, your index in each distance category, and the race results it is built from. If you have not yet finished a race ITRA evaluates, there is no index to find.

Both lookups are free and neither requires an account to search. For your ITRA Performance Index, use the runner search at itra.run. For your UTMB Index, use the runner search at utmb.world, or open your runner profile if you have finished a UTMB World Series event.

Neither organisation publishes its exact per-race scoring formula. That is why no calculator outside those two sites can produce your official number, and why anything that claims to is estimating.