Mira Rai

Mira Rai, born 31 December 1988, is a Nepalese trail runner and sky runner who has taken part in many international competitions and won numerous awards. Though she has never won the title of World Champion, much of her fame came from winning the 2017 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year title. She comes from a remote village in Bhojpur in eastern Nepal, where her family struggled to meet everyday necessities through farming, and she left school at age 12. At 14 she left home in the middle of the night to join the Maoist insurgency, and when the civil war ended she was discharged because she was a minor. She then travelled to Kathmandu to pursue karate and running, and she won the 50 km Himalayan Outdoor Festival trail race, her first ultramarathon, without proper food, water or technical running clothes.