UTMB has one of its busiest weekends of the year with four events all over the globe. Ultra-Trail Great Wall in Dajingmen, China joined the World Series just last year and offered 3 ‘stone races’ and an additional short distance event with a mostly Chinese affair on the podium. I’ll be adding more commentary once all the results are in.

Find all UTMB coverage on my dedicated UTMB page here.

For full results visit the UTMB website, below the top runners by race:

100KM 104km (100K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Wenli JIANG – CHN – 12:40:50
2. Liting ZHOU – CHN – 12:57:29
3. aili wang – CHN – 13:51:46

Men:

1. Guidu QIN – CHN – 09:44:18
2. Ji DUO – CHN – 10:07:03
3. MENGKAI BATE – CHN – 10:48:27

50KM 54km (50K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. ting zhang – CHN – 05:11:54
2. Ruifang Zhou – CHN – 05:32:35
3. Ying li – CHN – 05:33:04

Men:

1. Erqing WU – CHN – 04:20:12
2. Juwei ZI – CHN – 04:30:54
3. FUJUN HE – CHN – 04:33:39

30KM 33km (10K – 1 Stone)

Race about to start

Full event summary to follow.

Next up is Mountain Ultra Trail by UTMB in George along the Garden Route in South Africa on 11-15 May, 2025.

The same races were chosen as for 2025, which is probably a good thing and creates some stability for events managers, athletes, and the media supporting the events.

One small but potentially no insignificant change compared to last year:

At the races (CCC, Black Canyon and Canyons) handing out 2 x 3 Golden Tickets the potential roll down will now go as far as 7th place.

Martin Cox from VO2max Coaching tries out Jason Koop coaching tool ‘KoopAI’:

Bizarrely, the KoopAI program generator doesn’t consider the athlete’s gender, age, training age, race experience, or initial performance status! Worse still, there’s no screening for current health issues – e.g. for increased risk for adverse exercise-related events, such as cardiovascular, pulmonary, and metabolic related diseases, as well as other conditions.

The list of omissions is endless! KoopAI doesn’t account for the majority of the variables that a competent and responsible coach should and, in many cases, MUST ask an athlete before starting to work with them.

It’s not surprising that the tool is rudimentary, faulty, and lacking any built in ability to respond to the athlete, almost all AI tools are promising, but in a sort of ‘beta stage’, to call this most charitable.

But Martin’s concluding thoughts explain what KoopAI really is all about:

The tragedy of KoopAI is not merely that it’s a bad product. The tragedy is that it represents a trend – of individuals mistaking influence for insight, ambition for wisdom, performance for meaning. We’re witnessing the rise of a new kind of coach: Not the mentor in the background, but the brand in the foreground. Not the quiet guide, but the loudest voice in the room.

We see a rising trend of coaches abandoning the shadows – where the best coaches belong – for the limelight of brand-building and content creation. KoopAI feels like a product of such striving: not for better coaching, but for industry dominance.

To the point.

Suunto introduces a super fun looking, and incredibly aggressive priced entry-level watch ‘Run’. Their marketing materials show a super cool looking orange version which doesn’t seem to be available in the US yet. I also love the look of their new band. Ray Maker has a full breakdown of all the new features and details on his website:

Suunto has just announced the Suunto Run, arguably one of Suunto’s best-priced watches in years – at least if you’re a runner. The device takes most of the features of the popular Suunto Race S introduced last year, and shaves off a bit of the multi-sport components, like power meter support (but keeping triathlon mode), as well as skips offline topographic maps. However, it also adds a boatload of new features, including offline music support, outdoor running track mode, and a host of new training and recovery features.

The kicker though, as evidenced by the review title, is that it comes in at just $249. In a spring of ever-escalating prices, this is pretty astonishing, especially for such a feature-packed running watch. Granted, it won’t appeal as deeply to trail runners wanting offline maps (don’t worry, course/route navigation is still there), but for anyone doing on-road running, it’s something to consider.

Only downside of this watch, which obviously has shorter battery life (but that I don’t consider a downside given the price and target market) is this, and Ray agrees with me here:

Finally, I’ll note that Suunto has changed charging cables here. I’m generally not a fan of companies changing charging cables, though they noted that realistically the target market for this watch is a consumer who doesn’t likely already have a Suunto (or at least, a recent one), so a different charging cable isn’t a huge deal.

However, it should be pointed out this charging cable properly sucks. Specifically, it only works in one unclear orientation (not a huge deal-breaker), but more annoyingly is the magnets are wimpier than trying to use a single square of toilet paper after Taco Bell. It simply doesn’t hold to the watch against even casually moving the watch with the charger. Sigh.

Suunto’s current charging cable for the Race and Race S was already a huge point of annoyance for me, now they improved it by adding USB-C but made the charging mechanism somehow worse? How? Why? Who’s deciding that shipping this is somewhat a good idea? I don’t get it.

From the official press release:

• Already a partner of the UTMB^® World Series events in France, Sidas has become a partner of the circuit for 3 years.
• The partnership will cover European events in 2025, including the UTMB World Series Finals at the HOKA UTMB^® Mont-Blanc, and will extend to the entire global UTMB World Series circuit in 2026 and 2027.

Hoka athlete Jim Walmsley is already sponsored by Sidas the French sock, insole, and foot care company. Seems like a logical next step for Sidas to increase their partnership with UTMB and introduce their products to the wider world.

Observation: Over the last couple of years a trend emerged that had elite runners focus specifically in ‘heat training’. We heard of sauna sessions, indoor overall treadmill runs and optimizing our hats, packs and shirts to allow us to carry ice packs on various parts of our bodies. But this year several events have seen really unseasonal weather, and with it several high profile DNFs that could be, or were directly attributed to the cold temps, the bad weather, and general lousy conditions. Have the elites overcorrected and focused too much on optimizing their racing on dealing with the heat and aren’t preparing themselves enough to deal with the reverse conditions? Are we minimizing our gear and clothing too much and ending up unprepared to ‘grind it out’ in unforeseen conditions?

I hadn’t paid attention to iRunFar’s feature of posting their usual live race updates on their website and not just on X/Twitter, which nobody but MAGA jerks and AI bots read anymore. The page is really well done, I like it.

Ken Seals writes The Ultra Minute, a weekly newsletter delivering race results and more from the ultra world:

The Ultra Minute isn’t just another results roundup. Every Tuesday, I deliver the latest highlights, key race results, notable stories, and must-read links. This isn’t just a news digest either—it’s a curated mix of the narratives and voices shaping trail and ultra running today.

Great one-stop way to stay up to date and get a quick overview of what’s going on in our world of trail and ultra running. Ken just turned on paid subscription. Sign up for free, read for a couple of weeks and you’ll want to be a subscriber. Only downside is it’s on Substack… but what are you gonna do, right?

In this week’s edition which was just published Ken has a great summary of the Cocodona 250 media coverage:

Huge props to Mountain Outpost and the rest of the livestream crew, who made the event feel like the ultimate ultra-community gathering. Last year, I believe the peak viewership for the Cocodona stream was around 6,500. This year? I personally saw over 12,000 tuned in live as Dan Green jogged toward history. (Edit: Jamil Coury sent me the hard data: a peak of 13.7k concurrent viewers!) And according to Corinne Shalvoyon Instagram, they’ve already had 130k views of stream 1. The sport is growing. And Cocodona is something truly special.

These are impressive numbers, I heard that their followers on Youtube grew so fast that they got flagged as a spam account for a few hours.

Unseasonable weather brought snow, mud, rain and sleet to the desert of Arizona for the 2025 Cocodona 250. What was heralded at one of the most competitive 200+mile races didn’t exactly live up to the hype as some of the favorites DNF’ed fairly early on, or didn’t even make it to the starting line.

None of this though takes away from the feat of all the runners to had the guts to step over that starting line and make their way to Flagstaff some 250+miles away. What a feat.

Below are the top results for the 250 mile race. For all other distances visit the Aravaipa website:

Women:

1. Rachel Entrekin – Colorado, USA – 63:50:55
2. Lindsey Dwyer – California, USA – 79:35:28
3. Sarah Ostaszewski – Colorado, USA – 80:25:31

Men:

1. Dan Green – West Virginia, USA – 58:47:00
2. Ryan Sandes – Cape Town, South Africa – 61:24:04
3. Edher Ramirez – Nevada, USA – 63:10:13

Here’s what I wrote in conclusion of my first ECC Live Coverage:

This race is kind of nuts, isn’t it. It’s been over 24hrs that the first finishers of the Cocodona 250 arrived at Heritage Square in Flagstaff and now, on Thursday night we still have more runners out on the course as finishers who completed this race. Of course, this journey folks put themselves on is tremendous, a huge achievement, and triumph to even attempt something like this. It’s commendable, it’s worthy of praise and lots and lots of Strava Kudos. But, with that said, this event does feel like, as much as is was created as the ultimate challenge for runners (and set as a direct response to Destination Trail’s 200 mile event successes) it was also one of the first big events that was created with the media coverage in mind. A event for runners and for spectators. And as I have loved covering it from afar I must say it’s hard to stick with it. Many of the folks I chat with online have moved on from the actual action on the course to debating logistics, behind the scenes business, or quite frankly already the next event on the calendar. And yes, if you know someone still out there battling you are still investing, I don’t begrudge you this and I cheer you on from afar. But from my end, at my current attention span level, I must admit I need a break.

I’ll add some final notes to this after the conclusion of the event, but for now: sleep, and I didn’t even run that beast.

 Kate Robertson reporting for Shop Surf Eat X Outdoor:

Tariffs, public lands threats, labor disputes, and ongoing financial challenges are just some of the issues Laughton addressed at Thursday’s annual members meeting. 

And most importantly:

Three nominees to the board didn’t receive enough votes from members.

Yeah, not good. Lots of difficult challenges ahead for new CEO Mary Beth Laughton.

This last post about Francois going back to UTMB brings me to an interesting comparison I heard people trying to make over the last few days.

Which event is more/bigger/popular/important (pick your qualifier): Cocodona 250 or Tor de Géants. Both races are “really long”, both are hard, both are noteworthy. For folks (Americans, let’s be real) who’ve been glued to YouTube these past few days and are now declaring Cocodona to to be the biggest “BIG” trail race “in the world” I ask you this question: Of all the winners/podium finishers at Cocodona has there been one that if he or she would announce they are running UTMB would be instantly in contention for the podium? Or, has any UTMB winner already won Cocodona? François won TOR in 2024, won UTMB four times, and with his announcement to run UTMB this summer is in instant contention for the podium.

Germany Katharina Hartmuth won the women’s race at TOR last year and set a huge course record, came in 3rd at Hardrock that same year and will be going back to Hardrock this July. If she’d announce her return to UTMB she also would be considered an immediate contender for the podium.

Beyond the elite field attraction it’s also worth noting that TOR in 2024 had 554 finishers!, not counting the DNFs. Cocodona 250 had just ~300 starters! this year.

Not dissing on Cocodona here, but let’s be real, this is no comparison.

I posted this article above just before heading out on my run and I had one more thought I wanted to add:

When it comes to media attention Cocodona wins compared to TOR, hands down. Cocodona in many ways feels like a race truly created with the online spectators in mind. And of course this is no surprised given that Jamil Coury is the mastermind behind this event. Just like the Barkely Marathons, which also attracts an outsized fandom compared to the runners actually participating in it, Cocodona too has an outsized media attention, considering its still very young history. Is it the biggest? Well considering its history it certainly is impressive, but I suppose Cocodona would have to measure itself against UTMB and Western States in that regard and that takes us to an entirely different conversation.

François D’Haene announced on Instagram his schedule of races/runs he’s targeting for 2025.

He’s going for the Nolan 14 FKT, which is super exciting, but what I find even more so is that he’ll be back for UTMB in 2025.

Today is all about the records. Here’s another one that just was reset: At the Legends Backyard Ultra in Belgium on 26 April 2025 Łukasz Wróbel ran for 116 and Jan Vandekerckhoe for 115 hours. Keeley Milne for Canadian Running:

Polish ultrarunner Łukasz Wróbel set a staggering new backyard ultra world record on Wednesday at Legends Backyard Belgium, held in Retie, Belgium. Starting early Saturday morning, Wróbel ran for 116 consecutive hours, racking up more than 777 kilometres. Belgian runner Jan Vandekerckhove served as Wróbel’s assist, finishing 115 yards before he could no longer continue.

Unfathomable distances… and really the perfect sport for the Olympics – have the event be the first to start after the Opening Ceremony and see if runners last for the entire time.

Thanks Federico Hernandez for reminding me to share this.

Eszter Horanyi shares the massive records for iRunFar:

For six days and six nights, while most of us went about our daily lives, Megan Eckert and Ivan Zaborsky ran, and at the end of 144 hours of singular focus, they both emerged with new six-day world records. When the event ended at noon local time on Sunday, May 4, Eckert of the U.S. and Zaborsky of Russia had run 603.155 and 650.919 miles (970.685 and 1,047.554 kilometers), respectively, at the 2025 Six Days of France race, held in Vallon Pont d’Arc, France.

What’s worth pointing out here is the following:

Eckert broke Camille Herron’s previous record…

As is usual, both records are pending ratification.

We will wait and see… and maybe check Wikipedia.

Rock Candy Running’s oldest race our Little Backyard Adventure is in danger by plans to cut a road right through the LBA park and woods essentially killing the race course, and so much more in the process.

Learn how you can get involved and stop this madness from happening.

A good article written by the mysterious Outdoor Wall on the phenomenon that is Cocodona :

Following the race remotely becomes a collective experience at the same level as living it through the Arizona desert. Users’ activity during the live stream blends the unilateral activity of watching a sport event passively with the active action of commenting live the event itself.

I’m sucked into this as well this year. My version of responding to this can be found here.

Amazean Jungle Thailand by UTMB is emerging from the tunnel this weekend. Have you seen these incredible photos of where this race is held? This races starting out of this tunnel are so fun. One thing that stuck out to me is how many different nationalities made it on to the podium at this year’s event – probably one of the more diverse podiums we’ve seen.

Just like last weekend I’ll be posting updates of the races as they conclude below.

Find all UTMB coverage on my dedicated UTMB page here.

For full results visit the UTMB website, below the top runners by race:

Betong 100M 109KM (100M – 4 Stones)

Women:

1. Junyue Zheng – China – 21:23:47
2. Rejlen James – Malaysia – 25:10:21
3. Rakchanok Sutammajarn – Thailand – 25:21:45

Men:

1. Gediminas Grinius – Lithuania – 16:02:38
2. Sangé Sherpa – Nepal – 17:36:31
3. Senee Seesen – Thailand – 18:31:37

Tunnel 100K 85KM (100K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. JIANGRONG YUAN – China – 13:33:16
2. Siok Har Lim – Malaysia – 14:28:47
3. Nguyet Nguyen Thi – Vietnam – 15:46:57

Men:

1. Riccardo Montani – Italy – 09:32:31
2. PEIQUAN YOU – China – 10:16:43
3. Milton Amat – Malaysia – 10:52:39

Jungle 50K 50KM (50K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Priya RAI – Nepal – 06:28:22
2. Natalia Mastrota – Italy – 06:42:52
3. Anna WSCISLAK – Poland – 06:55:02

Men:

1. Yutaro YOKOUCHI – Japan – 05:27:50
2. Davide LIU – Italy – 05:37:17
3. WILSEN SINGGIN – Malaysia – 05:50:19

Mist 20K 23KM (20K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Olga BARANOVA – Neutral Athlete – 02:46:12
2. Yupa SAELEE – Thailand – 03:23:10
3. Eryn TAN – Malaysia – 03:28:36

Men:

1. Gabriele VERGNANO – Italy – 02:34:45
2. MOHAMAD AFFINDI NUDIN – Malaysia – 02:38:18
3. Hideyuki KAWADA – Japan – 02:41:50

Flower 20K 17KM (20K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Soraya SAAIT – Thailand – 01:44:48
2. Sopha AMNUAIPHON – Thailand – 01:59:32
3. Thong Wei KOA – Malaysia – 02:02:08

Men:

1. Turizan SULAIMAN – Malaysia – 01:42:20
2. Saddam PITTLI – Malaysia – 01:33:53
3. Jirapat Khowinthawong – Thailand – 01:38:07

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• Betong 100M Starters: 138. DNF: 78 + Finishers: 60. Women 6 (10%), Men 54 (90%).
• Tunnel 100K Starters: 152. DNF: 79 + Finishers: 73. Women 12 (16%), Men 61 (84%).
• Jungle 50K Starters: 646. DNF: 142 + Finishers: 505. Women 126 (25%), Men 379 (75%).
• Mist 20K Starters: 710. DNF: 65 + Finishers: 645. Women 211 (33%), Men 434 (67%).
• Flower 20K Starters: 392. DNF: 0 + Finishers: 392. Women 168 (43%), Men 224 (57%).
• Saturday 4K info not available.

Especially the 100M and 100K races saw a pretty high DNF rate. And even the 50K had a rather large number of runners not reaching the finish. Overall Amazean Jungle Thailand by UTMB saw a total 2,038 starters and 1,675 finishers. 523 (31%) women and 1,152 (69%) men reached the finish line and earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025).

In a couple of weeks we have an insane week with 4! four UTMB events at the same time: The third edition of the incredibly popular Trail Alsace Grand Est in the Alsace region of France and the world’s second-largest Ultra-Trail – and for the first time the Major for the Oceania Region – the Ultra-Trail Australia, both on 15-18 May, 2025. And Ultra-Trail Great Wall in China and Ultra-Trail Snowdonia in Wales on 16-18 May, 2025. Busy weekend!

Episode 331 with Marcel Höche:

Marcel Höche is back on the show and he’s calling in from Japan with an update on his never ending racing season. We talk what races he’s ran in between finishing is masters degree and he gives us an behind the scenes look at his exciting new business venture: Sunn Nutrition, a brand new high carb drink mix.

Links

• Marcel on Singletrack
• Marcel Höche on Instagram
• SUNN. Nutrition

Zoë Rom for iRunFar with more details on this (upcoming) mess:

While much about the tariffs and their implementation, such as the percentages, the timeline, and whether they’ll be levied at all, remains uncertain, all the sources for this article forecasted that they would result in higher prices and reduced consumer spending.

USA. USA. USA.

From an overlay on their main homepage:

Dear U.S. Trail Runners,

We have made the difficult decision to temporarily pause all shipping to the United States.

The current tariff situation, that comes into effect May 2, would force us to increase our prices to a point we do not feel is right to pass onto you at this time.

This is going to get ugly. And I am glad I bought my Prodigio Pros when I did. I wonder if the real reason why La Sportiva has had their flagship production backorder on their website over the last few weeks has something to do with the tariffs and not so much with the demand.