For folks who completed the “famous” Cushman Six route I made the shirt, I designed as a gift to Scott and Chris who accompanied me on the initial run, available for everyone. Yes, anyone can wear the shirt now, but only those who completed the full Cushman Six route and are listed on the FKT website should wear it. But, I’m not gonna check, just judge from afar – we warned.

Steve Larese for Outside Business Journal:

VF Corporation is laying off 300 employees and eliminating 300 open positions…

This comes with the caveat that:

VF reported an increase in total income to $2.3 billion for Q1 FY 2023.

So clearly a company growing revenue must layoff its employees.

And further:

The North Face saw an increase of $500 million, while Vans revenue declined almost $1 billion.

Clearly the “outdoors” are the new “street”.

And another thought:

VF seems to be letting The North Face go all in on their athlete team and they are increasing their trail running shoe offering. This might not be good news for Altra, another one of the brands in their portfolio. It’s direct competiton and The North Face clearly has a bigger visibility, by a mile. This could be a reason on why we haven’t seen much from Altra lately. No new event sponsorships, no big athletes on podiums.

A thought that popped into my head this weekend as I was following and covering UTMB this year:

What Chamonix and UTMB is to trail running, Yosemite Valley and El Capitan is to climbing.

The images that this race provides are unlike any others. The exhilaration and inspiration it creates reminds me of the hey days of 80’s rock climbing in Yosemite Valley. Yes, mountain climbing had existed in the Alps and the Himalayas long before the stone monkeys ascended to the Valley and did they crazy climbs. And as such, Western States will always be considered the cradle of ultra trail running, but just like Yosemite climbing culture redefined how we look at and what we think of mountain climbing, racing UTMB redefines running ultras. I am not trying to take away anything from other races, but these performances and these visuals of mountain runners we’ve experienced and seen this past week will define our sport for many years to come.

Kilian Jornet on Instagram:

…Eat, eat and eat more. A ultratrail is a eating challenge while running and hiking on nice places.

This blog is not meant for training tips and advise, but this one made me smile… and also sit up and think about my fueling strategies for long runs.

Singletrack – Episode 250:

Beast of Big Creek 2022 DFL Champions Dawn Golden and Jacque Hooyer are in the house. They join Singletrack to chat about training routines, how they decide on what races to run, and their major marathon projects for this fall. And of course the main conversation is around racing up and down the trails of Mt. Ellinor, joys and cheers at the aid station, and that special feeling of finishing last, but still being celebrated as winners.

LINKS

• Dawn Golden on Instagram
• Jacque Hooyer on Instagram
• Beast of Big Creek will be back for 2023.

Damian Hall about Jasmin Park’s UTMB:

Most inspiring @UTMB performance? For me it was @jasminKparis. She didn’t have the race she hoped for, but she lives her values. The @thegreenrunnerz co-founder took low-carbon travel and diet options, and eschews sponsorship. Oh and she’s effing nails.

In her own words:

I’m grateful and happy that my attempt to run UTMB in a climate conscious fashion received a share of the public and media attention this week, and I sincerely hope that it will be a catalyst for action in the running community and beyond, towards a fitter planet for all.

This is the challenge of our times. How can we engage in these global sporting events when our planet is melting down. Air travel, sponsor swag, non-recyclable waste create an unsustainable carbon output that increase the melting of the very glaciers we love as backdrops for these incredible images we’ve seen of runners run in the shadow of Mont Blanc this weekend. Hiding under a rock is not the solution either, but we gotta try harder.

… The @ComradesRace lets the top women start on one side of the road and the top men on the other side. The men are very courteous. Comrades is the largest and most diverse ultra in the world! I wish the American and international media recognized it more. Gold standard.

 Comrades does everything they can to make their event accessible, welcoming, and affordable to everyone! They have affordable entry fees for African runners, club support, and even a program for underprivileged runners. 

Comrades is an Ultra, yes. And needs more global attention, yes. We’ve conflated trail/mountain/ultra running into one and as the sport grows, a diversification will help the media and the average population make more sense of it and tell better stories.

Liam Tryon did the work on Twitter, I did for Western States and Hardrock a few weeks ago:

A shoe (or apparel, if no shoe) sponsorship breakdown of all of the top 10 (male and female) finishers of this week’s #UTMB races (includes OCC, CCC, TDS and UTMB), with info sourced from live.utmb.world/utmb and/or the athlete’s social media, based on my best understanding:

Overall, combined from all 4 #UTMB2022 races:
Hoka – 10
Salomon – 9
Adidas Terrex – 9
The North Face – 9
Brooks Running – 5
ASICS – 5
NNormal – 2
Scarpa – 2
Scott – 2
Merrell – 2
ON – 2
Arcteryx – 2
Evadict – 2

Here’s what I replied to Liam:

Adidas is funny to mean. They have such a successful athletes program but I know no one personally that TRAIL runs in Adidas shoes. I don’t know what shoe is good for what distance and I don’t know who stocks them.

Clearly Adidas is the big success story here, especially if you realize that Nike is nowhere in that mix. The Adidas athlete team is on fire, well-managed and successful. But! How is that marketing translating into sales? We know the names of the best shoes by many of the other brands. We know where to buy the shoes and we know the basic differences in shoes styles and features. For Adidas? No clue. No idea about any of the names, or the features, or the prices, or where to buy them (except maybe directly in adidas.com). Adidas is winning races, but not sure this is a winning strategy going forward?

UTMB, the full circumnavigation of the Mont-Blanc is why we’re here in Chamonix, why we’re glued to the screens and frantically refreshing our social networks. The race is 170 kilometers and 10,000 ft of vertical gain. There are tougher races in the world, but there aren’t any that are also attempted by over 2,500 people each year. The 2022 edition saw 838 DNFs with many notable runners not making it far due to getting sick or injured or just plain not making it.

Here are the top three women:

1. Katie SCHIDE – USA 23:15:12
2. Marianne HOGAN – Canada – 24:31:22
3. Kaytlyn GERBIN – USA – 25:07:44

This was the North America show, through and through. And while we’re joking about a curse on why the American men seemingly are unable to win this race the women continue to dominate and are almost making a mockery of this storyline. Of course there isn’t a curse, and there are other reasons, and one of them is named “Kilian Jornet” but this will be for a separate post.

And the top three men:

1. Kilian JORNET BURGADA – Spain – 19:49:30
2. Mathieu BLANCHARD – France – 19:54:50
3. Thomas EVANS – Great Britain – 20:34:35

Top American man was Jim Walmsley in 4th and in 21:12:12.

Kilian and Mathieu broke the 20hrs for the first time in the history of the race. The weather was favorable and the two pushed themselves do obliterate the competition in what had seemed like a surefire win for Jim who lead after the Grand Col Ferret by 12 min. Man, this race is so long and in ultras so much can happen in the span of many miles and many hours. It was another incredible show to witness.

Full results can be found here.

I forgot to post the CCC results amidst the flurry of events that transpired this weekend, which included my birthday as well.

A wild race that winds through the well-known “Grande Randonnée du Tour du Mont-Blanc (GR TMB)” trail.

CCC is UTMB’s second most popular race with 101 kilometer distance and 6,100 meters vertical gain. 1,900 runners begin their race in the Italian town of Courmayeur on Friday 26th of August at 9am. From Italy this race travels along the UTMB course to Switzerland before making its way to Chamonix, where all races finish.

Here are the top three women:

1. Blandine L’HIRONDEL – France – 11:40:55
2. Sunmaya BUDHA – Nepal – 11:45:44
3. Abby HALL – USA – 12:12:56

American Abby Hall makes it onto the podium – congrats. She’s the second American making it onto a UTMB 2022 podium, after Dani Moreno grabbing third in this year’s OCC.

And the top three men:

1. Petter ENGDAHL – Sweden – 09:53:02
2. Jonathan ALBON – Great Britain – 10:16:26
3. Andreas REITERER – Italy – 10:23:16

Top American was Caleb OLSON in 13th place and 11:13:24.

Full results can be found here.

“Stupidest, most fun thing I’ve done in my entire life.”

They finished the 15km in 03:39:37 and 534th place. Amazing!

Singletrack – Episode 249:

Matt Urbanski is back on Singletrack and he’s calling in from freakin’ Chamonix. Jealous! Matt just ran the Hardrock 100 and is here to share what it means to toe this extraordinary start line for the first time and run alongside the legends of our sport around this mighty mountains in the San Juans in Colorado. We chat about what makes a race so remarkable that people want to sign up for it year after year, and of course, I had to ask Matt a bit about the atmosphere in Chamonix in these last few weeks before the biggest event in trail and mountain runnings.

LINKS

• Team Run Run
• Matt Urbanski – running coach
• Team Run Run on Instagram

OCC is the “shorter Swiss version” running from Orsiéres via Champex to Chamonix. 1,200 runners embarked on the 56 Kilometer race with 3,500 meters of elevation gain. The race started Thursday 25th of August at 8:15am.

This year’s OCC was clearly the ‘Spanish Show’ with the top 2 spots for the women and men going to Spanish runners.

Here are the top three women:

1. Sheila AVILÉS CASTAÑO – Spain – 06:10:16
2. Núria GIL CLAPERA – Spain – 06:16:03
3. Dani MORENO – USA – 06:17:05

Yes, Dani Moreno is the first American who’s made it onto a podium at the 2022 UTMB events. Amazing performance, congrats!

And the top three men:

1. Manuel MERILLAS – Spain – 05:18:29
2. Antonio MARTÍNEZ PÉREZ – Spain – 05:21:01
3. Robbie SIMPSON – Great Britain – 05:24:00

Top American man was Justin GRUNEWALD in 12th and in 05:56:08.

Full results can be found here.

A couple of things before we dive into the numbers:

I tried a variety of ways of getting these numbers. Each trail race event lists their entry lists in a different way. Some make it easy, some have small fields and few runners and getting info is straightforward. Yes, I could try reaching out to events management to ask for that data in official capacity as journalist, but I see myself more as a blogger with a passion. Having said this, with UTMB I do have official press credentials and contacted the UTMB press office, but haven’t had any luck getting that information, seems they see me as just a blogger too. I also tried pulling that data manually from the public-facing entry list on the official UTMB website but I gave up trying to pull 10,000 names into a spreadsheet. Well, Liam Tryon reached out to me on Twitter and shared his list – thank you for doing the herculean job of getting this info put into a spreadsheet. The data is just for the big daddy UTMB race, but this gives us a good starting point.

According to official 2022 Entrants List there are 2811 starters taking on the full 171 kilometer loop around Mont-Blanc.

• 2538 men – 90.3%
• 273 women – 9.7%

I don’t even know what to say. I really don’t. This is so pathetically low. I would love to see how many women runners register for the lottery and how this could get balanced out. Speechless.

According to the official historical results listed on the UTMB website for the main UTMB event

• In 2021 there were a total of 1521 finishers and 111 or 7.3% were women.
• In 2019 there were a total of 1555 finishers and 144 or 9.2% were women.
• In 2018 there were a total of 1776 finishers and 166 or 9.3% were women.

Well, while being so entirely baffled I decided to dig a bit more and pull out more numbers for all the UTMB events, but just for the US runners. Remember there are 10,000 total runners and the website did not make it easy to get this data. If there’s interest I can expand on this and add additional countries, just let me know.

There are a total of 562 American runners registered to run this year’s UTMB events. 404 are men or 71.9%, 158 women or 28.1%. This breaks down among the various events like so:

UTMB: 199

• Men: 170 – 85.4%
• Women: 29 – 14.6%

CCC: 151

• Men: 111 – 73.5%
• Women: 40 – 26.5%

TDS: 62

• Men: 42 – 67.7%
• Women: 20 – 32.3%

OCC: 79

• Men: 44 – 55.7%
• Women: 35 – 44.3%

PTL: 16

• Men: 14 – 87.5%
• Women: 2 – 12.5%

MCC: 13

• Men: 7 – 53.8%
• Women: 6 – 46.2%

ETC: 39

• Men: 14 – 35.9%
• Women: 25 – 64.1%

YCC: 3

• Men: 2 – 66.7%
• Women: 1 – 33.3%

So overall and even just for the main UTMB event the US slightly bucks the overall trend here.

There were a total of 22,853 entry applications for this year’s UTMB events and over more than 100 nations are represented. The US sits in 5th place of most runners represented with France, Spain, Italy and the UK taking the 1-4 spots.

Just like in other trail race events I’ve studied over the last few month, the shorter races see a higher women participation. This makes think that in some ways this imbalance is still very much a societal issue and not just an events policy issue. But regardless of what happens in our societies and regardless of what the math spits out after the lottery process is concluded, the events managers would do well to sit down and ask themselves on how they want their events to look and feel and what image they want to portrait to the world. The most drastic and simple solution is offered by the High Lonesome 100 race out of Colorado: Have two lotteries. One for men and one for women. That’s how you get gender parity and have your race be truly representative of humanity and of the world we want to live in.

Thanks again to Liam Tryon for providing me with the initial data dump.

As much as the consensus in the general public is that COVID is over, clearly it’s not. And while we might not see the insane deaths we saw at the beginning of the pandemic, thanks to the vaccines and mutations, and other factors, clearly people are still getting sick. And it doesn’t matter where you stand on the issue, we all are excited for these big races. As runners we train, spend a lot of money and time getting ourselves to these places and having it all be taken away from us but this stupid virus is more than just unfortunate. We can’t let ourselves get lulled into the belief that this is ‘the new normal’. This situation still very much sucks. It sucks for race directors wanting things back to normal, wanting people to gather, enjoy community, and wanting runners to give their best at each race. It sucks for runners and it sucks for us as spectators. We love this sport and we love following along, rooting for our favorites, and wanting to see a stacked field dueling it out at the top. It’s too soon for us to let our guards down.

Lots of articles abound highlighting the top runners and their chances at the big race at this year’s UTMB events. In this one Liam Tryon dives into some fascinating numbers I’ve not seen before. Tables! Stats!

• Who has a chance for “the double” (Western States and UTMB in one year).
• Why going out too fast early in the race can lead to disaster.
• A look at the historical French dominance at UTMB.

The TDS is “The Wild Alternative”. (TDS is an acronym for “Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie” (following the footprints of the Dukes of Savoie). This race started in Courmayeur on Tuesday the 23rd of August at middnight and runs for 145 kilometer with a massive 9,100 meters of elevation gain. The race had 1774 starters and runners are currently still arriving in Chamonix, but the top runners have made it to the finish line.

Here are the top three women:

1. Martina Valmassoi – Italy – 22:42:47
2. Claudia Tremps – Spain – 22:59:38
3. Katharina Hartmuth – Germany – 23:22:18

Top American woman is Stacey Marion who ran with her sister Jessica Marion and they arrived in 52nd and 53rd place in 27:11:41 and 27:11:42 respectively.

And the top three men:

1. Ludovic Pommeret – France – 18:37:04
2. Joaquin Lopez – Ecuador – 19:32:09
3. Elias Kadi – France – 19:49:51

Top American man is Matt Palilla in 20th and a time of 23:13:35.

Full results, as they happen can be found here.

This arrived via an official press release this morning:

At 01:30am CET on Tuesday 23rd August, the UTMB Mont-Blanc Race Committee was informed that a PTL runner had a serious accident near the Refuge de Plan Glacier. The runner was with his team on an official trail, which is secured for the PTL and marked throughout the year, between the Col de Tricot and the Refuge de Plan Glacier. 

The rescue helicopter team responded to the scene, following which they confirmed the death of the runner.   

This is already the second year in a row that someone died running the UTMB events. Last year a Czech runner fell to his death running the TDS, which prompted a partial halting of the race.

ETC stands for Experience Trail Courmayeur and is a brand new race out of Courmayeur. Almost 800 runners raced the new course covering 15km and 1,300 meters of elevation gain in the Italian Alps. The race started on Tuesday 23rd of August at 2pm.

This race already concluded and here are the winners for 2022:

The top three women:

1. Ikram Rharsalla – Morrocco – 01:49:24
2. Perrine Abadie – France – 01:50:36
3. Nadia Re – Italy – 01:51:47

Top American was Amanda Basham in 5th in 02:00:32, and not just woman, but overall top American!

And the top three men:

1. Jan Margarit Solé – Spain – 01:24:05
2. Ruy Ueda – Japan – 01:24:52
3. Maximilien Droit Du Chapois – Belgium – 01:26:17

Top American man was William Zimmerman in 153rd and in 02:31:14.

Full results can be found here.

This policy was regarding the management of accredited media and access to elite runners:

The UTMB Mont-Blanc has decided to apply the following access rules to the restricted areas of the OCC, CCC, and UTMB races: an accreditation will be required for the first 10 women and 10 men of each race. This change is applied as of today.

Sometimes pointing out egregious corporate policies online has an immediate positive outcome. Good.