The dust has just about settled on the brutal Hardrock 100 course, which saw nearly 150 runners take on 102 miles of treacherous terrain in Colorado over the weekend, and once again, it was an action-packed race.
The legendary trail running race takes the hardiest runners on a loop of the San Juan mountains, starting and ending in Silverton. The course is highly technical and highly high, with a cumulative vertical gain of 33,197ft (10,118m), a high point of over 14,000ft (4,267m), and an average elevation of about 11,000ft (3,352m).
Some of the world's best ultra runners (or at least, the ones that weren't in California for Western States) have been training in the Rockies for weeks or even months to prepare for the course, which changes direction every year. If you were off-grid this weekend, read on to find out what you missed.
Tragedy on the course
Starting with the bad news, this year's race sadly saw the death of a runner. Just three hours into the race at around 9am on Saturday, July 12, San Juan County Sheriff's Office received a search and rescue call about a medical emergency at Little Giant Basin near Gold Lake.
The runner, who has been identified as 60-year-old Elaine Stypula of Michigan, collapsed on the course and was pronounced dead at the scene, just six miles (10km) into the course.
Photographer Howie Stern, who was there to cover the race, shared on Instagram that he had been involved in efforts to resuscitate Stypula.
"I won’t be posting from this year’s race as my heart is just broken and my mind in a daze."
Stypula, a divorce lawyer, was an experienced ultra runner whose Instagram page shows her competing all over the world, from the Alps to South Africa. This was her first time attempting the Hardrock course. Stypula's cause of death has not been released.
Women's results
Moving onto happier news, Katie Schide has made no secret of her ambitions to best rival Courtney Dauwalter's records at some of the world's most iconic races. Last year, she shaved 22 minutes of Dauwalter's UTMB finals course record and publicly stated at the finish line that beating Dauwalter had been one of her goals.
Earlier this year, Schide, 33, and her partner Germaine Grangier announced they'd left their sponsors at The North Face and returned to On and it seems like those CloudUltra Pros are doing their magic for the Alps-based runner, who has been training in the US for months.
Schide decisively delivered her win in Colorado, keeping pace at the front of the race from the start and handing down a new course record of 25:50:23 – that's 35 minutes faster than Dauwalter's 2023 performance and placed the Maine native sixth overall.
"There’s a reason Hard is in the name," wrote Schide on Instagram.
"Proud to have made it back to Silverton. Definitely won’t be forgetting this one anytime soon."
It was Schide's first time on the course, but her victory comes as a shock to no one. Meanwhile, Manon Bohard's second-place finish took a few by surprise, but perhaps it shouldn't have. The French runner took first in the 100-mile Le Grand Raid De La Réunion in 2024 after all. She came in more than three hours behind Schide, followed a couple of hours later by Germany's Katharina Hartmuth, who took third place for the second year in a row.
Stephanie Case, who was tipped for a possible podium spot, missed out this year, taking fifth place.
Men's results
Over in the men's race, it was nothing short of a French invasion, led by Ludo Pommeret, who did it again, taking Hardrock gold for the second consecutive year, despite failing to break his own course record.
"I said it was hard to do it better, and it was hard to do better," says Pommeret in a post-race video about his 22:21:53 finish, which was about 50 minutes slower than last year's performance.
That said, he enjoyed some good company on the trail, as he was paced by Jim Walmsley and Vincent Bouillard.
Pommeret has now completed (and won) the full Hardrock course in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The win comes just a couple of months after the runner took second place at the Grand Raid.
In second place, Montreal-based Mathieu Blanchard clocked in at 23:44:23 for his debut at the race, and we don't blame him if he's still a little tired after being the first to finish the brutal 600k Yukon race in -40°F temps this winter.
Grangier, another first-timer, rounded out the podium, coming in 20 minutes later, which we're sure will help him forget about a couple of disappointing DNFs over the last year at the Grand Raid and UTMB finals.
Zach Miller had hoped for redemption after dropping out last year due to appendicitis, but failed to make a dent, coming in just one minute ahead of Schide after what he describes as an "epic duel" over the final climb and descent.
