The 2023 Hardrock 100 kicks off on Friday, July 14 with the 146 fortunate runners having 48 hours to finish the mountainous loop by Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Beginning in tiny Silverton, the route alternates path yearly with this 12 months headed counterclockwise towards Lake Metropolis, onward to Ouray and Telluride, earlier than returning to Silverton.
Alongside the way in which, the runners will climb greater than 33,000 toes (10,000 meters) at a mean elevation of roughly 11,000 toes (3,350 meters) and a excessive level of 14,058 toes (4,284 meters). With some small modifications for the reason that final counterclockwise occasion in 2021, the course will run about six tenths of a mile longer, at 102.5 miles.
The winter of 2022-2023 was sort to the San Juan Mountains, depositing a lot wanted moisture within the type of unusually excessive snow volumes. In contrast to the final two years, which have seen virtually dry course situations, this 12 months’s course will function residual snow up excessive, lengthy transition zones of moist and muddy path within the center elevations, and dry course at its decrease elevations. Whereas the diploma to which runners will expertise snow and dirt nonetheless depends upon how a lot snow melts by race day, we will say with certainty that the course will run fairly in a different way than in recent times.
If we’re speaking about this 12 months’s Hardrock, I assume we should always begin with final 12 months’s girls’s champ Courtney Dauwalter who simply smashed the Western States 100 course report and shall be again at Hardrock lower than three weeks later. If anybody can problem her on the ladies’s facet, it’ll be excessive altitude, long-ultra specialist Annie Hughes or France’s Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret.
The boys’s subject is vast open this 12 months with final 12 months’s fifth-place man, Jeff Browning, the highest returnee. Trying a 12 months additional again, 2021 runner-up Dylan Bowman is again, whereas six Hardrock debutants — Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz and Beñat Marmissolle of France, Javier Dominguez of Spain, Avery Collins of Silverton, Ohio’s Arlen Glick, and Utah’s Mark Hammond — might all problem for the rostrum.
The ladies’s counterclockwise course report stays Diana Finkel’s time of 27:18:24 from 2009, whereas François D’Haene holds the lads’s counterclockwise report of 21:45:50 from the final counterclockwise operating in 2021. Each of the general course information had been set within the clockwise path final 12 months with Courtney Dauwalter operating 26:44:36 and Kilian Jornet operating 21:36:24.
A particular due to HOKA for making our protection of the Hardrock 100 doable!
Thanks additionally to LEKI for its assist of our Hardrock protection.
Forward of the race, we’ll publish interviews with a number of the race favorites and, after all, we’ll be protecting the race reside beginning at 6 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time on Friday, July 14. Get pleasure from!
Courtney Dauwalter profitable and setting a course report on the 2022 Hardrock 100 after DNFing the earlier 12 months’s occasion on account of abdomen points. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
2023 Hardrock 100 Girls’s Preview
On the prime of this 12 months’s girls’s subject we’ve obtained a pair of runners from Leadville, Colorado — Courtney Dauwalter and Annie Hughes — and one other pair from France — Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret and Claire Bannwarth. Examine them and the opposite girls to be careful for under.
High Girls
Courtney Dauwalter
So, yeah, Courtney Dauwalter … that Courtney Dauwalter is operating Hardrock once more this 12 months. After her big course report run on the Western States 100 final month and following her course-record-setting run at Hardrock final 12 months, she’s obtained to be the clear favourite within the girls’s race. Regardless of being the odds-on favourite, there are two issues that would preserve her from being a certain factor. First, effectively, she did simply run a 78-minute girls’s course report on the Western States 100, so fatigue or damage might catch as much as her. Second, something can occur, as illustrated when an damage took her out of the Western States 100 in 2019 and abdomen points stopped her at Hardrock in 2021. Then again, Dauwalter additionally has the benefit of being the one contender for the ladies’s win who’s beforehand run the race.
Annie Hughes
And if there’s a girls’s specialist at excessive altitude 100 milers, it’s Leadville, Colorado’s Annie Hughes, who received the Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile and Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile in 2022 and the Leadville 100 Mile in 2021. Seeing Annie run seemingly effortlessly at excessive altitude is a deal with. Whereas Hardrock’s longer time-wise than the opposite 100 milers Hughes has received, she additionally received 2022 Cocodona 250 Mile and 2021 Moab 240 Mile, so the additional time on toes shouldn’t be a difficulty. Thus far this 12 months, Hughes has received the 50-mile races at Behind the Rocks and Bighorn and brought third on the Canyons 100 Mile.
Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret
Over the previous decade of operating path ultramarathons, France’s Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret has earned numerous victories. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of her racing has come at roughly 50 miles and shorter. Nonetheless, Rousset did win the CCC in 2014 and took fourth on the race in 2018. So far as I can inform, she made her 100-mile-race debut final 12 months, the place she took second on the Diagonale des Fous, greater than 4 hours behind Dauwalter. That stated, earlier in 2022 she set a velocity report on Corsica’s GR20, operating its 170 kilometers with 12,700 meters of climb in 35:50. She’ll even have spent three weeks within the San Juans by race day.
If Rousset is the shorter-ultra specialist of the French girls on this 12 months’s Hardrock, then Claire Bannwarth is the longer-ultra specialist. As far a I can inform, she went straight from her first extremely in 2016 to operating a 109-mile race as her second extremely. An especially frequent racer, since this time final 12 months, she’s run a minimum of 5 100 milers, 4 races between 187 and 261 miles, and a four-day, 305-kilometer stage race in the midst of final month. Amongst her prime current performances are a win a minimum of 12 months’s Kullamannen 100 Mile, a win at this 12 months’s Winter Backbone Race, and a seventh at this 12 months’s Transgrancanaria.
Trying throughout the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s Kimino Miyazaki also needs to be a prime contender. She’s actually taken to 100 milers over the previous three years, lining up for a minimum of three 100 milers annually. Highlights from annually embody taking second on the 2021 Doi Inthanon 100 Mile, profitable the 2022 Extremely-Path Mt. Fuji, and taking second at this 12 months’s Tarawera 100 Mile. She was second on the 2018 Hasetsune Cup.
Darla Askew
Of the ladies’s prime contenders (with Darcy Piceu nonetheless on the waitlist), Oregon’s Darla Askew brings probably the most Hardrock expertise to the beginning line, with six finishes, most lately taking third in 2018. Final 12 months, she received the Pine to Palm 100 Mile.
Extra Girls to Watch
- Becky Bates (Canada) – fifth 2017 Hardrock 100; eighth 2022 Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile; tenth 2021 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile
- Christina Bauer — third 2019 Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile; 2nd 2023 Crown King 50k
- Rachel Kelley – sixteenth 2019 & twenty first 2018 Western States 100
- Dana Kracaw – fifth 2021 IMTUF 100 Mile; twenty fourth 2022 TDS
- Whitney Mickelson – fifth 2022 Swiss Alps 100 Mile; eighth 2021 Wasatch 100 Mile; 4th 2020 IMTUF 100 Mile
Girls with a Likelihood for Final Minute Entry
- Darcy Piceu (1st Completed waitlist) – 9-time Hardrock 100 finisher with 3 wins, a 2nd in 2021, and 4th in 2022
- Christi Richards (1st By no means waitlist) – 1st 2021 & 2nd 2019 IMTUF 100 Mile; 1st 2018 Canadian Loss of life Race
Notable Withdrawals
2023 Hardrock 100 Males’s Preview
Not one of the first 4 males’s finishers from final 12 months’s Hardrock 100 shall be again this 12 months. Nevertheless, into that void step an attention-grabbing combine of some runners with Hardrock expertise and much more with out it. With these runners coming to Silverton from world wide with a mixture of strengths, it’ll be fascinating to see who comes out on prime this 12 months.
Dylan Bowman operating by Maggie Gulch on his solution to ending second on the 2021 Hardrock 100. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
High Males
Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz
France’s Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz was to make his Hardrock debut final 12 months, however skipped the race for the delivery of his household’s first baby. He’ll get the possibility to make that debut this 12 months as one of many favorites to win. Whereas Dunand-Pallaz has a decade of ultrarunning success, he made a giant leap ahead in 2021 when he received Transgrancanaria, took second at UTMB, and was third at Extremely Pirineu. Each final Could and this Could he was second on the 54-mile race at MaXi-Race Annecy, whereas he DNFed UTMB final 12 months.
Since Dunand-Pallaz’s second place at UTMB 2021, fellow Frenchman Beñat Marmissolle may need the very best large mountain extremely outcomes of this 12 months’s males’s subject. In 2021 he was third on the Diagonale des Fous earlier than profitable the race final October. Final 12 months, he was additionally sixth at UTMB whereas profitable further ultras in France. Whereas Marmissolle’s a severe contender for the win, he’s obtained much less expertise at longer ultras than a lot of his rivals, having solely gotten into 100-kilometer-and-longer races over the previous two years. Then again, he’s made the funding of spending a month out within the San Juans forward of the race.
Dylan Bowman
Expertise counts for lots in ultramarathons and that’s definitely the case at Hardrock. Thankfully for Dylan Bowman, he comes into this race with a second-place end at Hardrock in 2021, the final time the race was run on this path. Since then, he’s run effectively at a pair native races and brought seventh at Extremely Pirineu final 12 months. He could reside in California’s Bay Space nowadays, however he’s been out in Silverton, coaching for some three weeks forward of race day.
Even deeper into the expertise class, we’ve obtained Jeff Browning, who’s obtained 5 Hardrock finishes, together with taking fifth the previous two years and profitable simply 5 years in the past in 2018. Final October, Browning received the Moab 240 Mile in 57 hours.
Javi Dominguez
Whereas this shall be Javier Dominguez’s first Hardrock, the Spaniard has 100-mile expertise that rivals Jeff Browning’s. At UTMB, he’s been twentieth in 2021, ninth in 2019, tenth in 2018, and fifth in 2016. He’s received the Ehunmilak 100 Mile in Basque Nation 5 instances, together with final 12 months. He received the Tor des Géants in 2017. You get the concept. Apart from watching Dominguez within the general subject, it’ll be enjoyable watching him at 48 years previous race the 51-year-old Browning for the quickest masters runner.
Though he’s escaped Silverton’s loooong winter of 2022-2023 to coach a lot of instances, Silverton native Avery Collins is 100% acclimated to life on the village’s altitude of 9,318 toes and has put in loads of vert on the native trails forward of his Hardrock debut. Whereas he doesn’t have the big-race podium finishes of the blokes above him (nor these under him) on this preview, he was fifth finally 12 months’s Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile, eleventh on the 2021 Madeira Island Extremely-Path, and fifteenth on the 2021 CCC.
Arlen Glick
It’s fairly seemingly that Ohio’s Arlen Glick is the quickest 100 miler on this 12 months’s Hardrock subject. Certainly, his resume of stunningly quick 100 milers on flatter programs is just too lengthy to checklist right here, however, lately, he ran 13:25 to take third finally October’s Javelina 100 Mile and 12:57 in profitable the Umstead 100 Mile this April. Over the previous 12 months, Glick’s seen success shifting to reasonably mountainous 100 milers, taking third finally 12 months’s Western States 100 and second finally 12 months’s Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile, without having his greatest day in putting 14th finally month’s Western States 100. At Hardrock, he’ll have two large hurdles to beat, bouncing again from racing the Western States 100 in lower than three weeks and operating what could possibly be seen as his first large mountain 100 miler. The mixture of these two components is greater than additive. All this makes him one of the intriguing runners on this 12 months’s race.
Utah’s Mark Hammond comes into Hardrock for the primary time without work the waitlist. Just a few years in the past, he’d be a pair spots increased on the checklist, as he positioned third, third, and fifth the Western States 100 from 2017 by 2019 and took second on the Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile in each 2017 and 2018. Extra lately, he was fifth on the 2021 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile whereas profitable the Jackpot 100 Mile in 2020 and taking fifth final 12 months. Over the previous 12 months or so, he’s not fairly raced as much as his prior requirements, however there can all the time be unknown mitigating components there. If he’s skilled effectively and he’s on, he might problem for the rostrum.
Extra Males to Watch
- Ryan Burch – 4th 2023 Quad Rock 50 Mile; third 2018 Bighorn 52 Mile; third 2018 By no means Summer time 100k
- Brian Culmo – 2nd 2022 Hellgate 100k; 2nd 2021 Bear 100 Mile; 1st 2021 Squaw Peak 50 Mile
- Yassine Diboun – sixth 2022 Mogollon Monster 100 Mile; 4th 2022 White River 50 Mile
- Jakub Galczynski – 2nd 2021 IMTUF 100 Mile; third 2020, twelfth 2019, & seventh 2017 Bear 100 Mile
- Jesse Haynes – 1st 2023 SAMO 100 Mile; 2nd 2022 & 2023 Leona Divide 100k; 1st 2022 Sean O’Brien 100k; third 2019 Bigfoot 200 Mile
- Chad Lasater – 2nd 2022 Desert Solstice 100 Mile; 4th 2022 Vermont 100 Mile; 1st 2022 Previous Dominion 100 Mile; twenty sixth 2022 Leadville 100 Mile
- Michael Owen – 1st 2018 Grindstone 100 Mile; 1st 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019 & 2017 Promised Land 50k; third 2016, 4th 2019 & 2nd 2017 JFK 50 Mile
- Chris Worth – third 2022 Bigfoot 200 Mile; 1st 2019 Tahoe Rim Path 100 Mile; 4th 2015 Hardrock 100
- Sam Ritchie – 4th 2021 Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile; 2nd 2016 IMTUF 100 Mile
- Paul Terranova – 4th 2022 Bighorn 100 Mile; third 2021 Bear 100 Mile; third 2021 Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile; Nolan’s 14 finisher
- Michael Wardian – twenty fifth 2021 & tenth 2018 Hardrock 100
Males with a Likelihood for Final Minute Entry
- Masazumi Fujioka (2nd By no means waitlist) – sixth 2022 Damage 100 Mile; 1st 2022 Orcas Island 50k; 1st 2022 Lumberjack 50 Mile
Notable Withdrawals
Name for Feedback
- Who do you suppose would be the first lady and first man to complete?
- Who do you suppose will shock everybody at this 12 months’s Hardrock?
- How do you suppose this 12 months’s snowy and muddy course situations will have an effect on the competitors and ending instances?
Jeff Browning on his solution to his fifth Hardrock 100 end in 2022. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
