2023 Hardrock 100 Preview – iRunFar

The 2023 Hardrock 100 kicks off on Friday, July 14 with the 146 fortunate runners having 48 hours to finish the mountainous loop by way of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Beginning in tiny Silverton, the route alternates path yearly with this yr headed counterclockwise towards Lake Metropolis, onward to Ouray and Telluride, earlier than returning to Silverton.

Alongside the best way, the runners will climb greater than 33,000 ft (10,000 meters) at a median elevation of roughly 11,000 ft (3,350 meters) and a excessive level of 14,058 ft (4,284 meters). With some small adjustments because the 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 form 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 yr’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 will depend on how a lot snow melts by race day, we will say with certainty that the course will run fairly otherwise than lately.

If we’re speaking about this yr’s Hardrock, I suppose we must always begin with final yr’s girls’s champ Courtney Dauwalter who simply smashed the Western States 100 course document and shall be again at Hardrock lower than three weeks later. If anybody can problem her on the ladies’s aspect, it’ll be excessive altitude, long-ultra specialist Annie Hughes or France’s Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret.

The lads’s area is huge open this yr with final yr’s fifth-place man, Jeff Browning, the highest returnee. Trying a yr 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 document stays Diana Finkel’s time of 27:18:24 from 2009, whereas François D’Haene holds the lads’s counterclockwise document of 21:45:50 from the final counterclockwise working in 2021. Each of the general course information had been set within the clockwise path final yr with Courtney Dauwalter working 26:44:36 and Kilian Jornet working 21:36:24.

A particular due to HOKA for making our protection of the Hardrock 100 potential!

Thanks additionally to LEKI for its assist of our Hardrock protection.

Forward of the race, we’ll publish interviews with among the race favorites and, in fact, we’ll be overlaying the race stay beginning at 6 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time on Friday, July 14. Get pleasure from!

2023 Hardrock 100 Ladies’s Preview

On the prime of this yr’s girls’s area we’ve bought 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 beneath.

Prime Ladies

So, yeah, Courtney Dauwalter … that Courtney Dauwalter is working Hardrock once more this yr. After her large course document run on the Western States 100 final month and following her course-record-setting run at Hardrock final yr, she’s bought to be the clear favourite within the girls’s race. Regardless of being the odds-on favourite, there are two issues that might preserve her from being a positive factor. First, nicely, she did simply run a 78-minute girls’s course document on the Western States 100, so fatigue or harm might catch as much as her. Second, something can occur, as illustrated when an harm took her out of the Western States 100 in 2019 and abdomen points stopped her at Hardrock in 2021. However, Dauwalter additionally has the benefit of being the one contender for the ladies’s win who’s beforehand run the race.

And if there’s a girls’s specialist at excessive altitude 100 milers, it’s Leadville, Colorado’s Annie Hughes, who gained 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 gained, she additionally gained 2022 Cocodona 250 Mile and 2021 Moab 240 Mile, so the additional time on ft shouldn’t be a problem. To this point this yr, Hughes has gained the 50-mile races at Behind the Rocks and Bighorn and brought third on the Canyons 100 Mile.

Over the previous decade of working path ultramarathons, France’s Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret has earned numerous victories. Nonetheless, 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 yr, the place she took second on the Diagonale des Fous, greater than 4 hours behind Dauwalter. That mentioned, earlier in 2022 she set a velocity document on Corsica’s GR20, working 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 yr’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 working a 109-mile race as her second extremely. A particularly frequent racer, since this time final yr, she’s run at the least 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 latest performances are a win at the least yr’s Kullamannen 100 Mile, a win at this yr’s Winter Backbone Race, and a seventh at this yr’s Transgrancanaria.

Trying throughout the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s Kimino Miyazaki must also be a prime contender. She’s actually taken to 100 milers over the previous three years, lining up for at the least three 100 milers annually. Highlights from annually embrace taking second on the 2021 Doi Inthanon 100 Mile, profitable the 2022 Extremely-Path Mt. Fuji, and taking second at this yr’s Tarawera 100 Mile. She was second on the 2018 Hasetsune Cup.

Of the ladies’s prime contenders (with Darcy Piceu nonetheless on the waitlist), Oregon’s Darla Askew brings essentially the most Hardrock expertise to the beginning line, with six finishes, most not too long ago taking third in 2018. Final yr, she gained the Pine to Palm 100 Mile.

Extra Ladies 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

Ladies with a Probability 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 Demise Race

Notable Withdrawals

2023 Hardrock 100 Males’s Preview

Not one of the first 4 males’s finishers from final yr’s Hardrock 100 shall be again this yr. Nonetheless, into that void step an fascinating 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 yr.

Prime Males

France’s Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz was to make his Hardrock debut final yr, however skipped the race for the start of his household’s first little one. He’ll get the possibility to make that debut this yr 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 gained Transgrancanaria, took second at UTMB, and was third at Extremely Pirineu. Each final Might and this Might he was second on the 54-mile race at MaXi-Race Annecy, whereas he DNFed UTMB final yr.

Since Dunand-Pallaz’s second place at UTMB 2021, fellow Frenchman Beñat Marmissolle might need the very best huge mountain extremely outcomes of this yr’s males’s area. In 2021 he was third on the Diagonale des Fous earlier than profitable the race final October. Final yr, he was additionally sixth at UTMB whereas profitable extra ultras in France. Whereas Marmissolle’s a severe contender for the win, he’s bought much less expertise at longer ultras than lots of his opponents, having solely gotten into 100-kilometer-and-longer races over the previous two years. However, he’s made the funding of spending a month out within the San Juans forward of the race.

Expertise counts for lots in ultramarathons and that’s definitely the case at Hardrock. Luckily 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 nicely at a pair native races and brought seventh at Extremely Pirineu final yr. He might stay in California’s Bay Space today, however he’s been out in Silverton, coaching for some three weeks forward of race day.

Even deeper into the expertise class, we’ve bought Jeff Browning, who’s bought 5 Hardrock finishes, together with taking fifth the previous two years and profitable simply 5 years in the past in 2018. Final October, Browning gained the Moab 240 Mile in 57 hours.

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 gained the Ehunmilak 100 Mile in Basque Nation 5 instances, together with final yr. He gained the Tor des Géants in 2017. You get the thought. Except for watching Dominguez within the general area, 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 quite a lot of instances, Silverton native Avery Collins is 100% acclimated to life on the village’s altitude of 9,318 ft 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 fellows above him (nor these beneath him) on this preview, he was fifth eventually yr’s Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile, eleventh on the 2021 Madeira Island Extremely-Path, and fifteenth on the 2021 CCC.

It’s fairly doubtless that Ohio’s Arlen Glick is the quickest 100 miler on this yr’s Hardrock area. Certainly, his resume of stunningly quick 100 milers on flatter programs is just too lengthy to record right here, however, not too long ago, he ran 13:25 to take third eventually October’s Javelina 100 Mile and 12:57 in profitable the Umstead 100 Mile this April. Over the previous yr, Glick’s seen success transferring to reasonably mountainous 100 milers, taking third eventually yr’s Western States 100 and second eventually yr’s Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile, without having his finest day in inserting 14th eventually month’s Western States 100. At Hardrock, he’ll have two huge hurdles to beat, bouncing again from racing the Western States 100 in lower than three weeks and working what might be seen as his first huge mountain 100 miler. The mixture of these two elements is greater than additive. All this makes him some of the intriguing runners on this yr’s race.

Utah’s Mark Hammond comes into Hardrock for the primary time without work the waitlist. A number of years in the past, he’d be a pair spots greater on the record, as he positioned third, third, and fifth the Western States 100 from 2017 by way of 2019 and took second on the Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile in each 2017 and 2018. Extra not too long ago, he was fifth on the 2021 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile whereas profitable the Jackpot 100 Mile in 2020 and taking fifth final yr. Over the previous yr or so, he’s not fairly raced as much as his prior requirements, however there can at all times be unknown mitigating elements there. If he’s educated nicely 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 Value – 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 Probability for Final Minute Entry

• Masazumi Fujioka (2nd By no means waitlist) – sixth 2022 Harm 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 yr’s Hardrock?
• How do you suppose this yr’s snowy and muddy course situations will have an effect on the competitors and ending instances?