It’s virtually Hardrock 100 (HR100) weekend, and fanatics are gearing as much as song in for probably record-destroying appearances from Colorado-based Courtney Dauwalter and France’s François D’Haene, each hoping to assert some other win within the mythical 102.5 mile match. The race, which accepts handiest 140 runners each and every 12 months and is notoriously exhausting to get into, might be broadcast on a livestream; right here’s what you wish to have to understand to observe alongside.
Girls’s race
Dauwalter holds the direction data for each the clockwise route (26:44:36 from 2022) and the counter-clockwise route (26:14:08 from 2023). In 2023 she controlled to win Western States 100, HR100 and UTMB, one thing no athlete has ever completed. In 2024, she has already taken dominant wins at Transgrancanaria within the Canary Islands and Mt. Fuji 100 in Japan, the place she was once additionally 3rd total.
This 12 months, she’ll be going through off towards France’s Camille Bruyas (who was once 2d at Diagonale des Fous on Reunion Island in October and took 2d at UTMB in 2021) and Katharina Harmuth of Germany, who was once runner-up at UTMB ultimate 12 months and might be tackling Hardrock for the primary time. Bruyas might be paced through Canadian ultrarunner Marianne Hogan. American runner Tara Dower can be making her debut look on the race, recent off an total win on the Umstead 100-miler, held in April in North Carolina.
French runner Claire Bannwarth, identified for her prolific racing (28 races in 2023), took 5th position within the 2023 version of HR100, however raced Quebec Mega Path (held at Quebec’s Monte St. Anne ski hotel) ultimate weekend, and struggled after tearing her addcutor two months in the past. “On one leg and no longer acclimated, the function can be to complete as slowly as conceivable,” Bannwarth posted on Instagram.
Males’s race
The quickest males’s time for the clockwise path was once set in 2022 through Spain’s Kilian Jornet (21:36:24), whilst the counter-clockwise list is held through D’Haene (21:45:50 from 2021), who’s the transparent favorite on this 12 months’s race. The French ultrarunning legend has received a lot of prestigious races, and likewise completed 2d at HR100 to Jornet in 2022, so holds two of the quickest instances at the direction.
U.S. runner Zach Miller, who positioned 2d at UTMB in 2023, was once regarded as a most sensible contender till he swiftly evolved acute appendicitis ultimate week and needed to have surgical operation. “…it’s taking a look like I will be able to perhaps be extra donut maker than Hardrock racer subsequent weekend,” he posted on Instagram. D’Haene’s countryman, Ludovic Pommeret, 48, might also problem D’Haene, after taking fourth (5th total, after Dauwalter) at UTMB in 2023, and successful the TDS (145K) race at UTMB in 2022. Fellow mythical masters runner Karl Meltzer, 56, of the the U.S., might be toeing the road, in addition to 2016 HR100 champion Jason Schlarb (46), additionally of the U.S.
HR100 was once first held in 1992, and was once based as a tribute to the tenacity of the Hardrock miners who as soon as labored within the rugged mountains of Colorado, and used to observe “their mules and instincts, prospecting the San Juans for gold, silver, and different metals,” the race web page explains. HR100 each starts and results in Silverton, Co., and athletes are above 3,300 metres elevation for a lot of the race. With a completing cutoff time of 48 hours, athletes know they’re in for a protracted haul. The direction switches instructions once a year, and this 12 months runners are shifting in a clockwise route across the looped direction.
Fanatics can watch the livestreamed match right here, starting at 8 am E.T. on Friday, take a look at reside assist station splits right here or livetrack (dot watch) HR 100 through clicking right here,