On the 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k, Rod Farvard had a breakout efficiency to win the boys’s race and Katie Schide (U.S., lives in France) ran an absolute stormer to win for the ladies.
Whereas this yr marked the occasion’s tenth version, if there’s something we’ve grown to know, change is fixed at this race. With important course adjustments in lots of editions, this yr was no totally different. Beginning at China Wall, a trailhead positioned within the mid-foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the race traveled roughly east to west — with some deviations — to complete in downtown Auburn, California. Runners traveled an general downhill trending course, nonetheless with a stout 10,600 ft of climbing over the course of 63 miles.
A bit of the center of the course traversed the well-known Western States Path, and included a few of its iconic elements, such because the Satan’s Thumb climb, a stiff climb that finishes passing a thumb-looking rock; the Deadwood Cemetary, a historic cemetery; and Cal Avenue, an almost-20-mile, largely downhill, and largely a gloriously runnable piece of actual property.
The boys’s leaders within the early going of the 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k. Photograph: UTMB/Howie Stern
The race began at 5 a.m. native time on Saturday, April 27, beneath clear skies, with delicate temperatures and comparatively dry air predicted all day. This was maybe a welcome reprieve for runners, because the area had seen important rainfall within the prior days.
This race held a number of aggressive attraction in that it was the final Western States 100 Golden Ticket race forward of the 2024 occasion, the place the highest 2 ladies and men earned entry into the race.
The occasion was additionally a UTMB World Sequence Main, which means the highest 10 women and men secured entry into the CCC on the UTMB World Sequence Finals, which might be held this August in Chamonix, France.
2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k Males’s Race
The boys’s race went out en masse, with round 20 males inside 2 minutes of one another on the first help station at Deadwood 1 (16k). Main this free pack had been Petter Engdahl (Sweden, lives in Norway), Rod Farvard, and Adam Peterman. By Deadwood 2 (29k), the second help station, Engdahl and Farvard nonetheless led collectively, once more with an extended line of males trailing tightly, a minimum of 10 of them inside 2 minutes, together with Peterman.
Engdahl and Peterman had been operating on sturdy comeback tales, with Engdahl having suffered damaged bones with surgical procedure final fall in a motorcycle crash, and Peterman returning after a minimum of a yr off on account of severe damage. Every would avenge these profession problems with finishes as we speak, Engdahl on the rostrum and Peterman in 14th.
And Farvard, like so many males, was searching a kind of Western States 100 Golden Tickets; with 3 prior makes an attempt at that race, he’d solely topped out as excessive as eleventh place, clearly lower than his potential.
Among the many early close to leaders by means of the primary 30k additionally included Stephen Kersh, Tracen Knopp, Preston Cates, and Drew Holmen.
Michigan Bluff (38k) noticed some extra of the identical, with Engdahl and Kersh main the prepare and a lot of the identical males following very intently. Although there have been some 6 males proper there, Farvard technically beeped into the checkpoint in third place.
The village of Foresthill, 48k into the race, marked one thing of a transition level within the race the place the runners head out of the race’s larger nation, and right down to the bottom terrain of the Sierra Nevada. The competitors was additionally transitional in Foresthill because it was right here the place eventual males’s champ Farvard arrived within the lead in 4:13:43, with Kersh about 20 seconds again. One other 2 minutes introduced males’s second and third place, Holmen and Engdahl.
From there on, Farvard wouldn’t yield the lead. At 61k, the Cal 2 help station, he handed at 5:16:19 elapsed. This time Kersh checked in a bit of over a minute again. Right here, Holmen was holding in third, 2 minutes off second, and Makai Clemons had now moved into fourth place, one other 2 minutes again from third place. However it was nonetheless any man’s race, with a diffusion of lower than 13 minutes between first and ninth locations.
At Driver’s Flat (76k), Farvard held tight to his small however stable lead, passing by means of in 6:33:33. This time, Holmen had moved into second place, 3 minutes behind the lead. Kersh was proper there, although, 30 seconds off Holmen.
For the race’s ultimate quarter, Farvard added bits of distance between he and second place, passing by means of the ultimate two help stations, Mammoth Bar (88k) and Confluence (94k), with respective 5- and 7-minute leads. Rod Farvard seemed completely elated to cross the end line, profitable the boys’s race in 8:44:30. He gladly accepted the Western States 100 Golden Ticket.
Rod Farvard profitable the 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k. Photograph: UTMB/Howie Stern
Behind him, Holmen ran an excellent regular final 25k, and constructed a significant sufficient hole on the remainder of the sphere, passing by means of the 88k and 94k help stations some 6 and 4 minutes forward of third place, respectively. When Drew Holmen crossed the road to take second in 8:51:09, he tossed his pack and collapsed to the bottom, clearly utilizing most of what he had in him for that efficiency. After some finish-line contemplation, Holmen declined the Golden Ticket, which meant it could roll down to 3rd place.
However who can be the third-place finisher? As we all know, finally, Engdahl. After sitting in fifth place as late as 88k, he surged to maneuver up two spots when he handed the 94k help station. Petter Engdahl’s wonderful extremely pacing led him to take third in 8:55:31. He was keen to say the second males’s Western States Golden Ticket.
Having run a vastly constant race, Makai Clemens completed fourth in 8:57:38. Stephen Kersh, after pushing the boys’s race tempo earlier, discovered himself in fifth at 9:05:56.
2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k Males’s Outcomes
- Rod Farvard – 8:44:30
- Drew Holmen – 8:51:09
- Petter Engdahl (Sweden, lives in Norway) – 8:55:31
- Makai Clemons – 8:57:38
- Stephen Kersh – 9:05:56
- Tim Tollefson – 9:19:09
- Kevin Vermeulen (Switzerland) – 9:35:21
- Matt Seidel – 9:42:04
- Ryan Raff – 9:42:05
- Brandon Gardiner – 9:46:49
The 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k males’s podium (left to proper): 2. Drew Holmen, 1. Rod Farvard, 3. Petter Engdahl. Photograph: UTMB/Jacob Banta
2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k Ladies’s Race
The beginning of the ladies’s race couldn’t have performed out extra in another way from the boys’s. Katie Schide (U.S., lives in France) took the ladies’s race out, created a spot early, and ran on. By the primary help station at Deadwood 1 (16k), Schide had already constructed a spot on the sphere, some 2.5 minutes. She grew that hole by the second help level at Deadwood 2 (29k) to almost 9.5 minutes.
Schide, with too many accolades to say, was second finally yr’s Western States 100 and has her eyes on the prize of that race this yr. Undoubtedly, this race was a vital step in her preparations for this yr’s version.
Mary Denholm featured prominently in podium place over the primary 30k, having handed by means of 16k in second place and 29k in third place. Denholm is a 2-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier with a 2:36:28 marathon PR, who was mainly debuting in path racing.
EmKay Sullivan was the opposite girls’s tempo pusher over the primary 30k, assuming the second place round 22k and by no means trying again. Sullivan has a great deal of sturdy path race performances to her title, with all of them at shorter distances than this one. Among the many many ladies looking for that Western States 100 Golden Ticket, she clearly needed it. She dropped from the Black Canyon 100k, one other Golden Ticket race, solely 2 months in the past.
Additionally among the many combine for the ladies over the primary 30k had been Addie Bracy in addition to Australians Anna McKenna and Stephanie Auston.
By Michigan Bluff (39k), Schide led by about 11 minutes. Sullivan remained Schide’s closest chaser, with Denholm in third place, slightly below 13 minutes off the lead.
Ten kilometers later, at Foresthill (49k), the Schide Present was formally in full power, along with her arriving at 4:25:14 and with greater than 21 minutes of actual property to the following girl. Sullivan and Denholm maintained their second- and third-place positions, round 2 minutes other than one another. Behind Denholm was additionally some first rate daylight, with fourth-place Bracy coming by means of about 10.5 minutes after third place.
Schide was actually ablaze at Cal 2, the 61k, some two-thirds of the way in which down Cal Avenue, operating by means of in 5:31:21. There, she’d additionally cracked the general prime 10. Because of an absence of ladies’s protection within the dwell stream in addition to points with Sullivan’s monitoring units, we don’t have her break up at Cal 2, however she was in second place right here. Denholm was the following girl by means of in third, 65 minutes off the lead.
At Driver’s Flat (76k), Schide was now selecting her approach by means of the boys’s prime 10, passing in sixth general in 6:50:38. For the file, that’s 17 minutes again from the boys’s chief three-quarters of the way in which by means of a path 100k — some insane operating. Schide’s lead within the girls’s race would solely develop over the race’s ultimate quarter, and he or she remained in sixth place general on the end line. At Mammoth Bar (88k) and Confluence (94k), she led by 44 and 46 minutes respectively.
Finally, Katie Schide was the runaway girls’s victor in 9:10:10. It’s protected to say that issues are trying actually good for Schide’s second try on the Western States 100 this summer time. Together with her computerized entry based mostly on her top-10 end final yr, the two Western States 100 Golden Tickets would roll right down to different girls.
Katie Schide profitable the 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k. Photograph: UTMB/Howie Stern
Sullivan’s race for second place by no means wavered. At 88k and 94k, she held a respective 7- and 9-minute hole over third place. EmKay Sullivan cruised over the end line to take second in 10:01:26, cautiously accepting the Western States 100 Golden Ticket, as it could imply yet one more massive step up in distance.
Behind Schide and Sullivan, the race for the ladies’s prime 10 was something however set within the race’s ultimate 25k. Denholm, the debut path racer, bumped into issues en path to Driver’s Flat (76k), relinquishing her podium place. On the time of this text’s publishing, she’s not exhibiting an official DNF, however she definitely has.
As the ladies’s positions fluctuated, it could be Anna Kacius who emerged into the third place by 88k and who would maintain it till she completed in 10:24:37. Kacius has about 3 years of ultrarunning beneath her belt, with prime finishes together with seventh on the 2022 IAU 100k World Championships, and fourth on the 2023 Black Canyon 100k. She narrowly missed a Golden Ticket by 1 place at that latter occasion. This time, she was golden, graciously accepting that Western States 100 entry.
Careth Arnold completed fourth in 10:38:42, after transferring up into that spot earlier than the 94k help station. Anna McKenna rounded out the ladies’s prime 5, crossing the road in 10:43:31.
EmKay Sullivan taking second on the 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k. Photograph: UTMB/Howie Stern
2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k Ladies’s Outcomes
- Katie Schide (U.S., lives in France) – 9:10:10
- EmKay Sullivan – 10:01:26
- Anna Kacius – 10:24:37
- Careth Arnold – 10:38:42
- Anna McKenna (Australia) – 10:43:31
- Laura Hansen – 10:45:32
- Erin Clark – 10:52:16
- Marta Wenta (Poland) – 10:53:14
- Jade Belzberg (Canada, lives within the U.S.) – 11:00:02
- Arden Younger (Canada) – 11:08:04
The 2024 Canyons by UTMB 100k girls’s podium (left to proper): 2. EmKay Sullivan, 1. Katie Schide, 3. Anna Kacius. Photograph: UTMB/Jacob Banta
