Major bummer. This year's hardrock was looking to be a great one, especially with Tom Evans. Imo, that head to head would've been next year's headliner. Also, not to forget the absolutely stacked women's race.
You’re decision to pass on 2 other premier races will only motivate you more to give it your all in Chamonix. I ran it last year and it’s worth making a singular focus. Excited to follow along!
Your commitment to following your own path (not others’ expectations or desires) is quite inspirational. And obviously your commitment to your path runs very deep. Watch out UTMB men’s field!
July 10 is the date for Hardrock & August 28 is the date for UTMB. Whatever I am writing is just being curious about your decision making regarding this decision.
If you just look at WSER & UTMB double, both races are quite different in terms of weather, terrain & how much of running one does in WSER & on the other spectrum how much of hiking at faster speed one does in UTMB but there is one factor that one gets 60 days of turn around, more time for recovery & build up for UTMB.
And if you look at Hardrock & UTMB, both races have some what similarity to it. The type of terrain, weather and the amount of hiking one needs to be doing in both the races is somewhat similar, there are a couple of things like UTMB starts in the evening and Hardrock is a lot about high altitude. Overall this double gives one less time than WSER & UTMB double but the type of training leading upto the races would be quite similar. This is just my perspective brother and what I think sitting far away.
The question is shouldn't you attempted the Hardrock & UTMB double because you Hardrock is in your own country, meaning you won't have to travel internatonally, you will have a pretty good support on home soil. It would have been quite less stressful than travelling for international races.
Do you think you wouldn't have recovered from Hardrock to give all on the UTMB course.
But there is a lot of unknown, if you would have said yes- there would have been chances to experiment this double & see how you perform & recover b/w the races. But now you declining the spot in the Hardrock race lets the unknown be unknown. Take for example Adam Peterman had never ran a 100 miler but he thought for a week & talked to people about whether to accept or decline the golden ticket, he took that swing. If he would have declined it, it would have been totally different for him, say he would have declined it- no running a 100 miler and then dealt with injuries, recovered & came back to try for another golden ticket in hope to make a debut at WSER.
He even got a ticket but got smacked right in the face, walking the last 40 miles on the course.
I was like I would have loved to see Caleb brother try this double but it is your life, you have got your own expectations & your own set of priorities, aligning with them is great to see. And you declining two spots in the 2 prestigious races needs some balls to make this move.
I highly appreciate you & your decisions brother, forward looking to you how schedule your race calendar and will be rooting for you.! :)
For some reason people underestimate the stress a 100 miler puts on the body, especially these guys racing them at the front. This is well known in road racing (i.e. marathons). If he wants to put an A effort at UTMB, racing Hardrock the month prior counter productive. Sure the double (or triple for Courtney) can be a goal in itself, but if the goal is UTMB, I appreciate the singular focus.
Yeah 100 miles puts a lot of stress on body brother I understand especially for the elites who are just trying to wreck their body while pushing the limits.
It is not just about Courtney. There is a much more bigger sample size I kept in consideration before asking Caleb this question. I never questioned his decision, it is just that if I can get insights about how they think is quite good.
And talking about the stress load. Dan Green ran Cocodona 250 in quite muddy conditions in record time and that too in his debut and 54 days later shows up at WSER line and he ran pretty good as 12th place & 17:14 is no slouch of a performance. Why he took the decision to run WSER? He didn't knew if in future he would get the chanceas he ran 4th & 3rd at Javelina to get the golden ticket. Also he has run Black Canyon 3 times in order to get a golden ticket but couldn't. He surely knows brother how hard it is to get this chance, he didn't wanted to blow it off.
Talk about Harvey Lewis. On 21st June this year he ran 617 KM at Dead Cow Gully and then on 7th July ran 26:17 at Badwater for M6.
Talk about CJ Albertson. He ran 2:11:09 on Dec 3, 2023 at California International Marathon and then 2:11:08 on Dec 10, 2023 at Maraton Baja California.
Ran 2:08:17 (PR) on Oct 13, 2024 at Chicago Marathon, 2:10:57 on Nov 3, 2024 at New York City Marathon and then ran 2:10:06 on Dec 8, 2024 at CIM. Also what Kilian Korth has done this year with Triple Crowns. The way Joe Whelan ran at CIM was just mind bending performance after running n number of races. He ran Sub-2:10 and it is quite fast. Back In February he ran 2:22:53 at Austin Marathon. His scheduled was packed with balancing job & family.
And all these above people are not called even Genrational athletes as well like Kilian Jornet doing States of Elevation project or Courtney.
These are just what are on the top of my mind and there are other n number of examples. There is no one way to do it. Then there are examples of Ruth Croft & Tom Evans who won UTMB and they were dead on focused on UTMB. It is upto an athlete how he/she wants to approach it. It is not just about stress. Caleb had a pretty good opportunity. And if you look at Hardrock & UTMB, both races have some what similarity to it. The type of terrain, weather and the amount of hiking one needs to be doing in both the races is somewhat similar, there are a couple of things like UTMB starts in the evening and Hardrock is a lot about high altitude. Overall this double gives one less time than WSER & UTMB double but the type of training leading upto the races would be quite similar. I still respect Caleb's decision but this stress could have been managed totally keeping in perspective UTMB GOAL-A race. Sometimes we need to take risks while seeing what opportunities one has got at the table. He is also a high country kind of person as well, so it would have been great. Will be rooting for Caleb brother whatever he does.
Sad news for the men’s field at HR, but respect that laser focus on the big MB loop.
Good job keeping the main thing, the main thing!
Major bummer. This year's hardrock was looking to be a great one, especially with Tom Evans. Imo, that head to head would've been next year's headliner. Also, not to forget the absolutely stacked women's race.
Best of luck in '26 out in Europe though!
You’re decision to pass on 2 other premier races will only motivate you more to give it your all in Chamonix. I ran it last year and it’s worth making a singular focus. Excited to follow along!
No matter what race or event you decide to take on, I am looking forward to it.
Your commitment to following your own path (not others’ expectations or desires) is quite inspirational. And obviously your commitment to your path runs very deep. Watch out UTMB men’s field!
U1 this year and hopefully H1 next. Stay injury free and great training / racing ahead.
July 10 is the date for Hardrock & August 28 is the date for UTMB. Whatever I am writing is just being curious about your decision making regarding this decision.
If you just look at WSER & UTMB double, both races are quite different in terms of weather, terrain & how much of running one does in WSER & on the other spectrum how much of hiking at faster speed one does in UTMB but there is one factor that one gets 60 days of turn around, more time for recovery & build up for UTMB.
And if you look at Hardrock & UTMB, both races have some what similarity to it. The type of terrain, weather and the amount of hiking one needs to be doing in both the races is somewhat similar, there are a couple of things like UTMB starts in the evening and Hardrock is a lot about high altitude. Overall this double gives one less time than WSER & UTMB double but the type of training leading upto the races would be quite similar. This is just my perspective brother and what I think sitting far away.
The question is shouldn't you attempted the Hardrock & UTMB double because you Hardrock is in your own country, meaning you won't have to travel internatonally, you will have a pretty good support on home soil. It would have been quite less stressful than travelling for international races.
Do you think you wouldn't have recovered from Hardrock to give all on the UTMB course.
But there is a lot of unknown, if you would have said yes- there would have been chances to experiment this double & see how you perform & recover b/w the races. But now you declining the spot in the Hardrock race lets the unknown be unknown. Take for example Adam Peterman had never ran a 100 miler but he thought for a week & talked to people about whether to accept or decline the golden ticket, he took that swing. If he would have declined it, it would have been totally different for him, say he would have declined it- no running a 100 miler and then dealt with injuries, recovered & came back to try for another golden ticket in hope to make a debut at WSER.
He even got a ticket but got smacked right in the face, walking the last 40 miles on the course.
I was like I would have loved to see Caleb brother try this double but it is your life, you have got your own expectations & your own set of priorities, aligning with them is great to see. And you declining two spots in the 2 prestigious races needs some balls to make this move.
I highly appreciate you & your decisions brother, forward looking to you how schedule your race calendar and will be rooting for you.! :)
That double sounds hard to pull off! I’d like to nail the basics before going for something like that
For some reason people underestimate the stress a 100 miler puts on the body, especially these guys racing them at the front. This is well known in road racing (i.e. marathons). If he wants to put an A effort at UTMB, racing Hardrock the month prior counter productive. Sure the double (or triple for Courtney) can be a goal in itself, but if the goal is UTMB, I appreciate the singular focus.
Yeah 100 miles puts a lot of stress on body brother I understand especially for the elites who are just trying to wreck their body while pushing the limits.
It is not just about Courtney. There is a much more bigger sample size I kept in consideration before asking Caleb this question. I never questioned his decision, it is just that if I can get insights about how they think is quite good.
And talking about the stress load. Dan Green ran Cocodona 250 in quite muddy conditions in record time and that too in his debut and 54 days later shows up at WSER line and he ran pretty good as 12th place & 17:14 is no slouch of a performance. Why he took the decision to run WSER? He didn't knew if in future he would get the chanceas he ran 4th & 3rd at Javelina to get the golden ticket. Also he has run Black Canyon 3 times in order to get a golden ticket but couldn't. He surely knows brother how hard it is to get this chance, he didn't wanted to blow it off.
Talk about Harvey Lewis. On 21st June this year he ran 617 KM at Dead Cow Gully and then on 7th July ran 26:17 at Badwater for M6.
Talk about CJ Albertson. He ran 2:11:09 on Dec 3, 2023 at California International Marathon and then 2:11:08 on Dec 10, 2023 at Maraton Baja California.
Ran 2:08:17 (PR) on Oct 13, 2024 at Chicago Marathon, 2:10:57 on Nov 3, 2024 at New York City Marathon and then ran 2:10:06 on Dec 8, 2024 at CIM. Also what Kilian Korth has done this year with Triple Crowns. The way Joe Whelan ran at CIM was just mind bending performance after running n number of races. He ran Sub-2:10 and it is quite fast. Back In February he ran 2:22:53 at Austin Marathon. His scheduled was packed with balancing job & family.
And all these above people are not called even Genrational athletes as well like Kilian Jornet doing States of Elevation project or Courtney.
These are just what are on the top of my mind and there are other n number of examples. There is no one way to do it. Then there are examples of Ruth Croft & Tom Evans who won UTMB and they were dead on focused on UTMB. It is upto an athlete how he/she wants to approach it. It is not just about stress. Caleb had a pretty good opportunity. And if you look at Hardrock & UTMB, both races have some what similarity to it. The type of terrain, weather and the amount of hiking one needs to be doing in both the races is somewhat similar, there are a couple of things like UTMB starts in the evening and Hardrock is a lot about high altitude. Overall this double gives one less time than WSER & UTMB double but the type of training leading upto the races would be quite similar. I still respect Caleb's decision but this stress could have been managed totally keeping in perspective UTMB GOAL-A race. Sometimes we need to take risks while seeing what opportunities one has got at the table. He is also a high country kind of person as well, so it would have been great. Will be rooting for Caleb brother whatever he does.