{"id":21300,"date":"2025-07-24T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/garland-reflects-on-challenging-2025-hardrock-100\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:05:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:05:42","slug":"garland-reflects-on-challenging-2025-hardrock-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/garland-reflects-on-challenging-2025-hardrock-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Garland reflects on challenging 2025 Hardrock 100"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Runners
Runners begin the 2025 Hardrock 100 in Silverton on July 11. Competitors started in Silverton and ran the iconic 100-mile course counterclockwise before finishing in Silverton. (Photo by Lobo Photo NM.)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The 2025 Hardrock 100 ultramarathon had challenges Hardrock 100 Race Director Dale Garland hadn\u2019t experienced before.<\/p>\n

On July 11, Elaine Stypula, 60, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, passed away <\/a>less than 10 miles into the 100-mile race that started and finished in Silverton. On July 10, a day before the race was scheduled to begin, fires made the air quality so bad that the race organizers had to consider canceling.<\/p>\n

The air quality concerns prerace didn\u2019t cancel the race as the air cleared up before the start. Stypula\u2019s tragic death was on the hearts of race organizers as the Hardrock carried on. Returning men\u2019s champion Ludovic Pommeret defended his title and Katie Schide won the women\u2019s race with a new course record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was challenging, for sure, not only because of Elaine\u2019s death, but a couple of other things with the smoke and having to make a last-minute decision,\u201d Garland said. \u201cBut it was also really reaffirming in terms of the community and the way that people came together around those challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

A cancellation wouldn\u2019t have been new for Garland and the Hardrock; the event was canceled four times before. It would\u2019ve been the latest cancellation in the event\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Garland and the Hardrock team were doing research at 10 p.m. the night before the race. They consulted with other events and put together a plan to monitor the air quality at 5 a.m. the morning of the race. The Hardrock team also gave runners the opportunity to defer their entry in the race if they didn\u2019t want to run with the air quality concerns. No one took Hardrock up on that offer and the weather cleared up.<\/p>\n

Stypula\u2019s death was the first fatality on the Hardrock course in the event\u2019s 30-year history. Therefore, it was the first time the Hardrock team had to mobilize a critical response around a fatality, according to Garland.<\/p>\n

Garland said there was an autopsy done on Stypula, but he hasn\u2019t been notified of any results and he respects the family\u2019s privacy. Garland has stayed in touch with the family and wants to let them take the lead on what information gets out.<\/p>\n

The Hardrock team will do a debrief in a couple of weeks and look into the way they responded to Stypula\u2019s death. Garland was happy with the safety sweeps in place and how their communication network worked. Hardrock finished their critical response plan update a few weeks before which was helpful to follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always look at what we could have done better,\u201d Garland said. \u201cThat\u2019ll probably come out in the debrief here with San Juan County in a couple of weeks. But at first blush, I was really pleased with San Juan County search and rescue\u2019s response and with the coroner. As bad a situation as it was \u2026 as tragic as the situation was, it was handled really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were some positives to come out of the race. Pommeret won the men\u2019s race in 22 hours, 21 minutes and 53 seconds. The 50-year-old Frenchman continues to redefine what\u2019s possible in Ultra running as he took his second consecutive win.<\/p>\n

The top three of the men\u2019s race were French, with Mathieu Blanchard finishing second in 23:44:23 and Germain Grangier finishing third in 24:04:10. The top American finisher was 43-year-old David Ayala in fourth, from Bozeman, Montana.<\/p>\n

Silverton\u2019s Jeff Rome was the top local finisher in seventh in the men\u2019s race, followed by Durango\u2019s Kyle Curtain in eighth.<\/p>\n

\"Durango's
Durango's Kyle Curtain was all smiles after finishing the Hardrock 100 on July 12 in Silverton. (Photo by Lobo Photo NM.)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Pommeret used his experience, didn\u2019t pull away from the leaders immediately and eased into the race. Pommeret made his move about 28.8 miles into the race around Sherman.<\/p>\n

He steadily increased his gap to second throughout the race until he had over an hour over his competition at the finish.<\/p>\n

Schide dominated the women\u2019s race like Garland has rarely seen. She became the first female to break the 26-hour mark when she crossed the finish line in 25:50:23. Schide raced away from her competitors from the beginning and had a seven-minute gap on second place 9.3 miles in.<\/p>\n

The gap to second continued to build and France\u2019s Manon Bohard finished second in 28:36:16 and Switzerland\u2019s Katharina Hartmuth finished third in 32:39:48.<\/p>\n

Garland was surprised to see such a gap from the winner to second and third since the race includes so many world-class athletes. It was quite unusual in the history of the event, according to Garland.<\/p>\n

\"Katie
Katie Schide won the Hardrock 100 women's race in a record time on July 12. She broke ultrarunner icon Courtney Dauwalter's course record by over 20 minutes. (Photo by Lobo Photo NM.)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Schide\u2019s time broke Courtney Dauwalter\u2019s 2024 record time by over 20 minutes. Another record that was broken was by Spain\u2019s John Tidd. He finished 13th in the men\u2019s standings and ran the fastest time ever by anyone over 60 years old in 31:25:41.<\/p>\n

Garland isn\u2019t sure if Pommeret and Schide will be back next year to defend their titles, but he said they left the door open to returning.<\/p>\n

The 2025 Hardrock 100 had 114 finishers which is a pretty high number compared to previous years, according to Garland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to give a shoutout to all of our volunteers,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten so many thank you notes, thank you emails and stuff like that from people who really appreciated our 600 volunteers out there making it meaningful and memorable for our runners.\u201d<\/p>\n

bkelly@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

away early in race; new and returning winners were crowned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2185,28,1914,327,346,1916,1915],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-hardrock-hundred-mile-endurance-run","tag-headlines","tag-running","tag-silverton","tag-sports","tag-trail-running","tag-ultra-running"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77252,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21300\/revisions\/77252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21300"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}