WALMSLEY | THE FILM

I hope it's a mountain. And I hope that I've just been climbing up the mountain. And that it's just been hard or discouraging. And my hope is that I'm cresting the mountain, and we're going to bring a whole bunch of momentum down it on the other side. And a lot of, a lot of expectations, as always, when this gentleman hits the trail. Jim Walmsley from Flagstaff, Arizona, the three time Western States 100 champion. American women have been doing very well here. American men have been on the podium, but we have yet to secure a W. The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc is the Super Bowl of trail running. It's huge, it's international and maybe similar to the Boston Marathon. It happens every August in Chamonix, France. One of the most spectacular settings you. You arrive in the city a few days before the race in Chamonix. and you've got flags from every country of participants there, and it's just electrifying atmosphere. People are so excited. Over the last 15 years, this race has really become the keystone, competitive environment where all the best athletes show up and American men have not performed to our potential on this stage. Most American observers would agree that Jim Walmsley is the person who has the best chance to win. And probably most athletes that have success in their sport leaves the mark by doing it a little bit differently. Not doing it the traditional method and routine, challenging it in some aspect. With ultra trail running, I think you build up this superhuman, incredible endurance, but the problem is you just go and waste it all in one big effort. I want to have the fight and to keep going and to dig and dig and dig. The places where you really grow are the ones that keep kicking you in the teeth. Should I Iook at you or the camera? Can you do this and clap? Softball. Who are you and what do you do? I'm Jim Walmsley, and I'm a professional ultra trail runner. And   the first time I came here after Western States, when the first big flood came through over here, and I went for a night run for UTMB training, and we, I hit this with a headlight and like that direction, I couldn't even recognize my own backyard. It was like gone. Dude this forest, gets dark. So my one of my first runs ever, I got caught in like, it was like this sort of lighting. But when you're actually in the trees, it's way darker. And I thought I had enough time. I did not. I wonder if I took this down the wrong way. Ultra is a version of running that basically adds in adventure to it. Ultra running is defined by anything longer than a marathon, so anything longer than 26.2 miles. In my world of ultra, that's around 100 miles or 24 ish hours. There's a lot of different disciplines, that I think the thing that inspires Jim the most, and the thing that's become most popular in ultra running is the long distance trail runs. It's an all day pace. It's sustainable. It can be fast, it can be slow. And that's where Jim has had a lot of success for the last half dozen years. Not a lot of people know about you. I don't know, like, yeah, I was a twin. I was in charge of nuclear missiles and a missile silo in the Air Force. Those are like the. I went to the military. Those are like the notecard answers that you put when you're doing, like, an introduction with a new group of people. My favorite ice cream is pistachio. Yeah, so I started running in high school. I did cross country and outdoor track in Phoenix, Arizona, and then I ended up running in university in Colorado. But after college, I ended up in Montana, where I was in the Air Force and I was having to make a lot of life choices and this kind of inspiration of trail running, and I was finding a lot of happiness in it. I ended up moving to Flagstaff, Arizona, and starting to just train for trail ultra. Kind of just went running before and after work and then almost sign up, even for races that I can make like 1000 or 2000 bucks. And if I didn't win, I probably would have had a problem to just pay rent. I first met Jim a a trail race in 2016, and I had no interest at the time. When Jim kind of came on the scene, he came on like fire, and everybody was like, who is this hot headed guy who says he's going to do this, this, and this? And he came out so forward and would state his goals to everybody, and which were super outlandish at the time, because he was kind of changing the face of trail running, and everybody kind of was just shocked by it. He sets the biggest goals possible. He looks at the fastest times ever run at the biggest races, and he says, I think I can run faster. I think that I was hesitant at first and just thought he had a really big ego, and that was a bit of a turnoff. But I mean, it was kind of amazing to see that. And what he did say, he was going to do something more often than not, he would do it. Bandera 2016 was the first time I won a race and I got a ticket into Western States, so I kind of had to ask for extra time to pay for the 400 plus dollar entry, and it's a pretty humbling position to come from. I was still unsponsored. I was leading the majority, if not all, the race up 'til mile 92, 93 out of 100 miles and I ended up making a wrong turn. Mentally, just kind of falling apart and then just finishing the race from there and kind of a uninspiring end result. One of the things that I really admire about Jim is that it often takes him several tries to get it right. And Jim is not one to shy away from failure. In fact, he always embraces it, learns from it, comes back and avenges those failures with great successes. In 2017 I came back with HOKA now as a sponsor, and I think a lot of people felt just a decompression with trying to win Westerns States and all of a sudden some pressure was off. And then essentially everything clicked in 2018. Broke the course record. I won Western States and went on three consecutive Western States wins and three of the top four fastest times recorded for the next four years. And then the natural progression is to exert that on to an international level and most importantly, any race in Europe at UTMB. UTMB is Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, but it did start as a route called TMB, which is Tour Mont Blanc. It's a trekking route where you circle around Mont Blanc. Usually people go and take four days to a week to trek around the mountain, and someone decided to try to run it in one day. The course is about 105 miles. It has 10,000 meters of climbing. Very well known all. Over the world. You go through these refuges, there's glaciers above you, there's creeks below you. It's just epic, beautiful. I think you have a perfect race and you have to really be to a complete runner to win UTMB. And for that reason, all the best athletes, people like Jim, want to test themselves in that environment on the biggest stage against the best athletes in the world. And it's an adventure for the fastest runners and the slowest runners. It's I think everyone takes away some of the best memories of their life. We're trying to do UTMB, it's taking me more tries than Western States. We're getting close. We're knocking on the door and hopefully rip the door off the hinges. Finally. It feels like home. It's familiar. Even though I don't think I've ever been on this road. Yeah, it's kind of cool to pull up my Strava heat map. The other day. And, I got a lot covered in Flagstaff. Trail map looks really good. All of a social trails. And then there's even, like little tiny little red lines every now and then and it's like, oh, I actually remember those stories specifically. Like that was a big bush whack down or like, yeah, that definitely did not connect. And again. So I came out to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. I hadn't been since I was 11, and Jim had mentioned, potentially coming out and running in the Grand Canyon. And I ended up flying to Arizona, and he had planned this super big, elaborate trip. So we went down to Sedona and then up to the Grand Canyon and through the slot canyons up in Page, and I was just blown away by the whole experience. That helped me to get to know him better. And I think I saw a different side of him that maybe not a lot of other people see. And kind of just met the real Jim through that experience. Who is the real Jim? He's, at his core just super kind and generous and really goofy. They smell like vanilla. Lots of mugs. These things are good for pointing out objects on the mountain. Bird! And sword fighting. Alright, I needed some sugar. But then Jess likes coming along stealing all the cookie dough. So I had to fend her off. I don't understand why I'm caught. So dude there's Strava segments with this stuff. It's really dorky. My newfound love of skiing, it's caused me lots of blisters. Temper tantrum fits on how bad my feet hurt. Yeah, I think I'm gonna stick with it. I'm pretty quick going uphill. I concur. And this is also essentially we've started using poles in December. Poles and pack is the life for me. I think I've learned the hard way after last UTMB that I just need to become one with the poles. I think what motivates Jim is a really good challenge that maybe himself or other people might not think he can do, just something that's really hard to reach for. High expectations. I think that gets him really excited to work towards really big goals. I think what motivates Jim is to be one of the best of all time. He has single handedly changed the sport in a lot of ways. He's had some of the best performances in ultra running history, and he's rewritten the record books. Motivation and the why is extremely important because all these races get really hard at some point or another, and that motivation, unfortunately for me, comes in usually failure before success. There's something about things not working perfectly, not going right, being hard, getting my ass kicked that I like, I guess. So the first time Jim ran UTMB was in 2017. He ran at the front of the race with the great Francois Dane, a four time champion of UTMB and one of the all time greats. Jim suffered in the later stages of the event, still managed to finish fifth overall, but I'm sure was very dissatisfied with that fifth place finish. It would be a career highlight for many athletes on the scene, but I think it just gave him a lot of hunger to go back and actually run at the front for the entirety of the event. He's returned two more times since 2017, and hasn't been able to make the finish line since. We have received confirmation from the race organization that Jim Walmsley is officially out of the 2021 UTMB. Be the places where you really grow are the ones that keep kicking you in the teeth. Three times I've raced UTMB I feel like I've underperformed every time. His career is super, super rich. He has a course breaking time in so many races and sometimes with difficulties in the first one two years, but after he start to master distance, it's just that the UTMB today is still the challenge that he didn't totally achieve. It is well known and talked about quite often that an American male has never managed to win the race. It is not for lack of trying. We've had a lot of our best compete at UTMB over the course of the last several years, and for whatever reason, we haven't been able to put it together. Meanwhile, on the women's side, we've had several champions Courtney Dauwalter, Rory Bosio, Krissy Moehl, Nikki Kimball have all won the race as Americans going over to compete on that stage. But for some reason, the men haven't been able to put it together. For me, UTMB requires adaptation in that I'm not from the mountains. I didn't grow up in the mountains. Everything's not just common sense. I don't think any of it's not learnable. So in the fall of 2021, we got back from France and yet another UTMB where he had to drop out, unfortunately. I think we were sitting in the living room. And he said, I think that the way I'm going to win UTMB is I have to be like the Europeans. So we have to move there. I'm like, oh, we have to move to France? Wait, why can't we just go to the San Juans in Colorado where we train every year? Those mountains are similar to the Alps and he's like, no, it's not the same. I was really nervous at first, but now I'm pretty excited to move to France, so it's time for a change. We're going to the ridge that overlooks Col Du Bonhomme and it's going to be epic. We're going to go look at Mont Blanc. We are here in Areches Beaufort and we are preparing to try to get some mountain legs here. I   ignore my awkward walking going like this. Is what I've been doing all day. So traveling I think, overall went really smooth. We moved, I think 10. 10 or 12 days after we got married. It was kind of crazy. We ended up checking way more bags, and then we thought, I think we had eight total bags checked, and two of them were just cardboard boxes. Just taped the whole bunch. But it was nice because we got to bring a lot more than what we usually travel with. Over here we actually have, we have Catan with the expansion pack. Jim is thrilled to be in France, and he takes that with a little more grace than I do sometimes. I think he's having a blast, and he loves trying to communicate with our neighbors. I mean, the biggest adjustment is obviously we don't speak French. So. We definitely feel very awkward going to the market to the store. Just doing your daily activities adds just this level of foolishness. In France, in the trail running community here has been extremely welcoming and wonderful. It's just of course. Yes, it's going to be an adjustment because we are in a completely different culture, language, country, than we've ever put ourselves in before. That is not a crepe, that's a pancake. So we're standing in front of the new chalet. Jess and I moved here at the end of May, and we feel like we got really lucky with the place. So we've got the shutters open. Everything was closed up when we came in, and, we're we're changing things now. But I switched to my indoor shoes. Always got the squishy glides, so. And then in here we got kind of our couch, table, kitchen, the egg carton with €350 to give to our neighbor Noel, to try to pick up some eggs. His French is very difficult to understand. And, this is where I do most of my Duolingo. So we got, a little food pantry in here. We're lucky enough to be stocked with beer right now. Beer and cheese, generally. It can smell really bad and then taste really smooth and nice. And not pungent. So don't judge a cheese by the smell. Oh, we have cool Pierra Menta. This is a big skimo stage race. The first stage this year started literally in our front yard. I am probably not going to be a good enough skier this winter to do it. We got our bedroom. We have a full size bed, which is sweet. We got one guest bed. Oh, this bathroom is funny. We got the, British flag toilet going on in here. I don't know what's up with this. I think that's the chalet. Home. Home, I think, is kind of where you base your emotions and your time and energy. It's been almost easier to move, quote unquote, home because Jess and I are kind of doing it together. And home is where we decide to plant ourselves. So we brought a couple items from to make it more homey. Jess found a frame. Here in France for our Grand Canyon National Park poster. Yeah, we were looking at a couple of valleys, around the Alps, and we basically settled on this one because Francois was able to connect us with Areches Immobilier and we were able to reach an agreement to move, like, just up the hill from Francois. I mean, he gets in some pretty good training. So you kind of know it's a good place to base out of. So my name is Francois D'Haene. I practice mainly ultra trail running. and I live in Areches in Beaufort. I met Jim in 2017. Seven team. We met each other many, many times. We were always thinking, it could be so nice to train together. And finally it was there. Now he's my neighbor. And we are able to meet each other, like, nearly every day. So we got Mont Mirantin. That one's almost 8000. And then that one connects over to Grand Journée, the trail on the maps. So zigzag back and forth, but if you want to be cool, you do it like Francois and you go straight up. So that's what we do. But the area is famous for the Beaufort cheese, which the cows are, acclimatized, and they actually live at higher altitude. It's pretty cool. You look around and. Just see. Really steep mountains everywhere. It's green, it's lush, the forest is diverse. It's really dense. When you get into the trees. Definitely the exact opposite of Flagstaff. It is capped off with granite on the top, and once you get to the top of every hill, you have a reminder that we're in big mountains. And, it's kind of why we're here. I've normally been finding routes by looking at Strava heat maps, so good thing about that is the local secrets are not so secret when it's a heat map. But today we'll start about there. We need to get to Col du Pré. It's almost impossible to find a run that's under ten miles with less than 1000 meters of vert here. Nothing flat. You got the poles. Got the backpack. Today we're going up our back yard ski hill. It's about a 1500 foot climb. Then we're going to drop pretty steep down into Areches. And then we're going to meet back up and then start heading up, Col du Pré, and then hit the ridge off of the the top of the col. The number of times I've just stepped in cow shit out here. Well, it's more than 10 in one month for sure. Okay, I think we're set. Glasses good. Let's get some sets. Going to get some eggs. [Speaking French] So, noon tomorrow. We're going this way. Beaufort goats. I'm getting ready for UTMB. I'm feeling pretty good. I think a lot of my training for Madeira earlier in the year has kind of prepared my legs. Short summary. It's all up and it's all down. The mountains here are steeper, they're more jagged. There's a little bit more exposure. It's very difficult to get flat. It's really difficult on your muscles. You almost need to get a little creative with hard efforts. I would say as a ultra runner I've flipped 180 from training from Western States. Went from from handhelds to backpack. No poles to poles. Always having the rain jacket in my pack. I think I'm still adjusting to the pace differences. In the past. like you train for UTMB you're super pumped and motivated. And you're just hammering and essentially you're kind of just running the wrong pace. Like UTMB, you got to settle in and be comfortable moving slower. Mont Blanc. Straight ahead. So so far I think I've kind of play nice with the mountains. I've gone on more controlled training runs where I'm not finding myself and in over my head. You do have to be careful. There are some areas where you can definitely get yourself into trouble if you are paying 100% attention. I think one of the best parts of the mountains out here is you get caught in weather. Here. The mountains have more microclimate pockets. So as you're going valley to valley it goes hot, cold, cloudy, sunny, dealing with the sweat, humidity like almost just even learning the preference of layers that I want to wear has been just different. Yeah, so here he's still serious about his training but is a little bit more relaxed about it. I think it was more choice of their life to discover how we practice trail running how we can live, and our culture. They came into a very small village where nobody speak English. Learning French is about the top of the list. We have the culture, experience, the wine, the late dinners, the cheese. It's almost UTMB's way below that. Just seems like he is a bit happier and healthier. And not digging himself a hole and just being able to kind of roll with what the day gives him. Running will only last for so long, at least in the competitive aspect. But the French side of learning a culture, learning a language like we can take that well beyond, at least my running career. We could hit the local, the local lady first. Yeah. Her lettuce, last time was sad. Her lettuce wasn't so good. Well, there's markets that are available, so in theory, they grow their fruits and vegetables closer to Savoie where we live in the area. And you shop more locally, it's better produce than the supermarket. And so we try to do super fresh. Most of our fresh food shopping here. I was just informed that potato is pomme de terre. Which means apple of the ground. Creme fraiche. Merci. We're going to try this. Some napkins. Trés bon. The Jet Rodriguez. Digging in the steel second. We're at the start finish of UTMB. So today we're going to do some some start practice sprints. Not really. Do it. I think in the master plan of things, I don't think it takes adjusting to all these changes to get where I want to improve at UTMB. I think some of the simple things, like not running Western States this year is probably the most important factor I can do. It's definitely not a typical race season for Jim, and I think initially in the beginning that was really hard for him, but I think ultimately it's probably what he's going to need to succeed in UTMB. It's just pretty obvious how things should come together to be more prepared this year. I would just love to see Jim make it back to Chamonix. I know it's broken his spirit to just not even be able to finish the two times he's dropped out, so it would be really cool to be on the other side of that arch and see his face when he crosses the line, because that's one of my favorite moments. I usually have a piece of advice that I give Jim, and it's usually Jim, don't be Jim. I mean, he is a great athlete and he's super strong and talented, but I think sometimes in these races you can't just go full throttle from the beginning. I think Jim feels that quote unquote crunch time is coming and getting the shovel out is coming. It's nice being in Areches a little removed from the environment of Chamonix. But, in a way, I'm here to be shaped by the mountains. But I think it's, I'm adapting to the mountains. I'm building a relationship with the mountains. You get to the top of a climb here. More than likely, you're gonna see those big giant Alps in the background. So it's still looming as a reminder of why we're here. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to hold them off. I'ts okay. Just do your best. You're doing great. Okay. You don't need any caffeine? Do you have caffeine? I don't know. No, it's fine. Can you take anything with you? Where do I go? You're gonna go back out this way. It's okay. Everybody's so proud of you. You got this. It's okay. It's good. Yeah. We're in Les Houches right now. We're trying to avoid Chamonix. And it is right in the middle of the craziness of UTMB week. The madness, the circus, the festival, all the energy that is UTMB week. Yeah. I think it's pretty exciting to be back in Chamonix because I feel like at the end of the race last year, I kind of left a little frustrated. And not very happy with how things went. So the clock started, from a year out planning, prepping, making decisions, changing life. Should be a lot smoother this year. So this is the UTMB course. It's pretty simple right. There's just you go through three countries, run around the map, and you're back in Chamonix. So the UTMB course Mont Blanc is a central point to the course and you go through three different countries, you start in Chamonix, which is the gorgeous alpine village where most of the races toe the start line. But then the gun goes off. And then you run around in a counter clockwise direction. Then you immediately hit a little bump into Les Houches into Saint-Gervais. And then you make a windy trail up to Les Contamines and then you hit your crew. So that'll be about three hours in. And then the mountains start, the race starts, the night gets dark. And then heading into Italy. And I think Italy is the most beautiful, hardest part of the course. And you climb out of Courmayeur to the highest point on the course called Grand Col Ferret. You see your crew, it's six hours later from Courmayeur. Then you travel down into Switzerland and you make your way back around. to Chamonix. Basically, you got three little bumps to make your mark on the race. And the finish line atmosphere is frenetic. And to watch somebody you care about cross that finish line is truly one of the coolest things. I guess I ran back into Chamonix one time back in 2017. I really want to experience that again. So I'm going through the mandatory gear. My guess is this bag has seen some wars, and, I have a feeling maybe it's won UTMB. I want to weigh the difference between the two. So this. Yeah. So 41.6 is mine, but. It's a gift. Oh, boy. We got six grams. That's better. Might not be worth six grams, but it's a fun way to bring Francois with me. To race Kilian again. Going into this weekend, I think he does feel pretty confident this being his fourth attempt, just being able to look back on those three years and kind of troubleshoot what went wrong and how you can move forward. So my wife, Jess, is going to be crewing me this year. I almost feel like I'm the glue of our two person team. Jess crews me at all my races. I feel really confident with her helping me. All the fun behind the scenes stuff like grocery shopping, meal preparation, driving, logistics. She kind of knows what to tell me and, maybe what not to tell me. We work really well together. Cover it cover it. I'm testing the temperature right now. It's gonna be warm. Love you. Before the race, they make you get in the corral about 30 minutes before. But then the energy at UTMB and the start line is at level ten out of ten for 30 minutes straight. It was nice. And then I think, on the race start I started maybe five people deep, which is nice because when you're on the very front of the line, you just get pushed into this really kind of stupid pace because you hit a really sharp, steep climb, 10K in six miles, so everything will come right back together. It's feeling good in Les Contamines. Surprisingly, my legs didn't feel good. Not quite great, but we'll see how it unfolds. That was a little worrying, but it also felt like I just had so much invested in this. Like, it doesn't matter. Here we're going. Mentally I'm just trying to stay positive, positive, positive. Sounds like I was telling Jess this is going to be the day. But yeah, then after Les Contamines to go night through Notre-Dame de la Gorge and basically went through a psychedelic dream for a few minutes and there's these lights and tunnels and HOKA essentially like just went full dance party mode. So you go through Col du Bonhomme, and then we drop into Les Chapieux. That's where everybody from  Areches and Beaufort go. Francois lives a little down the road and he was positive. And then like, yeah, make sure you're keeping Kilian honest on the downhills. And maybe I started to mentally cling on to that. So they're coming in. Yeah. They will arrive any time at night. Again we repeat Jim Walmsley and Killian Jornet. You should be racing. After Courmayeur we're running. We do the really steep climb up to Bertone. Kilian kind of set the pace. I think he thought he was going to break me on an uphill. But then once we got to the balcony trail, Kilian was slowing down and I was just like, alright, I'll lead some. And I started descending down Arnouvaz and he was just gone. And I'm like, he's having his low patch. Like, this is the dagger. Like. Let's go. Jim Walmsley from the United States running into La Fouly this morning. It's 6:24 AM. Yeah, we're on our way to Champex-Lac and we got word that he's feeling pretty good and he's starting to increase his lead. And he is on track to run 19 hours and 40 minutes if he keeps up this pace, which would be, I believe, a new course record. Kilian on the screen right now. He has solid spring in his step. He seems to be upping the pace. Yeah, Jim being followed into this aid station, they're approaching what is effectively 120 kilometers or so into the race. Walmsley! You want to have a seat? Yeah. Do you want to change? Yeah. Soup? Gotta keep eating, okay? We need to do something, I'm not eating too much. Okay. I'm drinking, but. Alright, it's okay. They're 15 minutes behind you, Matthew Blanchard is strong and caught up to Kilian. Kilian's not feeling good. I believe that Jim is running about 30 minutes ahead of Pau Capell's splits at Champex-Lac. He is running very, very fast. Okay, I have broth, melon, potatoes, potato chips. Let's try and regroup. Okay? I'm running okay down. But my quads are going. It's okay. We know that he's probably 15 to 20 minutes at minimum ahead of Kilian. Right now, though, Kilian does look like he's got some new pep in his step. I'll get the arm sleeves back in your pack and the lighter long sleeve next. Okay. Love you. Love you too. Thank you. You got this. I mean, everybody's hurting when they get into Champex-Lac. I mean, it's late, you've done a lot of climbing, a lot descending. I think I realized when I left though, once I started hitting a steeper uphill, that the dig broke me. I think on paper, a lot of people really look at that descent as a place you can exploit a big move in the race. But it's also potential to lose your race. Essentially, I needed more patience because I probably put in ten minutes on that descent. From that point on, my quads completely were done. Zero up. I sat in a creek to try to refresh my legs a little bit. When Kilian came by. And he's like, oh, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm just not moving so well anymore. And then like another minute later, Matthew came by and I don't know if the low moment really came before or after they passed, but I also knew, like the house was crumbling a lot worse than that. The big story. If it's confirmed, it does seem that Kilian and Matthew have got ahead of Jim, but we haven't had a visual so far of Jim Walmsley. But someone said he's not injured, right? Or he doesn't really know. And it's been over ten minutes since Kilian and Matthew passed through. So I'm not exactly sure what's going on. People in the live feed said something about a possible injury, but I don't know. Other people are saying it was like he was just bonking crazy hard. Just now, okay awesome, we'll see him on the bridge here soon. I'm gonna switch out your thicker long sleeve for the lighter one, okay? Well I saw her in Trient and basically like how the race was going in Champex-Lac versus Trient was completely upside down from being on the aggressive to like this is not going good. We have a really big problem. I wasn't getting in calories at all kind of it's own like downward spiral. And the more you try to push through it, sometimes the worse it gets was like, all right, I've done this before. I bonked so bad and I've come back and I've been able to like make up ground again, like, I can do this. And then I hit the the hill right out of the city. I'm like, huh not happening. Like there's just no up at all. So from Trient is one step at a time. Like going uphill. Like that's what I had. Then I got some Vallorcine and I was like, well, we're here. Like, what's the status behind me? I think Jim is having a really tough time rebounding and finding the energy to keep pushing at the speed that Matthew and Killian are pushing. He's fallen pretty far behind them. Hey. Alrighty. What can I do for you? Can you pound a Coke? No I ate too much at the last aid station. What? You haven't eaten anything. What do you want? You haven't eaten much. I heard Matthew's falling back, but Zach and Tom are gaining on you. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to hold them off. It's okay. Just do your best. You're doing great. Okay. You got it. That's kind of where, like, Jess', like, compassionate side came out. That kind of maybe what I needed is a hug from her more than anything. And that was nice. No, it's not going well. It's okay, it's okay. You just. All you have to do is keep moving, okay? You don't need any caffeine? Do you have caffeine? Sorry if I don't hold on. No, it's fine. Can you take anything with you? Where do I go? You're gonna go back out this way. It's okay! Everybody so proud of you. You got this. It's okay. Yeah. I left the aid station. I felt like I was moving okay on the flat before you just hit probably the steepest climb of the course. More than anything. Just a laugh came out of, like. This is where I'm at. So I just have one speed and it's forward. We're moving. We're gonna get to Chamonix, but we're going to get to Chamonix once I cross the line. Not any time before that. And people were really. Really loving and encouraging. He should be arriving in Chamonix in less than 30 minutes. So we'll be welcoming him back to him to Cham with big open arms. And I can't wait to give a big hug. Jim Walmsley clocking 21 hours, 12 minutes and 12 seconds for a fourth place finish here at the UTMB. In the last, probably six hours of the race, I probably did a year's worth of thinking too. This race isn't What I had hoped it would be. Especially during the majority of the race. I believe that I was going to win out there, but the last 50K was maybe exactly what I needed to basically grow as a ultra athlete. But through the night, through the cold, I think my preparation was so good. Where the true grit and the real shovel came out was the bonk happened, the blow up happened, the win wasn't going to happen. And it's like, well, we're still here for a job. We still got to dig positives out of it. But I need to go through this right now. I'm here for this experience. It's essentially a part of yourself that you're not going to find out much in training. It's really a race environment that allows like kind of a safety net to go that far and find your limits. Year after year, what you learn, what you experience. If you focus on that, if you learn about that, and if you are able to turn it right and correct stuff. With his talent and his physique, for sure one day he will be able to win. Yeah, it's philosophical to ask kind of what is an identity? It reminds me of a prior question where is home? Essentially I think it's where you're putting your time, your energy, your thoughts, your passion. Within my sport, I say your motivations always have to evolve, because if you become successful, you end up checking off the boxes of what you want to do in the sport. I think with your identity, you need to be flexible and evolve. And just because my passion today is ultra running doesn't mean that my passion in ten years isn't going to be something completely different. I find I obsess about things, so no matter what I do, I guess part of my identity is I'm going to go all in. Yeah, so last time since UTMB, I think was kind of where we left off. I decided what I was going to do for the rest of the year, and more or less that ended up being staying in France and racing Les Templiers. So that was a really cool bucket list race to do. I ended up winning the race, and then we kind of had a dead shoulder season month or two of there's no more races in Europe. And snow hadn't come, so we're just kind of waiting to try to transition to winter training and then a deep dive into skiing and, trying not to run as much as possible. The first winter in France has been really exciting overall. It's been a lot of falling every day. I feel like I slip I slide. I learn, I progress. We got our first snow at the end of November, and right before that, we had a massive wood delivery which seemed to catalyze the beginning of winter. And we were lucky to get out the door every day and explore something new in the Beauforton and seeing all the trails that we've ran in the summer, in the winter has been such an incredible opportunity. This isn't usual how I'm using the iron right now, but I like playing around with gear. And I think even with trail running, as you get into the longer ultras and more UTMB it becomes a bit more of a gear aspect that becomes kind of fun and how to make your pack light. But functional. Or the different layering options you want to go with, and plenty of the ski stuff I'm sure I still do wrong. Like I'm gonna melt the wax with the skin actually on the ski. I feel like that could definitely be a cardinal sin. We've done one proper skimo race so far, and it was a two day race, two stages, and then I've done maybe five vertical races. The vertical races are easiest to do for me. They're less technical at the individual stuff with lots of transitions. I'm still just trying to get better at everything. So we have a big collection of poles this winter. I find I've moved longer longer the more I've used poles. So we're all packed up. Today is Wednesday, which means we are going to Courchevel for their weekly vertical race. Sunday. We have a proper skimo race. This one's just vertical uphill. And then Sunday we'll do, a race with 2500 meters ish of up and down. Light poles light skis. This will be our third time going to go do this course. It's in Courchevel which is, really bougie ski resort. It's vertical, so it's only, uphill. There's no downhill transition. It's a chrono so it's time trial. So every five seconds, someone starts off in the slowest predicted time start first and then the fastest people start at the back. And it's nothing like what I'm doing for trail ultras. But training is training, and this is an interesting intensity session. In general, I think I'm kind of attracted to things that don't come so easy. And are a bit of a challenge. Skiing is not the most natural thing for me to do, and then you complicate it with this world of skimo. There's so many things to learn. I bet what's going through his head. It's like, don't fall. Don't fall in front of all these people. Don't fall. Jim likes anything competitive, but mainly the I think the reason he's gotten into skiing is, just to embrace more of the European mindset, which hopefully will transition over to one day accomplishing the UTMB. We're scoping the course. Luckily it stopped raining for now, and hopefully it holds up. And then, hoping that the snow gets colder between now and the race. This is Simon Gosslin he is our vosin of Areches. We've become a little training partners and ski race competitors. He has a lot of patience with me for, doing stage races, and waiting for me. So, overall. Skimo is a way to traverse the mountains in the winter. So you put these things called skins on your skis and it grips the snow. And it's a huge aerobic endurance hard sport that takes years and years to master. [Speaking French] Today we're trying to get things ready to go up Grepe. Which is a nice, steep 1K 40% boot pack. Which gets us to higher snow. And then we'll go to Grand Journée. We'll have a really nice ridge aret. And then we'll probably drop down towards Col du la Bathie. And we'll see how much climbing everyone with heavy gear wants to do after that. Why aren't you skiing? I have a knee booboo. No I have a little tear in my meniscus so I can go up, but it's not wise of me to go downhill. I don't get to have as much fun, so I'm going to go up to Les Saisies is where the French Nordic ski team trains. And I'm going to do some classic cross-country today. Hello. Let's go to Grand Journée beach. Let's go! It's nice because you can't start too early. We have to walk ten steps to start wow, this is ridiculous. Today you can't see the peak that we're going to, but we're going there's Mirantin, that we look at all day. But then we have Pointe du Grand Col, but we're going in between, we're going to Grand Journée and we're going to hit a little, easy aret. Right now, how I'm going to react to switching to a skimo winter. It's kind of theoretical, the idea behind it. I'm maintaining a lot more vertical training. It's actually slower than hiking in the summer, so it tends to be almost a little bit of hidden strength training. And also just improving, our skiing skills and being outside and learning about how France works in the winter and how life is in the Alps and how people get outdoors even though it's so cold. I really think that all this winter with the ski  mountaineering will really help. It's a really similar effort in the Alps. And the second one is for the mental. You don't run all the winter. So you are already more fresh in the summer to train and for the race. Other things is just getting to know the backyard and the mountains. You need to be extremely specific because you need to replicate like the safe routes and the the proper way to go up and down in order not to put yourself at risk in the winter. You got to remember, okay, so with you as well, I need to peg my experience in my ability way, way, way down. So, then you don't get any funny business ideas and we don't ski anything. I'm not comfortable. Winter is a lot more complicated than summer. What seemed like complication when I started UTMB when you compare it to skimo, and winter and winter endurance sports now all of a sudden, in perspective, UTMB is a lot less complicated with gear. I'm starting from very basic and learning a lot, And the progress from the beginning of winter to the end of winter so far has been something I'm pretty proud of, but at the same time, I'm ready to kind of stop struggling through some of the training and just feel more confident and good about running again. Pounding the bones. Bag of bones trying to wrap them up. Shake them good. Shake and bake. So I've been running this year and guess it's two three weeks. And I think we have maybe six or seven weeks to the 100 mile race. So I kind of got worried that if I did too much, all at once, I could have lower leg issues. So I'm trying to beat in the bones a little bit. This year, I think the real interesting part of the puzzle is how to practice some of the things at UTMB that I find our weaknesses comparatively. There's a couple ideas. First is I have to race into UTMB. Being fourth place returner I don't get any different privilege than anyone else. I applied for the lottery didn't get pulled. So I'm at ground zero. I'm not in UTMB this year and I got to figure out a way to get in. However, that provides an opportunity to practice some of the things that I can improve on. I gotta sew part of my pack because it started ripping and my bottle slips out. Nailed that parking spot. So we're in Croatia. We're here to run Istria 100 mile. Istria is a little peninsula on the very most west part of Croatia. But here it's very stereotypical Mediterranean olive tree groves everywhere, wineries. There's this river that cuts through the valleys. That's just this amazing like emerald blue. I've seen salamanders and you can see the lushness here. Without a doubt, one of the reasons for choosing this race was the adventure. But by American standards, it's within our range of driving. So we drove here and because it gets me back to UTMB at the end of August. This backpack's entirely too heavy. What are we doing? We're going gonna go check out the second part of the course. We saw a little bit yesterday about the 100K mark. and today we are at 132K. I'm entirely dressed too warm for this. So right now we are in Croatia. It's supposed to be a nice, sunny kind of Mediterranean climate. And we got basically a week of cloudiness and on and off rain, kind of damp. Everything's damp, it doesn't dry. Poles? They give you more propulsion. Poles help a zombie's back when, when you go zombie, and you're like this keeps moving forward. The sky is bright. We've reached potential danger number two on the course. Danger number one. Household dogs on the court. Danger number two, the wild boar. When we were running I thought we saw a snake on this, like, little path. Lo and behold it's the biggest worm I've ever seen in my life. Oh, it's a slinky. If that's not an indication of good soil, I don't know what is. So where I have it broken down a bit is each line is essentially each aid station where I see crew. This one will be what I start with. And then that's the first uncrewed aid station. The second aid station's crewed. So then I restart here. This is what I pick up. Then I see Jess again at the third aid station. And then, go through two aid stations before seeing Jess again. So if I were to eat all of this throughout the whole race, we're going to have no problems. But then the trick is, can you eat everything? The plan is going to go with more solid snacks in the first half of the race, going to more liquid to even, like, starting to replace some of these with just a full liquid option because late in the race, if your stomach's not so good, if this gets mixed well in the drink and you can get down half the drink, you're gonna get down half of one of these things. So if you can eat, then you can show your skill and your talent and your fitness. But if you can't eat, you're just going to run out of steam no matter what. What I have to do now is I have to make notes for Jess so she can get on the same page with this. And then I also make notes for Jess to give me, because I forget all of this during the race. And okay, Jim, where are we headed? Right now we're heading to Labin. It's the start of Istria 100. And, lacing up the race shoes. So, we got a race in 20 minutes. Well I hope I got all my snacks. Yeah. You think I should? Love you. Okay. Wait, is that your phone? Yeah. You need that. I'll get disqualified for that. Thanks honey. Yeah. I cannot touch my toes. I think this race was actually a lot more challenging than I kind of expected. It's really runnable. Combined with very technical. And it was slick, wet. And this course jams most of the vertical climbing in the first 70K of the course. I've kind of really enjoyed starting maybe five people deep, just trying to keep things casual. That lasted for about 6K. Arthur had already set a bit of an honest pace. It took a while to close in on him. And in the aid station where I saw crew, you had the biggest climb after that. Really foggy weather. It's raining and this is a big climb and I think the forecast up there it's supposed to be zero at the top. I was using my rain jacket to stay warm and trying to conserve a lot of my energy, and I was pretty surprised. Arthur was just in shorts and t-shirt, so I think little things like that added up. We hit 100K ten hours into the race, and I could kind of just sense going into that aid station Arthur maybe just didn't seem to have as much gas as what had been kind of showing most of race, and I just kind of decided to take that momentum and try to test Arthur a bit. And instead of him coming back, it was getting stretched more than I just continue to press on. Tactics of finding a partner and kind of running with someone is always been something I've trying to rely on. It was really nice to have someone as strong as Arthur, and he read the course markings a lot better than I did. I got to see crew, one more time. But for the most part the last 20K, I was running mostly what felt like through grass fields. I think coming into this, I don't know if I was as motivated to really have that hunger to truly want to win and have that as a big goal. Because I look at this as a bit of a stepping stone to get to back to Chamonix, and that's kind of where a lot of my thoughts are. But I think the biggest thing I've tried to change, just leaning into this grind, and we've joked that it's kind of a zombie mode and your body's completely broken down, it doesn't work, and you just have this mental push to just keep moving forward. And I think that's what's going to really help with something like UTMB where you're going to get broken down and you're going to be suffering. As the race went on and kind of what I went through out there, I was really proud and happy with how things went, how I fought, and it was actually an extremely satisfying win and finish, and I was really happy with it. I'm feeling alright. I have okay health, but not the health I would like. And the World Championships are happening this week, and I'm here in Areches still because, I've had some problems with training. I ran Istria 100 mile and requalified for UTMB for this year. Overall, that went well, but then the recovery, energy wise, I felt really good. But, my body took some time. I know that the timeline before Innsbruck was a bit tight, so I started back into some workouts pretty quickly. I was just doing kind of a little shake out, and it was just barely jogging down a fire road, not paying attention, and kind of rolled over the top of a rock and rolled my ankle. My ankle swelled up pretty quickly, black and blue. Some swelling kept lingering, kept lingering, kept lingering, and my ankle started to kind of snowball into more problems that finally, I had to go seek some help. Luckily, Jess is kind of unfortunately paved the way at Maison de Santé in Beaufort and getting help getting treatment has been really nice. The bad news is one ligament was torn completely and then two were partial tears. The good news is out of all the ligaments that I could have torn, this one shouldn't need any invasive rehab. So we have time. The big goal this year is UTMB. It should be time to get going and get training. How are you? Good. I first met Christophe in 2017. It was the first time I came to Chamonix to run UTMB, and Christophe was just immediately all hands on deck. I was part of the the team that start HOKA, launch HOKA in 2009. The place we are is the original HOKA office in Annecy. So Jim Walmsley, he's, one of our key athletes. I remember clearly that he was, super accessible and, really friendly from the first moment. He's served as a big role model and someone that I can lean on for advice, for questions. He's highly interested in product development in all the technical part of the product. So together we have the chance to have project concretization. It's tuning, it's really making them customized for himself. Well, I look at where things are today and shoes and how clean they are. It's pretty sweet to have so much innovation with the products I've gotten to use with HOKA. When you have to prepare for a race like UTMB, the race gets a lot more complicated. Your pace is slower. With a slower pace you have to be ready for more conditions. Just going up. There's huge temperature swings. There's so many different microclimates here in the Alps. We can improve upon the gear I have, make it lighter, make it more practical, make it more useful. You're just increasing the odds that the race will go more smooth. I like to think that I help push and demand more to kind of think of products that are gonna keep us competitive and on the razor's edge of the best quality options. Have fun with it and run faster. These ones will be guiding everybody this year. I got a they're different than last year. They look the same. My friend Brandon brought me a Navajo coffee mug. And I'm trying to figure out what the symbol is, My first guess was maybe it was a Thunderbird. It has a lot of meanings, potentially, but one could be to guide the souls of the dead through the underworld. Which seems about fitting for UTMB through the night. But it's a guide for, guiding souls through the underworld. Yeah, that's more like the Pueblo style. But you really want to go to the underworld? I think that wasn't the goal. No, I'm taking the other runners. I'm guiding them through the underworld. Check this out. Beanie check. Arm and waterproof gloves. Waterproof. I think I'll do the majority of gels and bars. Left side. So just to make it clear, you come in, you drop the bag. I think I need to take off my pack. And basically, you're in charge. You drop the bag, you don't touch the bag anymore. Jess takes care of the bag. I don't really have to keep him organized. He's really meticulously organized, and he has a certain way of doing things. And if he doesn't want any advice or anything to change, that would just fine. And he kind of learned habits like that in the Air Force Academy, because they were always super organized. Jess, come on. Just trying to show you some love. Yeah, I don't want that. He hates when I do stuff like this. But this is a very Jess move. Okay. I'm going to go on my run now. What's Jim going to do? Jim is going to do what Jim does best. Jim's going to start preparing for the UTMB. Adieu! Okay. I'm going to change. I think this is the Strava, my Strava, what I see. So it started the week before this at zero for a couple weeks because that was my ankle injury. And then it's just been junk, junk, junk, junk, junk. And then I say I kind of had like five weeks where I wanted to be. Starting with this one, but then this one was probably the biggest week of like good quality intensity. Right now before the race. I think I'm as strong, fit and ready as I've been for any of my best runs of my life so it feels like we've got something lined up. Today. Easy. Fun. Get it done. Back home. Let's organize things, so no problem. Oui! Merci madame. This I need to check in today. Most of my mandatory gear. You check your bag because it's a safety check. So it's a safety requirement to have all these pieces of gear. Because if the weather changes in the mountains or you're going a lot slower, taking a lot longer than you think you are, it's pretty important to have additional layers in the mountains. It helps a lot. But, elites are known to skimp on weight. Which phone do you want to see? It's booting up. We're going to bag check-in. I think we go left. [Speaking French] Can we take a photo together? 20 more minutes. I don't usually get super nervous. I'm a little nervous this time though. I would assume Jim gets quite nervous. Allez, parce que, garçon. He's really good at repressing it though. Duolingo has not affected my racing abilities. But most athletes at UTMB are doing Duolingo it seems like. Oh no, I stitched it to myself. So race day. I really tried to make a lot of selfish decisions. Telling as many people no as I could. So I had more time to relax and decompress. My ears are warm. I told you to take a shower that wasn't too hot. No, I like a hot shower. Things, started off really smoothly. We kind of found quiet alley where Jim can get ready for the race and not have to worry about anyone bothering him. Long day out. Big adventure. I need to give you all hugs. I appreciate you. And then he can sneak his way over to the start line. Hey, good luck, have fun. The intensity right at the start is crazy. And then as a crew, that's when our race starts. We immediately drive to Les Contamines, which is the first crewable aid station. And then I think I wasn't paying attention when they did say go, because all of a sudden I was 100 meters back running down the chute in Chamonix, like for a couple kilometers. It's just crowds of people. It's pretty crazy. Then things settle. The beginning of UTMB, it's just different. It's flat. It's easy. Everyone feels good. So we're in Les Contamines right now. And this is the first assisted crewed aid station of UTMB. It's about three hours into the race. Jim arrived in first place, with fellow American Zach. And, yeah, I don't know. I got a really good feeling because he arrived in super relaxed, composed. He said his legs feel great. It'll be about five hours until we see him at the next aid station. He's headed to Les Chapieux right now, which is, close to the Beauforton and close to Areches where we live. I found myself with just Tom and Zach, and then all of Areches was in Les Chapieux, and the crowd is going wild. And then from there It was a lot about trying to stay within myself and conservation, keep my stomach in check. After that, we checked the tracker and the time split from Les Contamines up to Col du Bonhomme was extremely fast. Tom and Zach were pushing the pace really fast and Jim was obviously in the mix. I got a little bit nervous just wondering if they were starting way too fast. I was able to get a gap on Tom and Zach through Pyramides Calcaires. I saw that last year when Killian and I got a gap in the same spot on Tom and Zach. I didn't want to take as much risk on the downhills, especially if I was by myself. So didn't look to put more time anywhere there before Courmayeur. Okay. Cool. And then the full one. Alright, change headlight and spare battery. Yeah. Though I think Jim came into Courmayeur around 2:40 in the morning, which I think is ten minutes faster than the splits that he had written down before the race. Jim came into the aid station first. He put a little bit of time on Zach on the descent. It's a really crucial aid station, because at that point on the course, I don't get to see him for another five hours. So he has to really just make sure he has what he needs to get him through the next five hours. He takes two shirts with him because climbing out of Courmayeur, you climb out in this valley that's really stale and it's really hot. So he sweats a lot, but then pops up onto a ridge where the altitude is pretty high and you can get really cold really fast. I really felt that he was really in  control of his race and how he was feeling. A lot of the times at this point in past years, Jim's come into Courmayeur not looking so great. He's had some stomach problems. This year, it seemed completely different. And then I knew after Courmayeur, I wanted to be pretty solid to Bertone. The climb's really steep and hard. Kinda put on a dry shirt at the top. And then. Yeah, my legs were just flat. Stomach wasn't doing good. Probably the lowest moment. Kind of through Bertone to Bonatti. But I've had that again and again. It's just a difficult part of the course and it's cold. Still have a lot of the night to go. And Zach was just I don't know he's just running away and I thought it was a risk. But it wasn't a risk. It was calculated effort. And he held on and didn't fade much. I wasn't worried yet, but Jim ran that a lot slower than Zach did. Usually he likes to be with the person who's leading the race. We ended up getting to La Fouly around 5 a.m. and on the live stream Jim was in Arnuva in this big explosion of powder came out of his pack. I think he lost, the whole bag of powder. So that's what, 60 gram? It was kind of crazy. And I'm proud of him because he stayed so relaxed. So composed. At the end, he was, four minute and 42 seconds behind Zach. Yeah, we'll see in La Fouly. [Speaking French] Yeah he had incredible pace in that section. I think the climb up to Grand Col Ferret, I was moving good and moving at least as fast. But the downhill and the flat, he was definitely taking time. I was awaiting to see who would get to the top of Grand Col Ferret first and was thinking, okay, maybe he would be able to catch Zach on the climb. Hour and a half later, Zach is the first person through the top of Grand Col Ferret. Oh no. So then that's when Bastien and I kind of started thinking, what's going on? What's happening? It's a long way out to be hurting. Like this. I'm just trying to focus on moving. I don't know, I've been able to eat. Like it's not hitting my legs. I think it's not the best moment for him. Every time at this moment, so La Fouly is not far. Jess is not far. It will be okay. It's okay, Jim. Yeah? Yeah. You got this Jim, let's go! By the time we saw Zach in La Fouly, I started my phone to see the split and Jim didn't run by 'til eight minutes later. And that was when I knew. Uh oh. Is this is this the beginning of an unraveling? You kind of try to patch things up a little bit at La Fouly finally get an aid station. It's finally starting to get light. I was able to see Jim in La Fouly, and I gave him the split with Zach, and he just kind of looked at me and said, I need to run my own pace. And then what's happening behind me? I'm like, oh gosh, is he not motivated to catch Zach and close that eight minute gap? Is he going to have to concede to third place, fourth place, fifth place? Yeah. I mean, it was. Just damage management from Bertone to Champex-Lac. From La Fouly to Trient it's just a nice flowy descent. You're running with the flow of the river and it's actually really fast moving part of the course. I figured if he was feeling good, he would he would move well. So at this point, Zach was ten minutes ahead of Jim and I'm thinking, oh my gosh. Usually flats are his bread and butter. That's when I thought, okay, something's up. I think it was a very hard for him from Arnouvaz, La Fouly. Yeah, there were just fears of if it doesn't happen this year, like it's not going to happen. And that's another experience from Francois of just he's had the same doubts. I've had these doubts at Western States wins that went great. We all go through it. He was like usually not feeling good. With not the same smile. Every year it's the same, but you know, after it will come back. At that point, Jarman had closed the gap between him and Jim's. Jim came into the aid station, maybe 40 seconds ahead of Jarman, and I could tell he came in with a little bit lower motivation than I expected. I was able to get in some salty chips. Changed my shoes to a different foam combination. And then while I was loading up his pack, he said, I have to get out with Jarman. I have to use his momentum or I don't have a chance. I think it was very smart to do that there. And then when he leave Champex I look into his eyes and I know that it would be possible. Jarman was passing me. But at the same time, I'm like, I think I can like, try to cling onto him. Once I started running on the road and it went to let's test him a little and we'll see. And then all of a sudden my legs were just pure gold in that moment, nothing hurt anymore. I had a stride, I was bouncy, I could climb, I could descend, I don't know, everything came back. We received word that Jim had passed Jarman, running out of Champex-Lac. And then I got the message that Jim was looking great on the climb. Jim has just risen from the depths of pain. He was ten minutes behind Zach coming out of Champex-Lac. He made up eight minutes on the climb and is now two minutes from Zach. That's when I knew, like, okay, something spectacular might happen. I'm so freaking exciting. This is like the closest it's been so. Yeah, yeah. From there, it's just like, that was a different race. We just got word from the livestream that Jim has now taken the lead. That's when things got really exciting. Packed up the crew bag, sprinted into the aid station in Trient because I knew by the time he was at Col de la Forclaz, I only had 15 minutes to set up. Yeah, yeah, he's coming up there right now. He came into the aid station. He looked tired, but he was moving really well. Take the bars out. Do you want to wipe your face off? You got it! Leaving that aid station, I could tell his motivation was back. The fire was back in his eyes. And that's when I knew, it was game on. When the legs came back, they came back real strong. Then Francois crewed him in Vallorcine. And then, these chips. Give him a big kiss for me! Now, it's time to reduce the speed. Eat and finish it. Come on, Jim! We have lunch, huh? You will be here in two minutes for your last aid station. And then it's just the finish line. Come on, here we go. At that time in Vallorcine I think he needed Francois to crew him. And that extra bit of motivation coming from a person that Jim really looks up to. Francois just messaged the group message back and he said, it's go time. That's kind of when I started to realize that this might be the day that Jim's always wanted, even despite such a difficult middle half of the race, and really had to push through some very low moments. There's so many points of this race that I was quite like it was falling apart. Yeah, and I'm just like, yeah, I've been here falling apart here every time it could be happening again. But yeah, I just hung in, hung in. I saw him, Col des Montets. Just seeing how he looked. His body language, his gait, his face. I knew that he wasn't going to slow down on the climb up to Flegere. He was running in first place and about to be the first American to win UTMB. And once he reached the top of Flegere, I, I knew what was happening. He was going to win. The finish line at UTMB is a really unique, special place to be. The amount of people and the energy. It's really emotional. Waiting there even though you know they're going to come in 15 minutes, it feels like an eternity. This year in particular was really special, and I think one thing that helped propel him through the low moments was his aunt right now is having some pretty chronic health problems, and I think he thought a lot about her during the race. It feels like the best gift I could have given her at the right time of her life that I'm proud of, and I got to see her like right at the finish line too. It was super special. That was probably one of my favorite parts. Well, the other side of why ultra is so incredible is that it doesn't matter if you're first across the line, or you'll see the golden hour coming up. They're still out there right now, going through low moments and questioning everything the exact same way that I was questioning things too. It's just UTMB is not conquerable by a human, it's conquerable by the human spirit. And you need to harness the spirit in order to accomplish the goal. As I was saying on the finish line I'm the sixth American to win. I'm standing on the shoulders of the great American women that have won before me, they paved the way. At the same time, on the men's side, I think it is a breakthrough. The first American the men's UTMB. I think in some aspects, to be human means to learn, to drive towards a bigger goal that gives you hope. In my life, that's where sport has played a big role and failure is okay. It happens to everyone on a trail. There's no signposts to tell you what's coming ahead of you. You might make an unexpected wrong turn, mistake. You need to be able to brush that off and be open to this idea that you can make it through. And that takes a really resilient mind to do that again and again and again. In the future, when I look back, what I'm most proud of is the decision to chase a dream that was making me happy and something I fell in love with. With trail running where it's brought me. Meeting my life partner with Jess. Kind of just a bigger appreciation and love for our world, and how I make decisions in life. It all started with following all in on a passion. It's become a job, identity, but there's days where you can just forget that and just you're still doing what you love. You take a deep breath and you're in the mountains and clarity that sport brings me, that this makes me happy. I'm gonna build my life around doing this.