The 2025 Hardrock 100 ultramarathon had challenges Hardrock 100 Race Director Dale Garland hadn’t experienced before.
On July 11, Elaine Stypula, 60, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, passed away 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.
The air quality concerns prerace didn’t cancel the race as the air cleared up before the start. Stypula’s tragic death was on the hearts of race organizers as the Hardrock carried on. Returning men’s champion Ludovic Pommeret defended his title and Katie Schide won the women’s race with a new course record.
“It was challenging, for sure, not only because of Elaine's death, but a couple of other things with the smoke and having to make a last-minute decision,” Garland said. “But it was also really reaffirming in terms of the community and the way that people came together around those challenges.”
A cancellation wouldn’t have been new for Garland and the Hardrock; the event was canceled four times before. It would’ve been the latest cancellation in the event’s history.
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’t want to run with the air quality concerns. No one took Hardrock up on that offer and the weather cleared up.
Stypula’s death was the first fatality on the Hardrock course in the event’s 30-year history. Therefore, it was the first time the Hardrock team had to mobilize a critical response around a fatality, according to Garland.
Garland said there was an autopsy done on Stypula, but he hasn’t been notified of any results and he respects the family’s privacy. Garland has stayed in touch with the family and wants to let them take the lead on what information gets out.
The Hardrock team will do a debrief in a couple of weeks and look into the way they responded to Stypula’s 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.
“You always look at what we could have done better,” Garland said. “That’ll 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’s response and with the coroner. As bad a situation as it was … as tragic as the situation was, it was handled really well.”
There were some positives to come out of the race. Pommeret won the men’s race in 22 hours, 21 minutes and 53 seconds. The 50-year-old Frenchman continues to redefine what’s possible in Ultra running as he took his second consecutive win.
The top three of the men’s 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.
Silverton’s Jeff Rome was the top local finisher in seventh in the men’s race, followed by Durango’s Kyle Curtain in eighth.
Pommeret used his experience, didn’t pull away from the leaders immediately and eased into the race. Pommeret made his move about 28.8 miles into the race around Sherman.
He steadily increased his gap to second throughout the race until he had over an hour over his competition at the finish.
Schide dominated the women’s 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.
The gap to second continued to build and France’s Manon Bohard finished second in 28:36:16 and Switzerland’s Katharina Hartmuth finished third in 32:39:48.
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.
Schide’s time broke Courtney Dauwalter’s 2024 record time by over 20 minutes. Another record that was broken was by Spain’s John Tidd. He finished 13th in the men’s standings and ran the fastest time ever by anyone over 60 years old in 31:25:41.
Garland isn’t sure if Pommeret and Schide will be back next year to defend their titles, but he said they left the door open to returning.
The 2025 Hardrock 100 had 114 finishers which is a pretty high number compared to previous years, according to Garland.
“I would like to give a shoutout to all of our volunteers,” Garland said. “I've 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.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
