Courtney Dauwalter has held the record for the UTMB women's race for three years, but she's not going to have it for a fourth thanks to a stunning display from fellow US runner Katie Schide this weekend.
Unlike the men's race, which seemed to consist of one plot twist after another, Schide made a definitive statement last night when she joined the frontrunners from the starting line and doggedly refused to cede her place near the front throughout the night.
Of course, Schide is no stranger to the 106-mile course around Mont Blanc – though she's originally from Maine, she's lived and trained in the Alps since 2016 and competed in the race three times previously, winning it back in 2022.
This year, she seemed to go out of the gate faster than ever, keeping pace with the elite men, but according to her, her pacing approach was no different than 2022 and any different might be down to the men's performance.
"I don't normally write down splits but actually I just wrote down my first couple so I could keep myself in check because sometimes I tend to go out fast, as people notice, and I was exactly on my split from 2022 so I think the guys either went out fast in 2022 or more controlled this year."
We followed the elite runners throughout the entire race and it was impossible not to notice how confident and fresh Schide appeared and for most of the race, it seemed likely she'd shave at least an hour off of Dauwalter's course record of 23:29:14. However, after the last climb she developed a noticeable limp which slowed her down.
"The last two hours was very difficult," she confirms.
In the end, she arrived back in Chamonix in 22:09:31 and while that didn't quite make her goal of under 22 hours, it meant she comfortably set a new course record and ended the race 13th overall, just two months after winning the Western States in June.
"I think this race I just went in more confident with myself and I wasn't surprised that I was fast whereas in 2022 I was kind of freaking out," she says, attributing her success to simply two more years of training since her last win.
"This time I meant to do it and I was just focused on trying not to die too hard at the end."
Of course, every elite athlete has some secret sauce and it turns out Schide's comes in the form of sliced bread. Cheap sliced bread.
"Last time I kinda hit a disaster and our disaster management was Wunder Bread with butter, that's what saved me in the end, so this time we just had some of that ready to go."
Something has to give you a break from all those running gels.
Around 40 minutes after Schide's historic win, New Zealand's Ruth Croft took second place, with Marianne Hogan coming over the line nearly 25 minutes after that to round out the podium on another inspiring women's race.
Over in the men's race, lots of DNFs drastically shook things up overnight and a relatively unknown French runner ended up landing a huge win which you can read about in our coverage of Vincent Bouillard.
