Jim Walmsley has been one of the top ultrarunners in the world since he won the JFK 50 in 2015. The Hoka-sponsored runner has won the Western States 100 three times (2018, 2019, 2021) and holds the course record (14 hours 9 minutes) on the 100.2-mile run from Olympic Valley to Auburn, California. Since then, he’s won several international races—the Ultra Trail Cape Town 100K in South Africa, the Madeira Island Ultra Trail 115K in Portugal, and Endurance Trail des Templiers 80K in France—but the one race he has yet to master is the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), a 106-mile race around the Mont Blanc massif that starts and finishes in in Chamonix, France. He’s run it four times with two strong finishes (fifth in 2017, fourth in 2022) and two DNFs (2018, 2021), but admits he’s never had the optimal race in which everything comes together.
The 33-year-old runner from Flagstaff, Arizona, is one of the top contenders in the men’s field at this year’s UTMB, which begins September 1 at 6 P.M. local time (12:00 P.M. ET). He moved to Arêches, France, with his wife, Jess, 32, in May 2022, shortly after they…
