UTMB, or the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, is a 106-mile loop around the Mont Blanc massif with over 32,940 feet of elevation gain. This mountain ultra attracts some of the top competition in the world, drawing in names like Kilian Jornet and Courtney Dauwalter, while hosting thousands of runners from all over the world.
Runners must accumulate qualifying points via “stones” in UTMB-branded events of comparable distances in the UTMB World Series. For example, runners who want to run the 106-mile race in Chamonix must finish a UTMB event like Canyons by UTMB or Wildstrubel by UTMB. So, by the time many runners toe the line in Chamonix, they have some experience in the distance.
In 2022, 68 percent of the 2,300-plus runners finished UTMB. How do these runners train for such a beastly race? We parsed through the Strava data for some surprising finds.
How UTMB Runners Train
After analyzing Strava data from UTMB runners, there was not a statistically significant difference in training between finishers and non-finishers, who were nearly identical across all measures including training volume, vertical feet accumulated,…
