The time is nigh! As you’re reading this, in all likelihood, I’m in the fuselage of an aircraft on my way to Europe for another Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. One of the great sporting events in the world, it’s a gift to be able to experience another edition of this incredible race. Like last year, the Freetrail team will be there to share the story of UTMB week, doing our part to inform the trail world through our Trailgating shows and race coverage, hopefully cultivating new diehard trail fans in the process. 

Below is a summary of our schedule. All shows and interviews will be posted to the Freetrail YouTube Channel and in the Freetrail Podcast Feed. Make sure you’re subscribed.

Monday, August 26th

• Top-10 Storylines Of The 2024 UTMB, co-hosted with Tim Tollefson & Corrine Malcolm
• Pre-race athlete interviews with Toni McCann, Ludovic Pommeret, Hayden Hawks, Abby Hall, Hannes Namberger, and Eli & Tabor Hemming

Tuesday, August 27th

• OCC & CCC Preview Show, co-hosted by Corrine Malcolm
• Pre-race athlete interviews with Remi Bonnet, Helen Mino Faukner, and Fuzhao Xiang

Wednesday, August 28th

• UTMB Preview Show, co-hosted by Leah Yingling & Rod Farvard
• Pre-race athlete interview with Ben Dhiman
• ​Freetrail Pro Happy Hour, information in Slack for members.

Thursday, August 29th

• OCC race coverage – follow along on the Freetrail Instagram​
• UTMB Prediction Show + OCC Recap with Francesco Puppi & Dani Moreno

Friday, August 30th

• CCC & UTMB race coverage (no Trailgating show)

Saturday, August 31st

• Continue UTMB race coverage
• UTMB Instant Reaction Show + CCC Results, co-hosted by Kim & Topher Gaylord

Sunday, September 1st

• UTMB / Full-Week Recap, co-hosted by Corrine Malcolm
• UTMB & CCC post-race interviews
• ​Summer Party, Presented by Like the Wind – We’re excited to partner with our friends Simon & Julie Freeman from LtW on the 10th anniversary of their get together in Chamonix. If you’re in town, come celebrate with us!

Finally, big thanks to our partners at HOKA for making our coverage possible. We hope you’ll follow along and share it with your friends! Need some reading, listening, or watching to tide you over? Check out the links below.

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Miscellaneous Stuff

• Strava File Of The Week – David Roche is a complete legend, making his 100 mile debut at Leadville last weekend and managing to lower Matt Carpenter’s untouchable 19 year old course record by 18mins. Potentially the performance of the year, I attribute David’s race to the emotional boost received from appearing on the Freetrail Podcastlast week. 🙂

• Roche the Clairvoyant – After his CR performance, David posted a screen cap of his expected splits at Leadville – a spreadsheet constructed well before the race. Amazingly, he predicted his own finishing time within 26 seconds!

• Tatra SkyMarathon Cancelled – Dangerous weather conditions in Poland forced the cancellation of Tatra SkyMarathon last weekend – the sixth stop on the Golden Trail World Series. As a result, the GTWS has changed the rules and qualification for the World Final – adjusting from four top performances to three. Next up is the USA double of Headlands 27k & Mammoth Trail Fest next month.

• UTMB Fantasy – Fantasy is officially OPEN for UTMB Mont Blanc! We’ll be playing all three of the World Final events, picking 10-deep in each. Go make your picks for OCC, CCC, & UTMB individually! 

• UTMB Splits Tool – For the real trail running stats geeks, Travis Loncar shipped another dope feature on the Fantasy site. Explore historical splits at UTMB with seamless navigation and the ability to compare individual performances from the race’s 20 year history.

• 100 Reasons Why – For your weekend viewing, go check out the new Adidas TERREX film, 100 Reasons Why, on YouTube. The video captures TERREX athletes preparing for and competing at the Western States 100. It’s very well done. 

• My Return to Racing – Your boy clipped off an ultra last Saturday at the Tamapla Headlands 50k. A classic old school ultra, Headlands also doubled as the USATF 50k Championships. I finished 25mins slower than the last time I ran the race in 2016, but I was actually really pleased with myself. Solid pacing, nutrition, hydration, and mindset, I finished 6th. I hope to keep the momentum going for another 100k this fall. 

• Kilian’s Alpine Connections – Kilian didn’t take much time to celebrate his tenth Sierre-Zinal victory, instead beginning another big personal project that he’s calling Alpine Connections. NNormal is providing really cool coverage and you can also follow daily progress on Kilian’s Strava. Based on the pictures, it seems there’s some very cool new gear from NNormal in process…

• Jeff Browning on the Colorado Trail – Speaking of daily progress, you can follow Jeff’s FKT attempt on the Colorado Trail with his GARMIN device. Mountain Outpost is also doing a daily update on their YouTub Channel.