Borderlands contributor Bryce Carlson reflects on the 2026 Hardrock 100, where 50-year-old Ludovic Pommeret set a new overall course record, Courtney Dauwalter won her fourth title, and Tara Dower completed one of the sport’s boldest doubles.
Somewhere on the south side of Cape Cod, my alarm went off early, as usual. I won’t tell you exactly where. The place was special, and I don’t necessarily want it filled up with even more tourists when we inevitably return. But then again, I suppose you can always check my Strava.
As I left our VRBO on Beach Plum Lane for my morning run, Ludovic Pommeret, two time zones west, was busy doing something much less ordinary.
Hardrock 100. 21:11:36. Overall course record. Fifty years old. Back-to-back-to-back champion.
It was pouring on Cape Cod. Coffee and our quiet vacation rental sounded better than wind and rain, but after checking the Hardrock 100 splits, I figured I had better toughen up.
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That was the first thing Hardrock 100 did to me this year. It made some of my own excuses sound tired.
I am 44, which is not old in any meaningful life sense, but it is old enough that athletic ambition gets more complicated. Recovery is different. Sleep matters more. Random body parts develop opinions of their own. You start doing math you’d rather not do.
And yet there was Ludo, at 50, running the fastest Hardrock 100 anyone has ever run.
I’m not pretending age doesn’t matter. It does. But Ludo made it harder to hide behind. He didn’t just hang around for a respectable old-guy finish. He won the race for the third year in a row and took the course record with him.
For a 44-year-old athlete still carrying real competitive ambition, that was hard to ignore.
Then There was Courtney
She won Hardrock 100 for the fourth time. She set a new clockwise course record in 26:03:10. She did it about two months after finishing second at Cocodona, where she ran 250 miles across Arizona in 61:58:35.
[Courtney Returns to 2026 Hardrock 100 by Bryce Carlson]
That would be the whole story for almost anyone else.
But in her post-race interview, Courtney sounded almost frustrated that she had landed in the 26-hour window again. She called herself “a 26 girl.” She talked about wanting to figure the loop out better, about stringing together the good sections, and about looking at her watch near the end to see whether she could make the clock say 25.
Four Hardrock 100 wins, another record, and she was still talking like there was work left inside the race.
I loved that, mostly because it is so different from the way the rest of us are tempted to think about achievement. From the outside, the win looks like the answer. For Courtney, the win seemed to be only part of the conversation. The course still had sections she wanted to solve. The night still got away from her. The clock still had something she wanted.
The best athletes compete with the field, but they also seem to keep a standard that belongs only to them.
Tara Dower Belongs in the 2026 Hardrock 100 Conversation Too
Thirteen days after finishing sixth at Western States, she finished third woman at Hardrock 100. I don’t know how to make that sound normal, so I won’t try. Maybe it’s not normal, and maybe that’s part of why people love her.
Western States to Hardrock 100 in less than two weeks is a wild thing to put on a calendar. Tara put it on a calendar and then actually did it.
I don’t need to pretend these people are relatable. They are not, at least not in the usual sense. Ludo, Courtney, and Tara are operating at a level most of us will never touch.
But watching them still did something to me.
Not because they made hard things look easy. They did the opposite. Ludo made 50 look less like a warning label. Courtney won and still wanted more out of herself. Tara took a double that sounds like a crazy idea and made it real.
I thought about all of that on my wet Cape Cod run.
The wind was annoying. My shoes were soaked. The road was quiet. I was on vacation and still checking splits from a mountain race happening far away.
Mostly, I kept thinking about how easy it is to make a story about why the next thing is too late, too hard, too unrealistic, or too much to ask from myself.
Hardrock 100 was not kind to that story.
Ludo is 50 and still taking records. Courtney is Courtney and still unsatisfied. Tara had every good reason to rest and went to Silverton instead.
I don’t know exactly what to do with all of that, except to say it made the rain feel a little less persuasive.
So I ran.
