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Katie Schide chose to focus on the 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Canfranc, Spain, prioritizing the biennial event’s rugged 82K course over the high-profile UTMB week in Chamonix.
images by Jacob Zockerman
No Katie Schide at 2025 UtMB
Late August in Chamonix is trail running’s loudest week. The cameras are everywhere. Crowds stack along the river and into the narrow streets. Each race pours through the same arch, the finish line that has become the center of the sport.
For years, Schide has been part of that rhythm. She first appeared at UTMB week in 2018, finishing second at CCC. In 2019 she moved up to the main event and placed sixth, then eighth in 2021. In 2022 she won UTMB in 23:15:12. In 2023 she lined up at OCC and placed second. Then, in 2024, she returned to UTMB and ran 22:09:31—a women’s course record.
Which is why her absence in 2025 was so striking.
For the first time since 2018, Schide did not race during UTMB week. She had every reason to be there. In June 2024 she won Western States in 15:46:57, the second-fastest women’s time in race history. That August she defended her UTMB title with the course-record run in Chamonix. In July 2025 she added Hardrock to her resume. Few athletes entered the late summer with a stronger claim to Chamonix. Yet her name wasn’t on the UTMB start list, or CCC, or OCC. Instead, she turned her season toward the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Canfranc, Spain.
[Follow all of Borderlands’ coverage of the WMTRCs in Canfranc]
Already Proven at UTMB
Schide’s 2024 season already secured her place among the sport’s greats. Western States in June. UTMB in August. A course record in Chamonix. That double is rare. Nikki Kimball managed it in 2007. Courtney Dauwalter pulled it off in 2023. Schide joined them in 2024 and did it with a record.
After that, there was nothing left to prove in Chamonix. Which made her absence in 2025 impossible to ignore.
Prioritizing the WMTRC Over UTMB
UTMB week remains trail running’s most visible stage. Past champions almost never turn it down. Schide did. She has admitted before that she once felt “obligated” to be there. In 2025 she drew a line. UTMB happens every year. Worlds come only every two years. She chose the rarer chance.
No Simple Task: Hardrock in the Middle
Hardrock is its own kind of proving ground. For Schide it was new territory in 2025, but she arrived in the San Juans prepared. The course, with its 33,000 feet of climbing and sustained high-altitude passes, had challenged generations of ultrarunners. Winning it confirmed her ability to handle not just the speed of Western States or the rhythm of UTMB, but also the extremes of altitude and terrain.
[SILO – the best ultrarunning aid station bag]
Very few runners have touched all three—Western States, UTMB, and Hardrock—in such a short span. Dauwalter’s 2023 triple remains unmatched, but Schide’s sequence across 2024 and 2025 puts her in equally rare air. The win in Silverton didn’t erase questions about her skipping UTMB. It made them more interesting.
No 2025 UTMB: Protecting Energy
The decision to step away from Chamonix fit her broader pattern. Schide races with composure and protects her energy carefully. Media requests get pared down. Sponsor asks are handled well before race week. Social channels often go quiet.
Skipping UTMB week was that same principle scaled up to an entire season. Why split energy between two marquee events when one mattered more?
The Signficance of WMTRC’s to Katie Schide
UTMB is about the individual. Worlds demand something different. National kits. Team scoring. A biennial rhythm that gives each edition weight. In 2025 the event lands in the Pyrenees, in a town that could not feel more different from Chamonix.
Canfranc sits in the Aragón valley, pressed against the French border. Its landmark is the Canfranc International Station, a massive Beaux-Arts building that once served as a railway hub and now frames the start and finish of one of Spain’s hardest ultras.
The long trail is 82 kilometers with more than 5,400 meters of climbing. It is rugged in ways that numbers alone don’t capture: grassy ridges, faint tracks, steep rock that forces hands on knees. For runners used to UTMB’s polished singletrack and constant flow of spectators, Canfranc is something else entirely. Katie Schide has described it simply as an “80K fell race.”
The Engine for Canfranc Climbs
Her background makes sense for that kind of day. Winters in the Alps don’t lend themselves to endless long runs. She builds strength through ski mountaineering and road sessions, the kind of efforts she has described as sharpening a “30-minute engine.” That fitness translates to repeated climbs and sustained effort.
She has also proved she can drop down in distance when needed. After heavy ultra blocks she has raced short mountain events with success, including her recent podium at Sierre-Zinal. It reinforced her view that “fitness is fitness.” That adaptability makes Canfranc a logical target.
Katie Schide’s Unique Approach
Katie Schide’s choice also stood out against how other Americans approached the season. Jim Walmsley and Adam Peterman both kept themselves in the UTMB orbit through OCC, with Walmsley winning and Peterman finishing sixth. Schide bypassed Chamonix altogether. Her summer balanced the prestige of Hardrock with the promise of Worlds.
Big Goals, Honest Outcomes
Schide has never picked easy goals. At UTMB she once set her sights on breaking 22 hours. At Hardrock she has said the women’s time should be closer to 24. Not every goal has landed, but that is the point. She aims high enough that success is never automatic.
Choosing Worlds over UTMB is part of that same outlook. It is the harder choice, the one with no guaranteed payoff, but the one that carries meaning.
Choosing Canfranc
The lights in Chamonix still burned. The cameras still rolled. The finish line still crowned new champions. But Katie Schide wasn’t there.
Her season had already taken her through the San Juans in July, where she won Hardrock, and now it points toward the ridges above Canfranc in September. In a sport that often celebrates spectacle, the choice to skip UTMB week says as much about her as any win under the arch in Chamonix.
The only question now is whether that decision will look like foresight (or a missed opportunity) when the results from Spain are remembered.
Borderlands will be there, with Josh on the ground in Canfranc to see how it plays out and to bring us the stories firsthand.
Stay with us for updates and live coverage.
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