Courtney Dauwalter Returns to Hardrock 100 With a Record to Chase

The last time Courtney Dauwalter raced Hardrock, she kissed the rock in Silverton after 26 hours, 11 minutes, and 49 seconds.

Third straight win. Clockwise course record.

For most runners, that kind of race would sit alone for a while. Courtney at Hardrock felt settled.

Then she skipped 2025, and Katie Schide ran 25:50.

First woman under 26 hours. Overall women’s course record.

If Schide had stayed healthy, the 2026 race would have been easy to frame. The two best women’s Hardrock performances, one year apart, finally on the same start line. Courtney with the clockwise record. Katie with the overall record. Silverton would have had the race everybody wanted.

Katie is out with injury now, so Courtney will not be chasing her.

She will be chasing the number Katie left behind.

Courtney Dauwalter Returns to Hardrock With a Record to Chase

I have my first 100 miler on the calendar now, so maybe I am reading this differently than I would have a month ago. Courtney is Courtney, obviously. But 65 days after Cocodona is still 65 days after Cocodona. Two hundred fifty miles does not disappear because Hardrock needs a favorite.

She was second at Cocodona in 61:58:35, under the old women’s course record. Incredible. Also 250 miles. I don’t care how good you are. That has to cost something.

Nobody needs a column explaining that Courtney is good at this. She is probably the favorite because her career has earned that sentence. But favorite does not mean frictionless.

Her last year has not looked like the easy Courtney scoreboard we got used to. She dropped from Cocodona in 2025. Then she won Lavaredo. Then she finished 10th at UTMB. Then she ran 2:38 at CIM. Wait, what? This year she won Chianti, went back to Cocodona, and finished behind Rachel Entrekin on a day when Rachel did something special.

I don’t think that means she is slipping. I think it means she is racing a lot, and racing hard. Courtney can make these efforts look simple from the outside, but they are not. Cocodona was still 250 miles. UTMB was still UTMB. And now comes Hardrock.

The race starts in Silverton and runs through the San Juans with 33,441 feet of climb and the same amount back down. The average elevation is over 11,000 feet. The high point is 14,048. Those numbers stop being trivia pretty quickly.

This year runs clockwise, which is Courtney’s direction. Her 2024 record came clockwise. Katie’s overall record came counterclockwise. The comparison is imperfect, but nobody will care much about the footnotes if Courtney is ahead of record pace late.

The women’s field still has plenty in it. Careth Arnold is entered. Tara Dower is entered too, 13 days after finishing sixth at Western States, which is inspiring to say the least. There will be others. Hardrock is too long and too grueling to reduce to one name before the race starts.

Still, Courtney changes the race just by being there.

She is the most famous ultrarunner in the world, but she has never seemed especially interested in acting like it. She talks about snacks and problem solving and pain caves. She can make the whole thing sound almost casual if you are not paying attention.

You should pay attention.

She is coming off 250 miles. She is returning to a race she has won three straight times. Someone took the overall record while she was away. The runner who took it will not be there. The number will.

I don’t know how much Courtney cares about Katie’s time. Maybe she cares a lot. Maybe she doesn’t. Either way, the setup provides some drama even without the head-to-head matchup.

When she starts in Silverton, I will be watching the space between two facts: Courtney has made Hardrock look like hers, and Hardrock does not belong to anyone.

Here for more articles by Bryce Carlson.