In Inky Steve’s latest column, he turns his attention to the Mount to Coast H1.

Let’s be clear. When I first saw a Mount to Coast shoe, it was on an episode of Believe in the Run’s The Drop. I think it was the R1. My first thought was, “Who’s going to buy that?”

It looked like a horrible white brick with a black-and-white outsole and one exposed section of foam acting as the stability element. It was designed for ultra road running, which, to be fair, is a niche within a niche. I can only really think of Comrades as a major road ultra.

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> Nike ACG + the Sea of Sameness
> 44 Trail Shoes Tested Over 6,000 Miles
> More articles by Inky Steve

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I didn’t like what I saw and just assumed it was another flash-in-the-pan brand doing something different that nobody really wanted or needed.

Roll on 12 months, and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

What I saw was an incredible-looking shoe that still had elements of that original R1. What is it? What’s it for? It really didn’t matter. I knew I was going to get a pair.

The murmurings were great. It was a hybrid “H,” meaning it could handle both road and trail. The images appearing on social media looked incredible and built a genuine buzz. To me, it felt similar to the excitement around the Norda 005. After a month or so of teasing, the influencers started talking about it. Was it good or bad?

Word on the street was that it felt like a trail version of one of Adidas’ most popular road shoes, with a similar foam character built around Mount to Coast’s own new midsole.

Everything was pointing in the right direction.

The standout for me on the Mount to Coast H1, though, was the silhouette and colourway. The brown and beige upper with the white midsole and yellow highlights on the dual lacing system and outsole was an absolute chef’s kiss.

Finally, the H1 was available to buy, and at a very reasonable price too.

The biggest compliment was still to come.

The running world suddenly decided there was a debate to be had.

What’s better: the Mount to Coast H1 or the Norda 005?

Now, I’m a massive Norda fan. I love their design language. Could the Mount to Coast H1 actually be a better shoe at half the price?

Simple answer: no.

But that’s missing the point.

The point is that people were comparing it to the Norda 005 in the first place.

The H1 is undoubtedly a brilliant shoe in its own right. I’ve run countless miles in mine and always enjoy putting them on. They’re just different from what was already available.

There are no flashy gimmicks, apart from the dual lacing system, which I still think is a bit pointless. But I get it. That’s a Mount to Coast thing, and they’re sticking with it.

It’s a shoe you throw on and head out the door, whether you’re running roads, trails, or grass. It doesn’t handle mud brilliantly, but that’s not what it was designed for.

The foam feels great and reminds me a little of the Adidas EVO SL, but the real win is the curb appeal.

Whenever I wear them, people ask me about them.

They have an old-school, almost heritage-inspired look, and I think that’s what people were really comparing when they mentioned the Norda 005.

These are two beautiful trail shoes that look just as good walking around town, standing at the bar in the pub, or heading to the local football match as they do out on the trails.

Mount to Coast cared about what this shoe looked like, and they absolutely nailed it.

More recently, we’ve seen Believe in the Run collaborate with Mount to Coast on their own version of the H1. Yes, they added the weird sock gaiter thing, which most of you already know I’m not a fan of, but it still has a really cool aesthetic.

Personally, I’d have liked them to push the colour scheme a little further, but I think it opens an interesting door. Rather than collaborating with another footwear or apparel brand, they partnered with a media company.

That’s a really interesting direction.

The biggest takeaway for me is this.

The Mount to Coast H1 came to win, not just on podiums but on the streets as well.

I’m already excited to see what’s next from the brand, and I’ve got the M1 firmly in my sights.

It just goes to show you shouldn’t write a brand off too early. Sometimes they surprise you.

Thanks,
Inky ✌

Podcast: Satisfy Founder, Brice Partouche

July 15, 2026
11:17am Mountain Time

Salomon has announced the S/LAB Genesis 2, the next generation of its technical trail running shoe designed for long-distance mountain running. The updated model features a dual-density optiFOAM² midsole, a redesigned activeCHASSIS™ for added stability, a Matryx® Micro upper woven with Kevlar® fibers, and an updated All-Terrain contaGRIP® outsole with 4.5 mm lugs for improved traction on technical terrain.

The S/LAB Genesis 2 weighs 9.5 ounces, has a 6 mm drop, and will be available beginning August 1 through Salomon and select retailers. Salomon says the shoe builds on the original Genesis platform while improving cushioning, guidance, and durability for long days in the mountains.

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.

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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.

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.

See also: Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run’s contribution to Joel Zucker Memorial Scholarship

A year ago, Josh Rosenthal and I were talking about the differences between American and French trail running. At one point, almost as a joke, I told him:

“Hardrock belongs to the French.”

The numbers backed it up. Over the last sixteen editions, only three American men have won Hardrock. Everyone else? French runners… and Kilian Jornet (5 times).

At the time, the explanation felt obvious. We grow up in the mountains. We spend our weekends climbing steep, technical trails. UTMB is in our backyard. Hardrock almost feels like an extension of that culture.

But then I thought about Jim Walmsley.

Arguably America’s greatest ultrarunner had to move to France before becoming the first American man to win UTMB.

A few years later, Vincent Bouillard became the first Frenchman to win Western States. A Frenchman, yes, but also perhaps the most American Frenchman in trail running. He spent years living in the United States, working as an engineer for HOKA and immersing himself in American trail culture before returning to Europe.

Looking at those two stories together, I started wondering if they weren’t really telling the same story.

Two Worlds – American and French Trail Running

For a long time, trail running had two capitals: Europe and North America.

They shared a love for mountains and wilderness, but they grew up telling very different stories.

In Europe, trail running emerged from mountain culture. Long before races existed, shepherds, hikers, mountaineers, and guides had already built relationships with the Alps and the Pyrenees. Races like UTMB, Sierre-Zinal, and Grand Raid des Pyrénées became natural extensions of that history. Steep climbs, technical descents, and villages connected by centuries-old paths defined the sport.

America grew up differently.

Its iconic races came from deserts, forests, mining roads, and vast wilderness. Western States, Hardrock, Leadville, Barkley, and more recently Cocodona each tell different stories, but they share a common spirit: adventure, self-reliance, and immense landscapes where getting from one point to another matters as much as the terrain itself.

The cultures reflected those landscapes. In Europe, trail running borrowed from alpinism. Precision. Vertical gain. Technical movement. Refuges. Espresso after the run.

In America, it borrowed from road trips and wilderness. Crews waiting at aid stations. Pacers. Pickup trucks. Belt buckles instead of medals. Dirtbags sleeping in vans before the start.

They weren’t competing against each other.  They were simply evolving in parallel, almost like two different sports speaking the same language.

The Exchange

Somewhere along the way, those worlds began to overlap.

Five years ago, I barely knew what Cocodona was. I knew Western States and Hardrock, but they still felt like distant races happening somewhere else.

Today, I wake up in the middle of the night to check live tracking from Arizona. I spend a week following Cocodona, watch the Western States livestream until 4 a.m., and somehow know what’s happening at Broken Arrow before I know who won Marathon du Mont-Blanc that same weekend.

And I’m definitely not the only one.

American races have become part of the conversation in Europe. Cocodona. Western States. Hardrock. The Speed Project. Barkley. More and more French runners know the names, follow the stories, and dream about racing there.

It isn’t just the races. We started consuming American trail media too. Billy Yang’s films. Freetrail. Singletrack. Borderlands. Podcasts, documentaries, and YouTube channels that showed a different way of talking about running.

Suddenly, the Far West didn’t feel so far away. The curiosity flowed both ways/ More Americans came to Chamonix. UTMB became the race everyone wanted to win.

I remember arriving in California a couple of weeks after finishing UTMB. Every time I mentioned it to another runner, their eyes lit up. More than once, someone hugged me simply because I’d finished the race they dreamed about. As a French guy, hugs from strangers still feel a little strange, but it made me realize something.

UTMB wasn’t just a European race anymore.It had become part of American trail culture too. People started travelling. And their culture travelled with them.

More than Athletes

Jim Walmsley is probably the best example. America didn’t simply send Jim Walmsley to France.

France and French Trail Running changed Jim Walmsley.

Living in the Alps, learning those mountains, discovering ski mountaineering with François D’Haene, and adapting to an entirely different style of racing eventually made him the first American man to win UTMB.

His success wasn’t about bringing America to Europe.

It was about becoming a different kind of athlete.

The same is true in the other direction.

Vincent Bouillard won Western States as a Frenchman, but also as someone who spent years living and working in the United States. He understands American trail culture from the inside while still carrying the mountain background that shaped him in France.

Neither runner belongs entirely to one world anymore. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. A year ago, I joked that Hardrock had become a French race.

I still think there’s some truth in that. The numbers speak for themselves. For nearly two decades, French runners, along with Kilian Jornet, have dominated one of America’s most iconic mountain races.

But I don’t think that’s the most interesting story anymore.

The more interesting story is what happens when athletes stop seeing cultures as borders and start treating them as classrooms.

Jim Walmsley didn’t win UTMB from Arizona. Vincent Bouillard didn’t win Western States by staying in France. Both crossed cultures before they crossed finish lines.

Thomas Cardin’s fourth-place finish in his Western States debut only reinforces that feeling. French runners no longer look at Western States as a fascinating American classic.

They’re arriving expecting to compete.

At the same time, Americans are no longer trying to beat Europe from a distance. They’re moving there, living there, and learning from it.

Maybe that’s where trail running is heading. The greatest races in the world no longer belong to the countries that created them. They belong to the athletes curious enough to cross cultures, borrow ideas, and become something new.

And until an American starts winning Hardrock again…

I’ll still call it a French race.

It was hot for Paris Fashion Week. Hot hot.

Thankfully, I lived about five minutes from where I was meeting the HOKA team to talk about their latest collaboration with BEAMS. Had it been much farther, I would’ve needed a shower before we hit record.

I felt a lot of pressure to get this one right.

[More at analog.borderlands.cc]

HOKA is doing some of the most interesting work in collaborations today, yet I don’t think the story translates particularly well to runners. More broadly, I don’t think Paris Fashion Week is very legible to the running community, even though I believe it’s quietly shaping the future of the products we wear.

This was my fourth Paris Fashion Week, and I was determined to make it a little more understandable. From the outside, it’s easy to dismiss it as catwalks, exclusivity, and luxury for luxury’s sake.

It isn’t.

It’s designers obsessing over craft. Product people debating materials. Brand leaders thinking years ahead. And yes, a surprising number of people who genuinely run.

Ideas born in these showrooms rarely stay here. They filter into mainstream footwear, influence the next generation of product, and eventually end up on the feet of everyday runners.

That was the conversation I wanted to have.

Not about a single collaboration, but about why HOKA has become one of the few performance brands to cross into culture without compromising the thing that made runners trust it in the first place.

Thomas Cykana and Travis Wiseman are helping shape that story.

July 12, 2026
03:27pm Mountain Time

Diadora has spotlighted the Gara Carbon 3 as part of its summer running lineup, positioning the performance road shoe for runners training and racing in warm conditions.

The Gara Carbon 3 features a full-length carbon plate paired with Diadora’s Anima PBX midsole foam, designed to deliver energy return and propulsion during faster efforts. The shoe also uses an engineered carbon-fiber mesh upper intended to improve breathability while maintaining a secure fit in hot weather.

According to Diadora, the Gara Carbon 3 is built for runners targeting personal bests through the summer racing season. The shoe retails for $320.

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.

For the first time in months, I’m stepping away from interviews and monologues for a Borderlands Trail Running founder update.

By the time this episode goes live, my family and I will be somewhere over the Atlantic, leaving Paris after two years and moving back to Salt Lake City. I came to France thinking I was building one thing and left building another. I’m leaving with a much bigger vision for what Borderlands can become.

In this monologue, I share what changed during our time in Paris, the mission that continues to guide Borderlands, where I want the company to be over the next month, year, and decade, and how everything we’re building fits together.

Listen →
Watch →

In this episode

• Why Paris changed the way I think about media, culture, and Borderlands
• The mission behind Borderlands: The Heart of Trail Running
• One-month, one-year, and ten-year visions for the company
• Why Borderlands is expanding beyond podcasts
• The role of the website, newsletter, documentaries, YouTube, live events, Arcade, and Live on Course
• The contributors helping shape Borderlands, including Bryce Carlson, Inky Steve, Stan Van Kimmel, Christian Brecheis, and others
• A look at where Borderlands is headed next

Please give us a follow, rate the podcast, and give a review.

If you’re new to Borderlands, start here.

Today Borderlands moves home.

Two years ago, I moved my family here believing a trail running media company could be headquartered anywhere in the world and produce the same results.

I was wrong.

For two years, my wife and I dragged our three kids through Airbnbs across Paris, Copenhagen, Ljunghusen, and Frederiksværk. We asked them to learn languages we didn’t speak and build a life that never stayed still for long.

I started having opinions about baguettes.

I became obsessed with the Americans who came here looking for something they couldn’t quite name. Hemingway’s neighborhood became mine. I walked past the cafés where he and Fitzgerald escaped the cold over wine. Gertrude Stein’s apartment was a few minutes from our grocery store. John Steinbeck’s old apartment sat just beyond the Métro stop on the way to church.

At first I thought those places held some kind of magic.

Now I think they held something else.

Pressure.

Paris demands your attention. It compresses life. It makes you wrestle with your work, your identity, your ambitions, and your limitations. It’s a constant reminder that you’re somewhere extraordinary, but not because of you. This city has produced greatness at every turn for centuries. If you’re not great because of it, you don’t belong here.

Looking back, I don’t think I could have built this version of Borderlands anywhere else.

I think every great American-in-Paris story begins the same way. People arrive ambitious, optimistic, convinced that whatever Paris gave Hemingway or Picasso might somehow rub off on them too.

Then life.

I took my son to school in the dark and picked him up in the dark. The bureaucracy wore us down. Our kids seemed to have another school holiday every other week. The romance slowly gave way to routine.

Eventually you realize Paris wasn’t giving those people anything.

It was asking something of them.

Paris is hard. Not in the dramatic sense. In the daily sense. It asks for patience, humility, attention, and endurance. You survive it, and somewhere in that survival you become someone more capable than the person who arrived.

It’s miserable somewhere around mile 70, and only makes sense afterward. Many people who start a hundred-miler don’t finish one.

Nothing is handed to you in Paris. It’s earned without you noticing and you only recognize it once you leave. For the countryside or home.

The gift of Paris isn’t living there forever.

The gift of Paris is leaving it.

You leave carrying a version of yourself that didn’t exist when you arrived.

Paris gave me vision before it gave me results. Or more accurately, it gave me a hunger for bigger vision.

Paris didn’t build Borderlands.

It built the person who could.

Now it’s time to find out whether that’s true.

July 6, 2026
08:46am Mountain Time

Swiss watchmaker TUDOR has expanded its ambassador roster with the addition of four of trail running’s top athletes: Courtney Dauwalter, Miao Yao, Rémi Bonnet, and Baptiste Chassagne.

The announcement marks a deeper investment in trail running for the luxury watch brand, which says the athletes embody its “Born to Dare” philosophy. While elite runners rarely compete wearing mechanical watches, TUDOR said the partnership is intended to celebrate achievement rather than serve as race equipment.

The new ambassadors represent some of the sport’s most accomplished competitors, with victories spanning Western States, UTMB, Golden Trail World Series events, and other major international races.