In taking second at the 2025 UTMB, the U.S.’s Ben Dhiman says he executed the race he wanted to. In the following interview, Ben talks about the bad weather’s effects on him and the competition, working together during the middle kilometers with men’s champion Tom Evans, how he struggled on the climbs but ran the descents well late race, and if he’s satisfied with his podium performance.
For more on how the race played out, read our in-depth 2025 UTMB results article.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Ben Dhiman Post-2025 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of IRunFar. I’m with Ben Dhiman. It’s the day after the 2025 UTMB, and you’re the men’s second-place finisher. Congratulations, Ben.
Ben Dhiman: Thanks, Meghan.
iRunFar: Has that settled in yet? That feeling of, “Yes?”
Dhiman: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to me, it’s like you either win, finish, or don’t finish. So I finish, and happen to get second. That’s cool.
iRunFar: One of the things that’ll stick with me from your pre-race interview was that you were here to do a smarter race and to execute. Does it feel like you accomplished that main task?
Dhiman: Yeah, it does. I mean, so I ran quite a bit with Tom Evans, the eventual winner. We are Asics teammates, but we didn’t have any plan to work together, we just happened to find a good rhythm. And part of what we were doing out there was actually talking about our pace. How is it feeling, how is it …
iRunFar: Talking to each other?
Dhiman: Yeah. There was a moment in Courmayeur, we were second and third. There was a French runner, Théo Detienne in front, and we were saying, “Should we go on the front foot a bit?” And we’re like, “No, we’ll just run steady here through the valley before Grand Col Ferret, and I bet we’ll get him.” And so we were kind of relaying the leads a bit. And random backpackers, even in the middle of the night or out there, it’s funny.
Out on the trails and they’re like, “Oh yeah, he’s five minutes, he’s eight minutes.” But then we started to see that headlamp bulb starting to come back our direction a bit and we’re like, “With just a steady pacing, we should be able to find to front there.” But it wasn’t, we were sort of keeping each other in check as it were. If we were pacing, we were trying to say, “How is it? Does this feel reasonable? Does this feel good?” And I think it was kind of cool to have those little check-ins and also if you’re chatting already, you’re in a good spot.
iRunFar: Yeah. When you’re in a place where you can chat and you feel like chatting, that’s a good sign.
Dhiman: Exactly.
iRunFar: Yeah. So to rewind a little bit, to early in the race, it was nice off the start line, but then already by Les Houches it had gotten kind of rainy.
Dhiman: No, what they did is they actually started the race with the first raindrop. They just waited for the first raindrop and they said, “Go.” And then it just down poured from the start, really. The first kilometer there, we were soaked.
iRunFar: We expected that the weather was going to be a complicating variable, and it delivered basically from the start.
Dhiman: I’m very skeptical of meteorologists these days. I don’t know if it’s a computer or it’s a person and it’s so often wrong, but it delivered even heavier than I think was anticipated with the rain. I think they didn’t even think it was going to rain that hard that early, but effectively as we moved up in altitude, the rain went to sleet and then snow, but we were coming into those regions already soaked, so proper mountain conditions.
iRunFar: Some of the other guys in the front that we talked to, talked about how early on people were kind of looking at each other being like, “Is he putting on his jacket? Is it jacket weather?” Looking for external cues rather than internal cues. And that being sort of potentially an early driving factor for how things turned out.
Dhiman: Yeah. I think on the first snowy section, it was Jon Albon and Germain Grangier, I think, and we were all just in rain jackets and gloves. I wasn’t even in gloves yet. I went gloves on the next one. And then the second one was a bit more burly Col de la Seigne. Jon stopped because Jon was like, “I didn’t even know if I should put on another layer underneath.” And on that one he had stopped to put on an extra layer. But I think Tom and I were pretty determined to just get up and over as fast as possible. That works too. But I got very cold on La Seine.
Downhill seems to generate heat. I mean, yeah, you’re descending in altitude, but there’s something going on, I think, with the body generating. I don’t know if it’s the muscular contractions from the downhill running, but you kind of start warming up. You can feel it first in your fingers, but it was a little aid station there and they had boiling hot soup, so I just filled …
iRunFar: After Col de la Seigne? Lac Combal?
Dhiman: Lac Combal, yeah. So I just filled up a bottle with that boiling soup and was just passing it hand to hand to get the hands back and then tuck it into the vest and zip up. So it’s just the heat’s kind of penetrating.
iRunFar: You had your own little heating pad.
Dhiman: It worked really well actually.
iRunFar: So to put together the weather with the competition there, I think going through the worst conditions of the night were Col du Bonhomme, Col de la Seigne …
Dhiman: And then Ferret.
iRunFar: And in the first half of that, there were five of you sort of close together. Maybe you weren’t together, but there was definitely interplay there.
Dhiman: No, it was a loose group.
iRunFar: You talked about later on after Courmayeur, like Grand Col Ferret approaching that, working together with Tom before Courmayeur, like Col du Bonhomme, Col de la Seigne. What was that accordion like with that front group?
Dhiman: We were just setting a good solid pace up the climbs, hiking a lot, but pretty serious hiking, but I think this is really the best. I ran Col de la Seigne last year, ran the whole thing.
iRunFar: Up it?
Dhiman: Yeah. And then this year, we hiked basically the whole thing. We ran all of the little ups and downs before you get there, and then we just set off into a really steady hike. But the craziest part was the segment difference. My time was only a minute slower.
iRunFar: Isn’t that interesting?
Dhiman: I’m like, man, I was so much more in control of my effort. I felt so much better getting over there. I’m like, “You’re only a minute slower, you hiked the whole thing.” But you’re able to distribute your energy in such a more linear way and your metabolism is more stable I think, and when you’re running it’s just peaking and dropping. So yeah that was it. Basically we were kind of like, nobody was saying you go first or whatever, but we were all peeing a lot because it was cold, so somebody would get off and pee and another person would take the lead, and then we were just kind of moving in that direction and relatively kind of having a good time. I mean, yeah, it was chilly, but it was kind of nice to share those moments together.
iRunFar: Courmayeur is the unofficial halfway point and I don’t know, it seems to be also a psychological transition for a lot of people where folks are like, “Let’s just get to Courmayeur as best as we can and then start the race.” Or not?
Dhiman: I think that’s kind of a fallacy. I can’t imagine doing 80 kilometers and then just saying how the race starts.
iRunFar: “Ok, here we go guys.”
Dhiman: Yeah, maybe that’s like a tactic to slow yourself down a bit, but I mean, realistically, you take a lot of damage. It doesn’t matter how slow you go; you’re going to take damage getting there. So I would rather get there in just an efficient way. You run at a good pace, but not an aggressive pace, but you have to realize you’re going to take damage whether you go really slow or whatever. The key is just to take care of your fueling and hydration and such. So we got there. I was feeling pretty good, but I mean, still, it’s just the middle of the night. It’s kind of just not a nice time to be running anyway, so I don’t know. I can’t imagine running through there and having a crazy good sensation.
iRunFar: You said at the start of the interview that leaving Courmayeur, you and Tom Evans were working together. Théo Detienne was in front of you. In that transition between Courmayeur and Grand Col Ferret, the both of you overtook Théo.
Dhiman: Yeah.
iRunFar: And went up to Grand Col Ferret in first and second place, respectively. What did that feel like?
Dhiman: Well, I knew it was going to happen. I mean, I ran with Théo before. He was kind of in uncharted territory, so he went up the Mont Favre. Before Courmayeur, there’s a little climb. He ran every step. I was like, “He’s trying to pull a Vincent Bouillard there, but he’s not Vincent Bouillard.” He’s a good runner, but …
iRunFar: He was going to come back at some point.
Dhiman: He was going to come back. We weren’t worried because we were moving so well that it’s like if somebody’s actually outpacing us right now, they’re going too fast.
iRunFar: That’s a good feeling. Grand Col Ferret was among the crappiest conditions of the day there. But daylight started to come around La Fouly.
Dhiman: We didn’t get the first signs of daylight until after La Fouly. It’s been a long time in the dark. It felt like a never-ending dream. And not a great dream either.
iRunFar: Slight nightmare.
Dhiman: Just some kind of purgatory dream.
iRunFar: Are you still in purgatory right now? Eventually came out of it?
Dhiman: No, today I’m feeling pretty good. Yeah, it’s a beautiful morning too.
iRunFar: Switzerland knows how to do sunrise. Daylight came. There was also some daylight coming between you and Tom in front of you …
Dhiman: Too wide actually.
iRunFar: … But also, actually, you and the men behind you. Did it feel like a little no-man’s land there for a while?
Dhiman: Yeah, but it’s a situation I’ve been in a bunch now where you just get outclassed, but then you’re sort of not really enough … The people behind you aren’t close enough to get into a fight. And this can be a bit tricky and it’s kind of what I don’t like is you get simultaneously very fear of getting caught and self-conscious of really wondering if your pace is good or not.
iRunFar: Because there’s nothing to cue off, right?
Dhiman: Then, also, you also don’t even want to know how bad the gap is getting in front of you. It’s also just sort of doesn’t feel good to know you’re just getting beat on everything. So it’s tough. But like I said, it’s like 100-mile time. Just got to get into the hard moments and get through them, man.
iRunFar: Isn’t that crazy that you can be running in second place in UTMB in the final 50k and then be kind of in that weird psychological headspace of like, “Am I doing enough?” But you’re literally in podium position at UTMB?
Dhiman: Yeah, I’m very hard on myself. So I was really disappointed with my uphill legs up the steps climbed from Trient. I was telling the camera runner, I was speaking them in French. I was telling him how, I said, “I’m nothing. I have nothing left. I have no gas.” I was like, “He’s going to catch me. There’s nothing going on.” That’s not even like me. I never even say things like that, really. But it was coming out. It’s coming out on the climb, and I’m like, maybe sometimes it’s nice to have the camera runners. You could just have your little personal therapist with you.
iRunFar: Yeah, your buddy there.
Dhiman: Yeah. Who’s going to then just say, “You’re doing good. Keep going.”
iRunFar: Offloading your psychological baggage.
Dhiman: I think my uphill gas left because during the cold periods I didn’t have any hunger. So I was just, yeah, we have a fueling strategy, but also, we rely on just like, “How does the gut feel? Is it empty?” Put some fuel in. But during the cold I was going up and over with no wish to eat anything. It was kind of in that little fight or flight mode. So I passed quite a bit of time in the night without eating. I mean I still ate some. I knew I had to keep gels coming in from time to time. I had mostly sushi rice and gels. But I think I got really glycogen depleted. And once that happened, the gels, they weren’t even doing anything anymore. It was just like the legs they were so gone that … So what I did is my focus shifted then to the downhill running and I try to balance it out by pushing on the down and that works actually.
Ludo Pommeret is a perfect example, somebody who just leans into the downhills every time and then catches people there. So that you can actually use it as a strategy. But it’s also good psychologically because you’re like, “Even if this isn’t good, that’ll be better.”
iRunFar: It’s interesting that you feel like you lost your power for the uphill, but you maintained the muscular endurance to repeating those hard downhill steps.
Dhiman: Yeah, I didn’t have soreness on the downhill until the very last descent.
iRunFar: I mean this really is kind of a downhill runner’s race. If you can still manage to run some of these downhills because they’re steep enough and they’re rocky enough that if you can do that, you can make up so much time.
Dhiman: Yeah. I mean, maybe that’s why Ludo is always in the top six, right?
He can smash all the downs. I don’t know if he has a technique or what because some of the guys yesterday were saying … Because even on the first downhill, he was in the middle, he wasn’t in the front and then on the down and suddenly he’s in the front.
iRunFar: He’s there. Barrel rolling.
Dhiman: And some people said they saw him and they’re like, “It’s unbelievable how fast he was going down.” And normally you’d assume that running with that kind of pace downhill would have some irreparable damage on the legs. So maybe it’s his 50 years of running experience that’s built this quality, or I know he has these hits with the heel a lot on the down, or I don’t know if he’s got some special Jedi trick.
iRunFar: He’s using every millimeter of the stack height on his Hokas. Did you have any sense, when it was clear that the men behind you were quite a distance back, did you have any sense on that last section that things were going to turn out or were you kind of aligned?
Dhiman: I was worried the whole way. I’m just never satisfied with the gap. You could tell me it’s 20 minutes. I’m going to say, “It’s not enough.”
iRunFar: You have a nine-year gap.
Dhiman: And I was just like I said, I just wasn’t feeling like myself, so I was questioning everything. But yeah, I mean, even some of my Asics teammates came out to La Flegere, and they’re like, “You can just chill on the downhill. You have plenty of time.”
I’m like, “No.” Imagine he has some insane climb and then the last thing I want to do is get caught. Because to me I did say it’s finisher, champion, not finisher, but it does make a difference to get second or third to me.
iRunFar: You said ahead of the race that doing what you did yesterday was something in your capability. You knew that in your heart you could do that. It was a matter of executing it.
Dhiman: Yeah.
iRunFar: Today, do you feel that sense of accomplishment like, “I did it,” or is your immediate reaction like hungry for a little bit more?
Dhiman: I invest a lot of my time, energy, and mental bandwidth in this race because it’s an important one. So I think when you do that, whatever it is, if it’s a race or it’s another thing in your life, whatever happens happens, and you have to just try to appreciate as much as possible and take what you can from it because it’s not a guarantee that it’s going to be success. But the athlete in me is always has the sweet tooth for first place. But that’s fine. We can keep working on it. But for the moment, I’m just sort of, I’m like, “All right, did the loop.” Now I can really grasp what I think I can do a bit better or whatever. But I’m also, yeah, it’s just like this is a big race so if you get on the podium, it’s a good stamp on the resume.
iRunFar: It’s a pretty good stamp on the resume. Do you have anything else left in your 2025 season, or does it involve playing with your kid and couch-sitting?
Dhiman: I have left the back end of the season open. I’m going to, maybe I’ll go in a really different direction. I’ll run 5k on the road or something. I don’t know. Change gears up because it’s been a lot of this for a while. This is pretty great. But I like to really pivot off races to change the training, create some novelty, have some fun. So we’ll see.
iRunFar: Look forward to seeing your 5k time this fall then. Congratulations on your second-place finish.
Dhiman: Thanks for that. Appreciate it.
