France’s Germain Grangier is taking on the 2025 Hardrock 100 amongst an ascendant international running career. In the following interview, Germain talks about some health worries of 2024 which now seem cleared up, how he’s been able to return to races and improve at them year over year, the uniqueness of living and running at high altitude in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains for the last month, and some of his experiences of his extended stay in America.
To learn more about who’s racing, check out our preview before following our live coverage during the race.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Germain Grangier Pre-2025 Hardrock 100 Interview Transcript
Germain Grangier: Where is Bryon?
iRunFar: Bryon was in the kitchen.
[Editor’s Note: For a bit of the context on “Where is Bryon?” It’s a classic set of lines from a very common method to learn English in France, such that it’s a joke in and of itself. Read more here. https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/17r9sv3/can_you_help_me_understand_a_french_joke_as_an/ ]
Bryon Powell of iRunFar here with Germain Grangier before the 2025 Hardrock 100. How are you, Germain?
Grangier: I’m good. Great to meet you in the US.
iRunFar: Yes. It’s good to have you here. Welcome to Silverton. Welcome to Hardrock.
Grangier: Yeah.
iRunFar: We’re going to go back in time a little bit. Last year, you raced UTMB and Diagonale des Fous and didn’t have great races there. What went wrong and how have you corrected that?
Grangier: I wish I would have an answer, but right now I don’t. Yeah, I had a weird thing in my legs after 12 hours in both of the races, so I went through a lot of medical exams because my legs couldn’t contract or coordinate. I was losing the strength, like I’m going to sit down. So they didn’t find anything because I have some history with my arteries in my legs from cycling. I had some injuries there, so I wanted to check if it didn’t evolve. So apparently, we are all good with that.
iRunFar: Okay.
Grangier: But yeah, I checked a lot of things, but I don’t have any really answer for that. So started from scratch all the nutrition, starting to work on different things. And here I am… to try again.
iRunFar: Yes. Well, it’s not your first try after those races.
Grangier: No.
iRunFar: You ran the 72 [kilometer race at] Chianti Ultra-Trail and [Madeira Island Ultra-Trail], the long race there.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly.
iRunFar: And they went fine.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly.
iRunFar: So your legs are back.
Grangier: Yeah. It didn’t go beyond this barrier of 12, 13 hours. So I’m still here to find answers. It’s interesting to see how things can go super well from a year to not well from another year.
iRunFar: Yeah. But it’s a new year.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly. So that’s a new year, a new game.
iRunFar: Yeah. How has your preparation gone this year compared to the past?
Grangier: Great. This year I didn’t have any injury. Last year I broke two ribs. This year I only cracked one.
iRunFar: Oh, it’s improvement. Was this skiing?
Grangier: No, this was cross-country racing. I got elbow kicked at the start, but that’s better because it was only cracked and it didn’t last a long time. So that’s a small improvement again.
iRunFar: Small. Yeah. That’s an improvement. Okay. You’ve been over here since middle of May, so you’ve got to train up high and acclimate.
Grangier: Yeah, first time for me that I run that high. I’ve been doing things in the mountain high, but not running, which is different.
iRunFar: And how has that gone?
Grangier: It’s hard. Yeah, it’s hard because in Europe I would talk in meters. When you go at 4,000, I guess 13…
iRunFar: 13,000 feet, yeah.
Grangier: You see how good I am. And yeah, you are in super technical terrain or on glaciers or rock falls, so you are moving slow. You cannot run. And here you can be on a plateau, on a…
iRunFar: You could be on road.
Grangier: … road in general and want to run. So yeah, I think it’s good because you have to really take all the numbers you have from home and put them on the side and redefine everything. And that’s a new stuff.
iRunFar: Has that been a challenge?
Grangier: Yeah, definitely, the first days and weeks were really hard, so that’s also why we came earlier to figure out this thing. Now, I’m past that period, so it feels better.
iRunFar: And has your nutrition felt okay at this elevation? Because that can also be a challenge.
Grangier: Yeah, I took a lot of notes and worked through different things and I think now I’m probably figure out what’s working for me.
iRunFar: This is your first long ultra in the United States. You’ve run Speedgoat, but that’s a big difference. I mean, you have crews in some European races, but you can have a pacer here. The crews are a different feel even I think than in Europe.
Grangier: Yeah.
iRunFar: What do you feel is the biggest challenge or change from being at home? Or are you excited about having these?
Grangier: Yeah, I feel like first I was really honored to be able to run Hardrock, because I think it’s a lifetime experience. So that’s also why we decided to come earlier, because I wanted to understand how this mountains work. It’s super different from home. It’s sometimes super open. It’s up high, there’s storms coming super fast and leaving super fast. I wanted to understand water, if we can drink water, not water, wildlife. So I was really excited about all of that. And yeah, the pacer is a new thing for me. Running 100 miles in the U.S. is a new thing for me, but I work with a lot of Americans and English speakers, so that’s..
iRunFar: Not such a big challenge.
Grangier: Yeah. It’s okay.
iRunFar: I have noticed that when you run the same race you often improve a little bit, improve a little bit. Having many years at UTMB, excluding last year, but it kept happening at Diagonale des Fous, the same. How do you approach coming to a very important to you race for the first time?
Grangier: Yeah, that’s a good question. I guess because we cannot repeat that much that pattern with Hardrock because it’s hard to get in. So that’s also a reason why we wanted to come earlier to get rid of all this uncertain factors, I would say.
So coming to Hardrock, I think it’s another mindset to approach the race. And I think it’s just like more being ready to be more close to my feelings and more ready to adapt around the race than just sitting and running the plan that you know perfectly at UTMB. So, it’s not repeating, it’s just like starting a new thing.
iRunFar: What are you most excited about for your first Hardrock?
Grangier: I think I’m pretty excited about how I will respond to a long run at altitude. But my main goal is to finish the race and run after 12 hours. Being if I reach this barrier and I’m like, “Whoa, my legs are still working,” that will be such a big relief feeling for me. So that’s my first goal, I would say.
iRunFar: Well, good luck and I hope you get to do that.
Grangier: Thanks again. Go back to the kitchen.
[Bonus Question]
iRunFar: Now, a bonus question for you, Germain.
Grangier: Bonus. Okay.
iRunFar: Today is… Well, I don’t know if it’s your first… Is this your first American 4th of July?
Grangier: Yeah, I think I got to experience a lot of Thanksgiving. This is my first 4th of July. Yeah.
iRunFar: What’s been the most interesting thing for you today so far?
Grangier: Yeah. So it’s funny because 10 days after in France we have the 14th.
iRunFar: Bastille Day.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly. It’s the national day or so. I would say here it’s way more celebrating. I feel like we are really back into this history on our national days [in France], really serious. We have the military things.
Here, it’s more like, “Let’s celebrate, have fun, do kind of silly things, raise money.” We don’t do that in France. We don’t raise money. That’s just in the corner of the street and that’s cool. I like the vibes.
In general, it’s the first time, told Katie, “It’s the first time I feel like staying here, I could live in the U.S.”
iRunFar: Yeah, you enjoyed it?
Grangier: Yeah, because I like the mountains. I really like Ouray. I feel like Ouray’s shape is really close to the mountain. And that’s something I’ve been missing in the U.S., because the place we went [before], you had to drive to run. Long, long approach. And here you can just run from the door and that’s kind of cool.
iRunFar: It sounds like you’re enjoying your American experience this time.
Grangier: Exactly. Thanks.
