Frenchman Germain Grangier, who seems to have a knack for running this race well on odd-numbered years, returns to the 2025 UTMB after a podium finish at the Hardrock 100 just 1.5 months ago. In the following interview, Germain talks about his recovery and training since Hardrock in July, the importance of not trying to replicate experiences in ultras, and the changes he’s seen at UTMB in the past decade.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth men’s and women’s previews and follow our live race coverage starting Friday.
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Germain Grangier Pre-2025 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Germain Grangier. It’s a couple of days before the 2025 UTMB. Here we find ourselves together again, Germain.
Germain Grangier: Yeah, again. Now in France, yeah.
iRunFar: We spent time with you in Silverton at the Hardrock 100 earlier this year, and we missed you so much that we had to come find you in France.
Grangier: I knew. I know it always happened. I’m glad you came.
iRunFar: The last time we saw you was at the finish line of Hardrock, where you took third place. You podiumed at Hardrock. I remember us talking to you before the race. It was a bit of a question mark, in that you’d struggled last year with races longer than 12 or 14 hours. So, Hardrock seemed to go okay, all things considered.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly. I think you summed up pretty well the 2024 year. I had a lot of uncertainty. I think when I hit the Telluride station and I saw that I could run the runnable three kilometers to the aid station, it felt like a relief because I was something like 14 hours in the race, and my legs were just able to move, and I could jog, which the thing that I was not able to do the last year.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Grangier: I don’t know why. It felt like a bit of relief. I’m happy my body still agrees with that.
iRunFar: It’s only a month and a half since Hardrock that we’re here now, at the starting line of UTMB. It must have been an okay recovery, an okay transition time for us to find ourselves here.
Grangier: Yeah. I feel like the first two week were a bit hard, because obviously we need to recover to travel back to France and we have a bit of a construction going on at home, so figuring out all those things. I took the time to, every time I would do a longer day, to really ask myself if I was recovered enough to keep going. And sometimes I would take a extra easy day and not, I would say, trap myself into a specific frame or scheme of training to go to UTMB.
iRunFar: It’s an interesting transition though. They’re 100 milers, but they’re very different. Hardrock 100 is so high. I don’t know how you describe it. It has very similar vertical change, but it’s such a slower race.
Grangier: Yeah, exactly. I did a back-to-back in 2023, I trained for UTMB, and then I did Diagonale des Fous, which is I think easier to switch from a faster race to a slower race.
iRunFar: To a slower one, yeah.
Grangier: And this time it’s the reverse process. I think it’s interesting. It also brings me a lot of curiosity, so that’s why I’m trying this back-to-back. I knew it worked in 2023, so I’m pretty confident it can work. As you said, Hardrock, it’s much slower. It’s more like a big, big hike.
iRunFar: A big hike.
Grangier: And here it’s still a big hike in the end, but the first stretch to Courmayeur is a lot more running.
iRunFar: Yeah. We have discovered that odd years are pretty good for you here at UTMB, so maybe you had to be here. In 2023, you were on the podium. In 2019, you were a fifth place. 2021, you also had a top 10 or maybe top 12 type place. It’s an odd year, so what are we expecting?
Grangier: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, I didn’t realize that. That brings me a lot of confidence, I would say, and everything is going to be great.
iRunFar: It seems like either we have very hot weather at UTMB or we have bad weather, and I think you’ve seen both here in your time. What are we thinking about this weekend’s weather forecast and, in particular, how that’s going to affect you out there?
Grangier: I think I’m fine with anything, but I found out it looks pretty unstable. It looks a little bit rainy, but can be also super heavy and wet if we have those low clouds. I think it’s going to be a mix of everything and definitely a lot of adaptation during the race, which is also good for the race itself and how the race will evolve if people are trying to adapt to the weather and the pace and whatever.
iRunFar: UTMB is a race of high highs and low lows. They seem to be, I don’t know, amplified by the weather, the course, the competition, the pressure. What are some of the things, when you look at all the times that you’ve been here in the past, where you’re like, yes, that was a high high, I want to figure out how to replicate that and, oh, that was something I really don’t want to repeat?
Grangier: I feel I tried to do that last year, to mimic 2023. Obviously, I broke my ribs end of June, so I think the preparation was … I tried to do a lot closer to the race, so it was different. I think it’s, for me, I think I work better with the mood that I have pre-race. And every year is different, you grow up, you’re getting older, and then you are finding new motivation.
I try this year to not be … I used to be very organized, more, super organized. But when you’re super organized, you’re predictable, and then when you’re predictable, it’s your weakness. So I was like, okay, I’m going to step back with that and be more creative, get back to my roots, and be more on the fly, I would say.
iRunFar: It’s really interesting to hear you say, because it’s not the first time I’ve heard somebody say, “Oh, I had a really good race, so I just wanted to replicate the whole thing, take the piece of paper and do it again.”
Grangier: Yeah.
iRunFar: But really, there’s so many factors that maybe things are irreplicable.
Grangier: Yeah. Yeah, I think I agree with that. As I said, you show up in those big events, you take different ways and different path towards the events, and the mood is not the same, so I think it’s, I don’t know, but how I consider other thing is I would be better adapting to my mood and what ways I took towards the race and then built my strategy around that, instead of wanting to exactly duplicate whatever I ate, whatever I drunk. We’re not on a track.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Grangier: And that’s why we love these sports, because there’s a lot of uncertainty. At least it’s my way to approach it.
iRunFar: Last question for you. This is now currently arguably the biggest race in trail running in terms of the amount of commerciality, the number of fans who are here, the number of journalists, the number of fast runners. There’s just a lot concentrated in one place. You’re French. You have been here. You’ve seen this race evolve pre-COVID, post-COVID. You’ve seen a lot.
Grangier: Yeah.
iRunFar: What’s a good way to summarize what UTMB is exactly at this moment in trail running?
Grangier: Yeah, that’s true. I think my first race was OCC, 10 years ago.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Grangier: Where you have the plastic bottles in the front, the big ones.
iRunFar: The hard-sided ones, yeah.
Grangier: Yeah, the hard one. Yeah, yeah. You had the ribs totally destroyed after.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Grangier: That was that time. I think there is both way to see UTMB. It helped the sport so much to grow, to structure not only their partnership and their business, but also all the people around. For me, I would say, allow me to be professional, because I look at what they are doing, how I can get a sponsor and get partnerships and whatever. They brought a lot of structures. I think it’s evolving a lot. I’m less and less tuned into the pre-week event, I would say.
iRunFar: Yeah, you try to tune out maybe.
Grangier: Yeah, it’s a little bit, it’s a lot. I think now also we have to work together with the organization as the runners are part of the show now, so we need to find some way to work better together for registration and things before the race. But believe now we have a special runner committee that they built up that maybe we are going to find something more, I would say …
iRunFar: Balanced.
Grangier: Balanced, yeah.
iRunFar: Sustainable for the runners.
Grangier: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that’s my sum up, I would say.
iRunFar: That’s great. Best of luck to you on your loop around Mont Blanc this weekend, and enjoy the soft flask rather than the hard-sided bottles.
Grangier: Yeah. That’s true. Thank you.
