The U.S.’s Hayden Hawks will run the 2025 UTMB on the heels of a 2024 win of the CCC and a rapid restart to his training following knee surgery in late spring. In the following interview, Hayden talks about his long-term relationship with the UTMB Mont Blanc festival, how he’s changed as a person and runner since his first run here in 2017, his injury and surgery this year, and his desire to run free and with few expectations at this year’s UTMB.
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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Hayden Hawks Pre-2025 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Megan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Hayden Hawks. It’s a couple days before the 2025 UTMB. We’re here again in Chamonix, Hayden.
Hayden Hawks: Back here for the what? Seventh out of the last nine years. We love it here. We’ve been out here for about three months now, me and my family, training for the race and just living. We live in the valley every summer, and it’s become a special place for us, a second home to us. As well as New Zealand. We bounce between New Zealand, here, and home, and feeling ready for the race.
iRunFar: I love that. I want to go back to your first experience here at UTMB, the festival, I should say. It was 2017, you won the CCC out of the gate. And then things came full circle — last year you won the CCC again — but a lot has changed for you from 2017 to 2024. Looking back at the Hayden who first came to this festival and the Hayden who’s here today, what do you see?
Hawks: Yeah. In 2017 I was fresh. I started my career in 2016, the summer of 2016. Literally, I was a year into my career at that point. I had no clue what I was getting myself into out here. I really didn’t know much about these mountains, know much about the course. I showed up, I think three or four days before the race, and just had fun.
iRunFar: As we all did then.
Hawks: It was mostly I was just excited to be here. Of course, taking it all in, seeing Mont Blanc, it was like, “Wow, this is a special place,” and I think like that energy and just that excitement was what got me through that race and got me the win. Of course, I’ve been able to grow a lot in the sport, learn a lot, dial things in, in between the two wins. I feel like last year I actually ran a lot better race than I did in 2017.
iRunFar: Oh, that’s interesting.
Hawks: Even though my time was only four minutes faster, I feel like in 2017 it was a cooler day. It was pretty cold. Last year was very hot, and I think the heat slowed us down quite a bit. I do believe that I would have run a lot faster last year, just from the execution and how under control I felt. And I just felt like I really understood the course. I knew exactly where to get the water, how to take care of myself, and it was really awesome.
I’ve had some injuries here and there that have taken me out of some of the races, and I’ve been trying to figure all that out. But I feel like when I am healthy, I feel like I’m at my best right now in my career, when I’m healthy, it’s just staying healthy. And that’s what I’m focusing on now is staying healthy and also bringing back that excitement and just that special feeling that I felt in 2017. I’m really trying to take that into the race this year.
iRunFar: At this festival, I think you’ve done all of the main events. You’ve been top five at OCC. You’ve won CCC twice, I think. And I think there are a couple DNFs at TDS and UTMB. When I look at your results here, it’s like two sides of a coin. Either it’s like show up or things just don’t work out. And UTMB is one of the nuts you haven’t cracked here yet, so there must be like some internal drive to be like, “I want to figure out the full loop.”
Hawks: 100%. That’s my main objective this year was: finish the loop, gain experience, just run a smart race, take care of myself, and just go out there and run free. And don’t put any expectations on myself, just have fun, enjoy it with my crew, my family. Soak it all up, because it is such an amazing event. And I’ve had some rough days out on the course, and I think a lot of that was putting these high expectations on myself, of like, “I’m going to win. I’m going to break the course record, whatever it is,” and I’m not thinking about any of that this year. I’m just going to go out there and run the best race I can, and if that’s what gets me on the podium or gets me the win, great.
iRunFar: Great.
Hawks: If it doesn’t, then, whatever. I finish the loop, I have a good day, I gain experience, and I come back for another go at it, hopefully next year, whenever that is.
iRunFar: Cool. I want to ask about that a little bit because your sponsor Hoka is the main sponsor of UTMB. There’s just so much investment here and so much opportunity for pressurizing your own race experience. How do you let that happen around you, but then, as you said, to be able to run free and let go of that on race day?
Hawks: Yeah. Luckily, Hoka, they put no pressure on us at all, to be completely honest with you.
iRunFar: That’s great.
Hawks: They didn’t even expect me to run it this year because I was coming off of a big injury, and they said, “Hey, if you don’t feel ready, then don’t run it.” And of course, I feel ready. I feel healthy. I feel ready to go, and so I said, “Hey, I’m going to do it.” And they were happy about that, but there was no pressure put on me whatsoever, and it’s awesome.
iRunFar: I like that.
Hawks: It’s awesome.
iRunFar: Thank you, Hoka, for being so cool.
Hawks: It’s awesome to have all the brands that do support me, and they just want me to be my best self, and that’s all that matters to them. And all my brands have said, “We feel like you have many, many years to come,” and I do, too. And they said, “Just focus on your health. Get through this. Become stronger off of it.” Which I am. I’m becoming a lot stronger through all these injuries and through all these learning experiences. And really, that’s life, right?
You have a lot of ups and downs in life. I see it with my kids every single day. And it’s just what it is. It’s not always going to be smooth, but you learn from those hard times. You learn from those experiences, and you become a better person because of it. And so, that’s what I’m taking in as an athlete, too.
iRunFar: Are you saying that running is a metaphor for life and vice versa?
Hawks: Always. It always is. It has been throughout my entire life, and I’m so grateful for running and what it’s taught me, because I have grown up a lot, I’ve matured a lot. I’ve learned so many good life lessons through running, and not just the good times, but the bad times.
iRunFar: It’s just really interesting to be able to say that and then also internalize it. Because life does have ups and downs, but somehow what translates into running sometimes is this expectation that you’re always on and that every day is a good day and that there are no downs, and that’s just not real, is it?
Hawks: It’s not true. No, it’s not true at all. We go through a lot of hard times, especially as elite athletes, that people don’t see. All they see is our highlights on Instagram, and that’s not everything. That’s not life. And I try and just take things as they come. I try to just be at peace with things and just realize that, hey, this is life. This is what it’s going to be like.
And I have to be that way because I’m a dad, I have two kids, there’s constantly something going on. And learning from them, becoming more close to them, in essence, has really helped me in my career as well. I’ve learned so much from being a father, and I’m very grateful for that.
iRunFar: A lot of patience.
Hawks: A lot of patience. And you need patience, especially at a race like UTMB, right?
iRunFar: Mm-hmm.
Hawks: And I’m going to take that into race day, I’m going to be patient. And I’m just going to run a smart race. I’m going to do what I can do. And really, I have a lot of athletes I coach. I talked to my wife about this, I was like, “At the end of the day, that’s all you can do, is do what you can do.” And if that’s just not good enough, it’s just not good enough, right? You go back to the drawing board. I mean, it’s always good enough. It’s good enough because you got the best out of yourself. But if it’s not good enough to win, let’s say, then you go back to the drawing boards and you say, “Okay … ”
iRunFar: What do I have to tweak next?
Hawks: Yeah. “What can I fix now?” And there’s always another race. There’s always another opportunity. And you just take them as they come.
iRunFar: Let’s talk a little bit about the lead-up to this race. Timeline-wise, you won CCC last year, went to New Zealand over the winter, did some racing there, and then had to give in to injury and give in to surgery. What was the exact timeline on that?
Hawks: Yeah. We went out to New Zealand January, February, March. Had a great time down there. Loved it. But I got myself into a bit of trouble, to be honest with you. Was overtraining. Was just doing a bit too much down there.
iRunFar: New Zealand is too fun.
Hawks: It’s very fun. Maybe too fun. And I ended up developing a little bit of a niggle and was like, “Ah, shoot. What’s going on?” And then I got home in April, and this is like toward the end of April, I started really feeling my knee and was like, “Man, this is not good. I need to figure this out.”
I went through a whole bunch of the process of trying to figure out what it was, physio. I ended up getting an MRI. We found out that there was a little issue with my knee that I need to probably get taken care of at some point. We tried to find a solution around it, and it just wasn’t happening, so I decided to get that procedure done. It was a very small procedure, but I had to get the surgery.
I went and got the surgery, recovered from that. Started actually training again probably mid-June, and just slow progression from there. I said to myself, “Hey, I got 10, 12 weeks. Really, it was probably more like eight weeks that I could actually start building into more running. We came out here eight weeks before, and so it was perfect. I came here, got a bit motivated. Found out the ups and the downs, and the hiking actually helped my knee a lot.
iRunFar: Isn’t that interesting?
Hawks: Yeah. The running was actually the thing that was hurting it, and trying to run flat, and that’s what I was doing back home. But then here, it was like, “I’m just going to hike. I’m going to hike up and take the lift down.” And the knee just progressively got better.
iRunFar: Cool.
Hawks: And honestly, I look back at it now, because I’m like, “God, have I done enough?” Because everybody asks, “Have you done enough? Have you done enough?” And I look back on it, I was very fit in April. Probably the fittest I’ve ever been in my career. I was really excited.
I got the procedure mid-May, I was biking a lot before that procedure. Doing big weeks on the bike. I got the procedure, maybe had two weeks where I didn’t get to do much, and then I jumped back on the bike. And I was doing a ton of strength training, doing a ton of biking, doing some hiking, doing a lot of sauna work. I was actually doing quite a bit of training, and maybe it wasn’t running training, but it was great base work. And I got really strong from lifting.
And then, start of July, I actually started being able to come out here and run and get in the mountains, and just slowly progress the volume. And I feel like now, where I’m at, I’m building up still. And I feel like it’s a good spot to be in. I’m definitely not fatigued. If anything, I’m a bit undertrained.
iRunFar: Undercooked, right?
Hawks: … than overtrained.
iRunFar: Which is really good for a race like UTMB.
Hawks: I feel fresh, I feel healthy. I feel a lot of energy. And just in the last two weeks, I really started feeling myself again. I started feeling poppy climbing uphill, and my downhills were starting to become really good. And I was like, “Hey man, I’m in a pretty good spot.” And that’s actually when I made the decision to run UTMB, was about 10 to 14 days ago, because I wasn’t sure. And happy with it.
iRunFar: In your time here being out hiking, taking the lift down, were you in your mind every day? Did you let the thought creep in like, “Can I? Is this a sign I can run UTMB? Is this a sign that I can’t?” Or were you just like, “I’m just going to train every day and see where I get in a couple weeks?” Mindset-wise, what was it like?
Hawks: It was more the second thing.
iRunFar: It’s tricky, isn’t it?
Hawks: Yeah. Just training every day, taking it one day at a time, taking the little victories. And because there was a lot of two steps forward, one step back, and just, there were days when I was like, “I’m not running UTMB, my knee hurts,” but then a day or two later, it would start feeling great again. I’d like be able to bomb a downhill and be like, “Oh wow, that’s great.”
And so, it was a little bit here, a little bit there. And me and my coach sat down, my coach is Robbie Britton, and we sat down and we were like, “We’re not going to make a decision till a week or two before the race.” And of course, there are sponsors and stuff, they’re like, “Are you going to run the race? What’s going on?”
iRunFar: Are you in or are you out?
Hawks: And I was like, “Guys, I just can’t tell you, and I have no idea.” But then I did some long runs on the course. I did a night run, felt very confident. The knee felt great after, and it was like, “I can do this.” I felt confident, and who knows. I’ve never really taken this approach before, where I’m more on the up, but I said, “You never know, let’s test it. Let’s see.” Maybe this is a new way I can train going forward, that brings the best out of myself.
I have no clue. I think we’re all trapped in this standard training of like, you have to do this many miles, you have to do this type of taper, you have to go through this quote-unquote, process, right?
iRunFar: Process. Yeah.
Hawks: But why? And like my whole thing is, maybe this is the best way for me. I know it’s worked in the past. I’ve had short builds in the past, and I’ve actually gone into a lot of races recently where I’ve done less than everybody else, but then I feel very fresh and I feel very good in the second half of races.
iRunFar: It’s interesting to hear you internalize that because we know externally, and looking at elite runners, people are training in lots of different ways, and there’s lots of ways to achieve success in ultrarunning still. But then we internalize it like, “Well, X worked for me before, so therefore I must do X this time,” right?
Hawks: But also, X hasn’t worked for me before, too. Sometimes it has, sometimes it hasn’t. There’s been times when I’ve had the best training block ever, like a perfect training block, showed up on race day, and it was terrible.
iRunFar: And then, race day.
Hawks: I had a bad race, and it’s like, “What happened?” And then there’s been other times where I didn’t have a perfect build, and it turned out great. But I don’t know 100%. And it would be disrespectful for me to sit here and say, “I’m going to go out there and beat everybody,” because I have no idea how the body’s going to respond in the second half. It might shut down. I might not have done enough. I have no clue.
But I’m not worried about that. I’m just going to go in with the confidence and the experience that I have. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been here many times. I know how to run these trails. I know how to run this race. But yeah, there’s a lot of guys that have worked a lot harder than me, and who knows, they might destroy me on race day. And respect to them.
I’m not sitting here trying to be disrespectful, because that’s not who I am. I try to be a respectful person, and I try to just get the best out of myself, and that’s all I can do on race day.
iRunFar: Hayden Hawks, best of luck to you in the science experiment that is your 2025 UTMB.
Hawks: Exactly. Thank you. Thank you very much.
