Katie Schide has won some of the biggest ultramarathons around the world, and now she’s racing the 2025 Hardrock 100. In the following interview, the American living in France reflects back on her big 2024 which included wins at both the Western States 100 and UTMB, why Hardrock here and now in her career, her month-plus of living and training in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, and the free-form approach she’s taking to make her way through a race this unique.
To learn more about who’s racing, check out our preview before following our live coverage during the race.
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Katie Schide Pre-2025 Hardrock 100 Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Bryon Powell of iRunFar with Katie Schide before the 2025 Hardrock 100. How are you, Katie?
Katie Schide: I’m good. Thanks for welcoming me to your backyard here.
iRunFar: Yeah, it’s a nice day here in July.
Schide: It’s funny finally being at your place. We see you all over the world and now we’re actually in your backyard.
iRunFar: Quite literally. Yeah, this is where I spend a lot of time in the summers when I get a chance. My very fruitful garden. We don’t have to pan over to it, but it takes a little while to get going here.
Schide: Yeah, there’s some blank spots over there.
iRunFar: There’s some blank spots. Well, your 2024 didn’t have any blank spots. You crushed it. Western States and UTMB, running great times, winning. How does that feel like a year later? Does that feel like your best season to date?
Schide: Yeah, on paper it’s definitely my best season. I think in general, the whole season just went really smoothly and there was no big hiccups until the last two hours of UTMB and then the six weeks after that, I actually wasn’t able to run. But I think that kind of got missed because it was the end of the season anyway, and in the end it was kind of a good break for me. So yeah, in general, everything up until that point went super smoothly. I felt great the whole summer and trying to remember that doesn’t have to be the norm. That was an exceptional year.
iRunFar: Sometimes it can go perfect and you can appreciate that, right?
Schide: Yeah.
iRunFar: So you took six weeks off after UTMB. When did you get back to training?
Schide: Well, we went to Diagonale des Fous for Germain [Grangier]’s race and when we got back, actually the last week I think we were on Reunion Island is when I started doing some walk-run outings. And so when we got back home, I was able to start doing some normal runs again and it all came back pretty smoothly.
iRunFar: Well, what brings you here to Silverton for Hardrock?
iRunFar: Well, for Hardrock.
iRunFar: Well, what about it?
Schide: Yeah, I mean, Hardrock has always been on my mind. I mean, for a long time, even before I really knew what the sport was, I knew about the race and it was always just trying to figure out the right time to come here because I wanted to come here and really do it right, have the time not to be at altitude, but to be in the place and just learning about the race.
You see how important the place, the trails, the San Juans are to the whole experience, because I didn’t want to just come for a quick out and back. I really wanted to experience the whole thing. So the last couple of years were really focused on Western States and that obviously conflicted. So this was the year luckily I was chosen or picked, however we want to describe it. At the same time, I felt super ready to be here.
iRunFar: Right on. Well, how has your preparation gone? You’ve been here since the beginning of June. How was training before that and your time here so far?
Schide: Yeah, we arrived in the U.S. in mid-May. We spent a few days in Leadville and then we came down to Ouray and then we got up here to Silverton last week, I guess. And it’s been fun first to be here with Germain because the last two years I’ve been in the U.S. alone for two months before Western States. So it definitely changes the whole dynamic to not just be alone, managing everything alone. So it’s nice to… It kind of adds a bit more of a fun, relaxed aspect, more like being at home.
I think it’s been fun. It’s cool to kind of be in my space now. I mean, normally we’re in France where it’s just a lot more energy just to talk to people for me. I mean, it’s my home now, but still it’s like that extra bit that’s not where you’re from. So it’s nice to be back in the U.S. and everything feels easier to me. There’s Amazon, there’s tumble dryers, there’s lots of amenities.
iRunFar: Those are two at the top of the list though.
Schide: Yeah, yeah.
iRunFar: You did have a little hiccup in your training here. You took a pretty big fall. What happened there?
Schide: Yeah, I took a fall, let’s see, it was two days after we arrived in Ouray on a longer training run in the middle of it, just a stupid caught my toe, didn’t have the reaction time to catch myself and landed on my knee.
Luckily there was a nice medical clinic in Ridgeway that took me in and sewed me up a little bit. I’m not going to say I managed the pain very well. Germain was there to help me. Turns out when they numb your knee, it’s actually extremely painful. I thought, “Oh, numbing, that means you don’t feel anything.” But actually you have to feel the pain before you don’t feel the pain. So that was painful, but I mean in the end, at the time it felt like a huge deal. It’s one of those things where in the moment you think it’s the end of the world and five days later I think I was able to jog up Camp Bird Road, not a lot of flexibility in the knee, but I could still kind of shuffle and then it just came back quickly as new skin grew.
iRunFar: Right on. So it was indeed a hiccup in the end to training.
Schide: Yeah. Yeah.
iRunFar: What do you hope to accomplish here at Hardrock?
Schide: I don’t think I really have a hard outcome accomplishment goal. I think this is even just the name of the event is a run, not a race. And, of course, we’re here to race too, but trying to accept the reality that it’s also a run and there’s going to be a lot of unexpected things and trying to be patient and take those things in stride.
It’s a new race for me. I feel like the last couple of years I’ve kind of repeated a lot of the same things and you stand at the start line knowing how you want to feel, how you should feel in different spots and here I haven’t even been on the whole course, so it’s going to be way more of a discovery.
iRunFar: And is that exciting?
Schide: Yeah, I would say part of my brain is excited about that, but my type-A organization controlling brain is not that happy about it. So we’re trying to find a balance.
iRunFar: So you having been able to visually see all the course but not be on all the course wasn’t ideal?
Schide: Yeah, I mean, I think I was able to accept that and it’s just a different kind of event. So I’m trying to lean into how fun it will be to be in new places and have new sensations and hopefully I can finish and call this my first Hardrock and maybe come back with more experience if I get the chance.
iRunFar: One thing that might be different from Western States, but especially different from a UTMB is like it’s 146 people in a really spread out race. You might not see people for hours. Have you thought about that at all?
Schide: Yeah, I mean even that race is UTMB and Western States, at UTMB, the first part of the race for sure it’s been around people, but you still end up in holes even with that many people. At Western States I was fortunate to run with people in the first half of the race both years, but I also ended up in a hole and didn’t see anyone for most of the race. So that’s something I’m used to. I think we just get used to that in these kind of events.
iRunFar: Totally. Right on. Well, best of luck out there and I hope you have a great experience in your first Hardrock.
Schide: Thank you.
