In the middle of a storm, bombing down wet, technical descents about 12 miles from the finish line of the 2025 CCC outside of Chamonix, France, Robyn Lesh felt something perhaps a bit strange, given the circumstances: She felt secure in her footing.
“I felt completely attached to the ground on those descents, which are getting dark, really wet, rocky, like your headlamp is bouncing off the shiny rocks,” Lesh, a runner for Team Vibram Trail, said a few days after her seventh-place finish at one of the world’s most competitive 100-kilometer races and the UTMB World Series Final for the distance. “And if you know you can step on anything and stay attached to it, it’s just this extra level of comfort and security. And your brain is already super tired, so when you run without worrying that you’ll slip off something, it’s really amazing.”
Lesh wasn’t the only one benefiting from Vibram outsoles during the 2025 UTMB Mont Blanc festival, which included unpredictable conditions from wild weather and intense racing around Mont Blanc.
Robyn Lesh, a few days before finishing seventh at the 2025 CCC. All photos: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Vibram on the UTMB Trails
Lesh attributed her sense of security and confidence on slippery, rocky trails to the Vibram Megagrip Elite outsole on her Norda 005 trail running shoes. The Megagrip Elite outsole, which uses advanced technology to provide unparalleled grip on steep and technical terrain no matter the weather, is designed for runners hunting fast times in big races. The Megagrip Elite and the brand’s Megagrip outsoles seemed perfectly suited for the wet, rugged trails of this year’s UTMB Mont Blanc festival races when rain moved in and soaked everything.
Vibram outsoles made up a significant percentage of the shoes of the elite runners of the 2025 CCC.
In addition to Lesh, many other top-10 finishers at the TDS, OCC, CCC, and UTMB wore shoes with Vibram outsoles.
At the TDS, which is not a UTMB World Series Final but considered more rugged and technical than any other UTMB race besides the PTL, three of the top 10 women and two of the top 10 men had Vibram outsoles on their shoes, including women’s winner Careth Arnold.
At the OCC, a 60k race and a UTMB World Series Final race for the 50k distance, which was run on a modified course due to heavy rain throughout the day and promised slippery footing on rocks and mud, four of the top 10 men and five of the top 10 women wore Vibram outsoles, including men’s winner Jim Walmsley and sixth-place finisher Adam Peterman. Women’s third-place finisher Judith Wyder also trusted the grip of Vibram.
At the CCC, the 100k from Courmayeur, Italy, to Chamonix, Vibram’s presence was even more pronounced. Men’s winner Francesco Puppi was one of five runners in the top 10 to wear a Vibram outsole, and Drew Holmen took advantage of the Vibram outsoles on his Nike ACG Ultrafly shoes to run his way to a third-place finish. Six of the top 10 women ran in Vibram outsoles, including Lesh and the entire podium. Puppi and women’s winner Martyna Młynarczyk ran the second fastest times ever in their respective divisions.
Adam Peterman models Hokas with Vibram outsoles on the streets of Chamonix before going on to finish sixth at the 2025 CCC.
Vibram Outsoles on the Big Loop
The weather forecast for the 2025 UTMB was dire. The 108-mile loop around Mont Blanc is one of the world’s most iconic and challenging ultramarathons, traversing through three countries and featuring nearly 32,500 feet of elevation gain across technical terrain.
Vibram outsoles on display at the start line of the 2025 UTMB. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Within 20 minutes of racers leaving the evening start in Chamonix, the rain started to bucket down and didn’t stop as day turned to night. Over the Col du Bonhomme in the darkness and rain, 40k into the race, racers struggled through gale-force winds and mud. On the Col de la Seigne, over 60k into the race, runners faced accumulating snow, and on the steep climb up to the course’s high point at Grand Col Ferret, past the 100k mark, slippery mud left runners searching for traction. Conditions turned so bad that the organization rerouted racers around the technical Pyramides Calcaires climb and descent for safety. If ever a race required runners to have excellent traction and grip, it was now.
Ji Duo powered through the snow with Vibram outsoles at the top of Grand Col Ferret during the wild weather of the 2025 UTMB.
In the men’s race, four of the top 10 men ran in shoes with Vibram outsoles, including back-to-back Hardrock 100 winner Ludovic Pommeret, who finished sixth wearing shoes with a Vibram Megagrip outsole.
Ludovic Pommeret wore a pair of Hokas with Vibram outsoles on his way to finishing sixth at the 2025 UTMB.
“I’m fully satisfied with this outsole,” Pommeret said a few days after the race. “They fulfilled my expectations. They are quite light, and they also limit the rigidity of the shoe.” The Frenchman maintains a reputation for descending faster than nearly anyone else in the field, and one can only imagine that he places a huge amount of trust in his outsoles to stick to whatever surface he puts them on.
Two of the top five runners in the women’s race wore Vibram outsoles. Third-place finisher Katharina Hartmuth opted for the new Hoka Mafate 5 shoes, which feature a Vibram Megagrip outsole.
“The outsole performed very well, especially in the challenging weather conditions,” Hartmuth said after the race. “I was glad to have such a grippy outsole on the very muddy sections, but also on technical sections running over wet and slippery rocks/roots. I could always trust my shoes and had only very few ‘almost falls’ due to slipping on the ground. This is also why I decided to wear the shoes for the entire race, although I initially planned to change to a different shoe (and outsole) halfway.”
Katharina Hartmuth trusted Vibram outsoles in the mud of the Grand Col Ferret during the 20205 UTMB.
Hartmuth’s single shoe choice seemed to serve her well in the wet conditions in the first half of the race and the significantly drier trail that runners encountered once the sun came up and the storm moved through. She worked her way up from well out of the top 10 in the early kilometers of the race while she battled stomach issues into the top five by the halfway point and ultimately into third, her second podium finish at the race.
Grip and Traction
So what makes these outsoles so good?
“How stuck you feel to the ground is a combination of grip and traction,” Lesh explained. “If you were running on just rock, in essence, you would want a flat sole with no lugs [to increase] the surface area touching the rocks,” she continued. “But if you’re in loose or muddy terrain, you’d want giant lugs. So designing an outsole is this balance between grip and traction — maximizing the stickiness on rock with surface area and also the stickiness on muddy or loose stuff with the lugs.”
When conditions got slippery, runners throughout the field turned to Vibram outsoles.
The Megagrip Elite outsole uses Vibram’s stickiest rubber compound, and Lesh describes it as a “race outsole” due to its light weight. For a race like this year’s CCC, which featured dry trails and clear skies at the start — Lesh said she actually got sunburned — followed by rainstorms in the last section, the outsole’s versatility was crucial.
“On those wet rocks at night when it’s super slick, the compound really shines,” she said.
Hartmuth echoed Lesh’s analysis of the outsole’s benefits.
“For me, the key is the grip,” Hartmuth said. “It’s just unmatched, and while you can get away with a semi-good grip on dry and runnable trails, in these rainy, muddy, and snowy conditions, grip is absolutely necessary, and Vibram just knows how to make an outsole grippy.” Hartmuth also noted that the Vibram outsole holds up to distance. “The grip is durable and doesn’t wear off after only a few hundred kilometers.”
Resoling with Vibram Outsoles
In the days leading up to the races, chatter around Chamonix largely centered around the weather and how the forecasted rain would impact the trails. Those conversations had many runners questioning their shoe choice for their specific events, and suddenly, many people weren’t feeling particularly confident in what they brought.
Set in the middle of the expo, which ran throughout the week of races and hosted brands throughout the running industry, Vibram had a large mobile resole lab set up that housed all of the equipment their technicians needed to take an outsole off of any shoe and replace it with a different one from Vibram. On Tuesday afternoon, the shop was buzzing with activity as runners of all kinds were bringing their shoes in for new outsoles. Shoes from various brands lined the shelves waiting for new outsoles, and the shop was booked out for the entire week. The grinding machine whirled, removing old rubber while new outsoles were measured for attachment.
Vibram technicians spent the week replacing outsoles for runners worried about race conditions at UTMB.
Vibram offered four outsole options with various lug depths and designs, ranging from relatively low-profile lugs to deep mud-specific ones. Technicians were ready to talk with runners about which would work best for their racing needs and then took their shoes for a complete makeover.
Vibram offered four different outsole options for resoling any shoe in their mobile workshop.
Clearly, when traction was a concern, many trusted Vibram’s reputation for high performance and stickiness under variable conditions. They were willing to bet their races on the rubber’s ability to grip on both wet and dry trails.
Finding Confidence in Vibram Outsoles
Grip, traction, durability, confidence on technical terrain — these are the hallmarks of the Vibram outsoles powering elite and everyday trail runners alike to fast times and fun adventures. There’s a reason why so many shoes seen around Chamonix during UTMB week had Vibram outsoles on them; they work in variable and changing conditions.
Vibram could be seen all over Chamonix during UTMB week.
Lesh, in particular, will remember the outsoles helping her stay confident, secure, and on her feet on that descent in the closing miles of CCC before she crossed the finish line in seventh. It was an international breakout race for the Colorado-based runner.
“I’ve been running with Vibram exclusively for four years, and I have forgotten that it’s not normal to just feel comfortable on all terrain because it’s my day-to-day,” Lesh said, “You don’t even think about whether you’re attached to something. You just run over it.”
Robyn Lesh trusted her Vibram outsoles on her way to a seventh-place finish at the 2025 CCC. Photo: Vibram
[Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by Vibram. Thank you to Vibram for its sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar happen and free for all to enjoy. Learn more about our sponsored articles.]
