Ludovic Pommeret of France lines up for the 2025 UTMB, a mere 21 years after he lined up for the event for the first time. In the following interview, Ludo talks about how his UTMB plans changed at the last minute, his summer of racing the Hardrock 100, UTMB, and hopefully Diagonale des Fous this fall, racing with his daughter a couple of weeks ago, and what success will look like for him this weekend.
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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Ludovic Pommeret Pre-2025 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Eszter Horanyi of iRunFar. I’m here with Ludo Pommeret a few days before UTMB. How are you?
Ludovic Pommeret: Not so bad. Still good weather. We are quiet. Almost nothing to do. Just a marathon, media marathon.
iRunFar: Little media marathon. The last time we saw you was at Hardrock 100 six and a half weeks ago. A lot has happened, and I think what I most want to know is, you had a big birthday, what did you do to celebrate?
Pommeret: Yeah, I had a big birthday. Like every year, you know. You have one year more each year. It’s just this year I have 50, so.
iRunFar: It’s a zero birthday. It’s a decade.
Pommeret: Yeah. It was nice. We had also a not birthday party, but there was a Hoka camp where they celebrate this event, so it was nice to share with the other athletes. And besides that, just recover a bit after Hardrock and train again for UTMB.
iRunFar: How did that recovery go?
Pommeret: It’s a good question. I will answer you at the end of the week. We’ll see.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Pommeret: Let’s see on Sunday. Hopefully a bit earlier. [laughs]
iRunFar: I feel like this is the standard Ludo response of when asked “How are you feeling?” you say, “It’s four days away. We’ll find out.”
Pommeret: Yeah, it’s standard. I never know if I, sometimes you do a training and it’s going well, and sometimes not so good. So you’re just wondering if you are ready or not. But yeah. Let’s see.
iRunFar: Was the double always part of the plan? Because you’re one of the two people who had the guaranteed return to Hardrock. So, you were going to go back and do that?
Pommeret: It’s possible. I still have time to decide. But yeah, it’s possible, because I really enjoyed the time to prepare there. The time to rest in Silverton and run in Colorado. So it’s possible. We are still in discussion.
iRunFar: For this year, was it always a plan to do both Hardrock and UTMB?
Pommeret: Yeah. Not both. Three of them. The plan was to do Hardrock, UTMB, and Diagonale [des Fous]. But UTMB was, the plan was to do it with my wife in a different pace. This year she is injured and she could not run anymore. So finally I decided quite late to participate for myself also. Initially, I wanted to not do UTMB and be more prepared for Diagonale des Fous. But then I realized it’s good for an old man, 50-year-old man to do the three big races in this year, this special year.
iRunFar: And what was that mindset shift going from running out with your wife at probably a more cruisy pace? Are you planning on going and racing hard, I’m assuming, now that you’re racing alone?
Pommeret: Yes. I will try to do my best. I don’t know what will be my best. At least, I fixed two levels of objectives. The first one is almost always the objective for an ultra, to see the finish line. The second one, if it could be around 21 hours, it would be nice, but we’ll see. It’s already a challenging one.
iRunFar: Did you partake in any panic or fear-based training at the very last second?
Pommeret: Panic?
iRunFar: Panic, like last-minute training?
Pommeret: Last-minute training? This marathon, this media marathon is last-minute training. I have several community runs. Now tomorrow is my last train. Maybe I will go to La Flégière to see if the rocks are still at the same place. We’ll see. [laughs]
iRunFar: What does your lead-up look like once you decide to race UTMB alone? What does that look like?
Pommeret: I decided around the 10th of August. I was just talking with my wife, with my coach to discuss if we can do it or not. Yeah. We decided quite late, but I just needed to see how training was going. We had almost two weeks of okay training camp. After these two weeks, I was more or less decided.
iRunFar: And then I saw you ran a race with your daughter. What was that like?
Pommeret: Yeah. It was nice. Last week we raced together. It was a dual race, so we ran together. It was a two-stage race. She did really good on the first day. We did, it was the first time she ran 40k. She did a really nice race. We finished third overall and second mixed. The second stage was not that good because she got injured just after the beginning, after 5k. She has a knee twist. She wanted to continue, but I prefer to stop, you know. I can suffer, but I don’t want my daughter to suffer. She’s still young. She’s 21. She has plenty of time to race, and hopefully with me also. [laughs] Take time, and we will come back again.
iRunFar: Tell me about this triple. What was the inspiration to do Hardrock, UTMB, and Diagonal des Fous all in one year? Is it just a big birthday celebration?
Pommeret: Yeah, a big birthday. As I said, it was planned from the beginning of the year, even if it was a different manner to do it. Yeah. It’s good to have this. We often speak about four monument races. So to do three of them in one year is a good challenge. It’s difficult to do the last one, because for Western States you need to have a Golden Ticket, and it’s quite challenging to have the Golden Ticket now. [laughs]
iRunFar: Is that something you want to potentially do in the future? All four?
Pommeret: Not the four together, but maybe I will try again to go to Western one day when I will have finished with Hardrock, you know. [laughs]
iRunFar: When you stopped winning it and stopped getting entered to next year.
Pommeret: We’ll see.
iRunFar: Or stopped voluntarily. This is your 21st anniversary of coming back to the UTMB festival. What brings you back? What about this race brings you back over and over again?
Pommeret: Yeah. You know this race was a bit special for me because I needed a long time to have a success on it, at least to finish it. The finish was a victory, so it was nice. Then after that, this victory was really special because you know, there was up and down during the race, so there was a really strong emotion at the end of the race. I changed a bit my mind on this race, and I’d like to come again. Even if I’m not racing UTMB, I’ll race other races like TDS, CCC. This is the third year I’m doing UTMB in one row, so we’ll see. Maybe next year I will change a bit, but I will still come at least during the UTMB week to be in this with the other runners and to follow the race. That’s really nice.
iRunFar: What does success look like for you this weekend?
Pommeret: Success looks like seeing the finish line, that’s a success. That’s the first one. And then if you are happy that you have pushed all the race and you have no, you say regret, so that’s a success.
iRunFar: Are you looking at all or thinking at all about Diagonale des Fous when you’re going to be out there? Or are you just going to do one race at a time?
Pommeret: Just one by one. So for sure, I want to go there. Not yet take my plane ticket, but I will do it right after UTMB.
iRunFar: You still have six weeks. Plenty of time.
Pommeret: But no, I want to go there again because I love also the island and the atmosphere there. Yeah. That’s pretty good. We will go with Céline and with my daughter. We will hike a bit there. Also enjoy the island, the sea, and the mountain. That’s nice.
iRunFar: Perfect. Best of luck this weekend.
Pommeret: Thanks.
