The 2025 Hardrock 100 is the third time Zach Miller will attempt to start the race after injury in 2017 and appendicitis a week before the event last year forced him to withdraw ahead of prior editions. In the following interview, Zach talks about ending up in the hospital a week before the 2024 event, coming back from knee surgery over the winter, building his running volume over the past few months, and what he thinks it will be like running against the strong continent of French men at this year’s event.
To learn more about who’s racing, check out our preview before following our live coverage during the race.
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Zach Miller Pre-2025 Hardrock 100 Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks with iRunFar. I’m with Zach Miller. It’s a couple of days before the 2025 Hardrock 100. Here we finally are, Zach. How are you?
Zach Miller: I’m good. How are you, Meghan?
iRunFar: Good. This event is a long, long time coming for you now.
Miller: Yeah, I guess so. Like two, I don’t know, two years, a year delayed, something like that, but yeah.
iRunFar: So, take us back to, it’s the Monday before the Friday start now, take us back to a year ago, Monday last year. Where were you and what were you doing on this very moment?
Miller: On Monday, I was probably… I don’t think I was in the hospital. I think I was out of the hospital, but I was probably either at Maggie Guterl’s house down in Durango, recovering from being in the hospital, or I was up here recovering. I can’t remember, but I think I went into the hospital on Friday, got out on Saturday, and then spent a night or two in Durango and then came back up here.
iRunFar: And for anybody who lives under the Hardrock and doesn’t know the story from last year, you came down with appendicitis a week before Hardrock, went to the hospital in Durango, had it removed, had to scratch from last year’s race.
Miller: Yeah, yeah. I mean, came down with appendicitis. I felt like I maybe had it for years.
iRunFar: Oh, okay.
Miller: Because I had these weird episodes for years that I couldn’t figure out what they were, and they always went away. I had had a really bad one that summer, but it went away and I went back to training. And then the one week before Hardrock, I think July 5th, night of, went to bed July 4th, and that night I started getting pain, and woke up the next morning. It was so bad, we finally went to the hospital, which it was very bad because—
iRunFar: It was not a good Independence Day for you.
Miller: Yeah. Well, the Independence Day was fine. We ate some donuts, watched some fireworks, but the day after was, yeah, pretty miserable. So yeah, ended up in the E.R. and then in the operating room and got rid of the appendix and missed Hardrock, but you get what you get. That’s what happened.
iRunFar: So yeah, a year and seven months after the first lottery where you were first chosen, you’ll get to start the 2025 Hardrock 100. How does that feel? How does that sound?
Miller: Yeah, it feels good. I mean, actually, not to say it in a boastful way or anything, but this is actually my third time trying to run a Hardrock.
iRunFar: That’s right, yeah.
Miller: Yeah, I actually got in—
iRunFar: Thank you for the reminder.
Miller: I think the first time I ran UTMB was 2015. That gave me a Hardrock ticket. I sort of stupidly put it into the lottery, thinking—
iRunFar: Got chosen.
Miller: … thinking I’ll just start my process. I didn’t really fully understand Dale’s picks and all that.
iRunFar: That’s great.
Miller: And I got picked, and I really wanted to go back to UTMB that year, but then I was thinking about it and realized, Well, I don’t know, because then they wouldn’t tell you who were Dale’s picks and who wasn’t. So I was in a predicament because I realized, Well, I could just be the luckiest guy in the world to get in on the first try on one ticket, or I could be a Dale’s pick. If I say, ‘No,’ and I was a Dale’s pick, I might never get in again, was my thought.
So yeah, I actually decided to run, then got a back injury in the spring, wasn’t really ready for Hardrock, so told Dale and gave up my spot, and then never put in again until I was sure that if it got picked, I was going to do it.
iRunFar: Got it.
Miller: So, then that was, what, last year, and I got in and then the appendix, so now we’re a year delayed.
iRunFar: Wow. So you could be about the luckiest person on the start line of this year’s Hardrock 100.
Miller: Yeah, I guess. I’m very fortunate and I’m grateful for that, and I’m glad to be here again this year.
iRunFar: So, I’d say just about everybody on the internet is talking about the race between the Frenchmen and the American that will be Hardrock this year. How are you thinking about the men’s race?
Miller: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s another race. I think Hardrock, it’s a race against your competitors. It’s also a race against the course, and it’s a race against yourself. So I think every race is a race against the course, but in some ways, it feels like Hardrock is a little more so that way, just all that it entails and all the challenging factors. There’s really… It’s the course that takes you down.
So yeah, I mean, yeah, I’ve thought about that dynamic. It’s what, me, two Frenchmen, and a French Canadian? So it does sort of seem like maybe I have a little bit of a Captain America shield on my forearm, not that I need to, but it sort of seems a little bit like that. But those guys are all guys I know, and I was running with Germain [Grangier] the other day, and there’s friends in that group.
So it’s, I don’t know, just another race, but I guess that is sort of an interesting little storyline. But I’m hoping to go out there and try to have the best day that I can have.
iRunFar: Let’s talk a little bit about your training and lead up to what you say is largely a race against this course. I think your volume, you’ve been healthy and your volume’s been quite high. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Miller: Yeah. Well, I’ve been moving into healthy. I actually had, after I didn’t get to run last year, I had had a cranky knee all summer, and it was holding up for the training, but I didn’t know what the problem was, so I didn’t really worry about it too much because I didn’t really know what was wrong and it was allowing me to do the training. So I was just like, Well, that’s uncomfortable, but I can deal with that.
And then actually, after the surgery, my knee got really bad. I thought I was going to go do Nolan’s [14] or do Leadville [100 Mile] or do something, and I actually ended up, I didn’t race anything until I pushed my nephews, Ansel and Talis, in a turkey trot on Thanksgiving.
iRunFar: Awh.
Miller: That was the first race I did after not getting to do Hardrock, and that was because of my knee. My knee was just a mess. I ended up on the bike for a while. I saw some doctors. I got some answers, which were not really good answers. I found out my knee was pretty messed up. I ended up getting a surgery at Steadman Clinic in December. Not a major-major surgery, but I had a clean-out of my knee. My right knee just really has a lot of damage in it. So, Dr. Hackett went in and cleaned it out for me, took out a bunch of scar tissue, did what he could to help me.
And when I was coming back from that this winter and spring, there were some pretty bad days. I mean, you could ask my girlfriend Jess about it. She had a front-row seat. There were nights where I would go out and run eight, 10 miles, and I’d come back to the bus and I’d just be like… I would just sit down on the bus steps and put my head in my hands and be like, “I don’t know if I can really do this anymore,” in terms of I could run, but I didn’t know if I could continue running at the competitive level that I wanted to.
So that was pretty tough, but with time, it improved and improved. And finally by the summer, kind of spring-summer, I started to hit a good groove skiing, biking, running. I was training a bit differently. And then summer, I was finally able to go full-bore running, and that was great. And yeah, as you said, training did go well. I probably looked quite healthy. I still had some feelings. I still have some feelings in my knees, but it’s come… I would say it’s now in a better spot than it actually was last year, from what I can tell. You know?
iRunFar: Yeah.
Miller: So yeah, that was kind of a long journey. But yeah, training went well. I did the prep work in Bend, semi-altitude with a lot of skiing up to 7,000 feet, basically 9,000 feet as much as I could, but it depends when they open the summit of Mt. Bachelor for the uphill route.
So yeah, I did the base work there in Bend, and then I came out to Colorado and I started hitting the vert, settled in to around, kept it at about 120- to 125-mile weeks with like—
iRunFar: A lot of vert.
Miller: Yeah, with 40 to 43,000 feet of climbing. Came out here and previewed the course, ended up putting in 141-mile week my last week wasn’t really the plan, but was just where I ended up that week. And so yeah, I think I put in four to five weeks at right around 40,000 feet of vert, or 40 to 43-ish-thousand feet of vert and 120 to 140 miles. But most were in the 120s though. It was just that last week that spiked a little.
iRunFar: Got it. Last question for you. What do you think your own best day looks like here on Friday and Saturday? Whether it’s feelings or paper, what the numbers look like on paper, what’s your own best day?
Miller: Yeah. I mean, I think my own best day is to feel smooth and controlled all day long, keep the nutrition steady, the hydration good because those are really key for me. I have to keep the calories coming in and the electrolytes and fluids coming in. If I do that, I can usually stay pretty steady, but again, I don’t do a 100-mile training run in a race, so I know I can stay pretty steady over some longer, maybe—
iRunFar: Eight hours, yeah.
Miller: … 30, 40-mile runs, but it’s always still a bit of a mystery there at the end. So yeah, I think a good day just looks smooth, controlled, I’m not reaching. I’m not reaching out of my means—
iRunFar: Too far into the well.
Miller: Yeah, yeah. Like I’m going into that dark place.
iRunFar: You eventually get there.
Miller: But I can do it. So yeah, I think that’s what it looks like for me. And hopefully that puts me in a good spot relative to competition and relative to historical course times, but really, just looking for that smooth, steady day.
iRunFar: Love that. Best of luck to you.
Miller: Thank you.
iRunFar: In, yeah, your official first Hardrock attempt.
Miller: Yeah, official.
iRunFar: Finally.
Miller: Yeah, yeah. And I’m very grateful for that.
iRunFar: Good luck, Zach.
Miller: Thank you.
