A 45-Year-Old Midwesterner Just Podiumed at UTMB. Why Are Locals Flipping Out?

Sometime around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 29, my WhatsApp lit up. It was scattered with messages from friends up and down the Chamonix valley.

Just caught Schmitz in Courmayeur earlier, she is looking good!

So far…. Schmitz is having the race of her life!! 3rd!

Insane!! Have you seen Emily?

I want Emily to do more than hold on. I want her to pass Rachel! Not that I don’t like Rachel. I just think that would be so cool.

This is epic!

The topic? Our friend Emily Schmitz, who was halfway through the 2026 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, aka UTMB. Emily is a reliably tough trail runner with elite-level finishes around the world, including two top-10 finishes at the world trail running championships. Following her online, we all simultaneously zeroed in on something special. Schmitz, it seemed, just might be having the race of her life.

Some of us even sent messages to her phone, even as we knew that, of course, she would not read them until her 108-mile lap around Mont Blanc had been etched into UTMB history: A third-place finish in a historically fast time of 22 hours, 17 minutes, and 28 seconds.

F*CK YES SCHMITZ. YOU ARE F*CKING CRUSHING IT OUT THERE. LOVE IT! WAY TO GO!!!

Here in the roughly 9,000-person town of Chamonix, France, the year-round ex-pat trail running community is a tight crew. Elite or not, we support each other through all of life’s usual highs and lows—long after the flood lights of UTMB week have been turned off and put away.

We take care of each others’ dogs, we meet over cafe au lait at L’Atelier or Moody’s or Shouka; we bemoan the administrative hassles of our overly-complex French visas and the head-scratching ins and outs of the French tax system. We gather for Cards Against Humanity, we share quiet winter dinners after skiing on the town’s nordic tracks in Les Bois, and we break out vin chaud after skinning up to the refuge at Col Balme.

We are, in short, a sturdy community-within-a-community. After nearly a decade here, I tell people I came from the mountains and stayed for the community. And Schmitz, aka Schmitzerland? She’s a reliable part of that world.

So when one of us started suddenly moving up through the field at UTMB, we dropped everything and started cheering. A WhatsApp group spontaneously took shape, its numbers growing as Emily ran from Italy to Switzerland and finally back into France.

The long way to Chamonix

Schmitz, 45, has lived here in Chamonix full-time for four years. Originally from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, she later spent a decade in Bogota, Colombia, working for the human rights nonprofit FOR Peace Presence, where she protected human rights defenders. It was there that she discovered trail running, winning the Ultra La Mesa 80K outright in 2020. A seasonal visitor to Chamonix, she moved to the valley full-time in 2021, signed a contract with Hoka, and became a pro trail runner.

Today, she also coaches for Chaski Endurance, writes occasional blogs for the trail-running tour company Run the Alps, where I am a partner, and works part time as operations manager for the U.S.-based Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Presence, a human rights advocacy nonprofit.

As the day progressed out on the course, we all grew increasingly anxious. When a friend took my dog to Vallorcine to join in the spectating festivities, I freaked. Izzy, aka the Ambassador of Joy, lives in what my friends tell me is a permissive single-parent household. And she flat-out adores Emily, one of her go-to sitters. That combination of dubious manners and a labradoodle’s zeal means that as soon as she gets a positive Schmitz ID, her front paws reliably slam into Schmitz’ chest, and 25 kilos (55 pounds) of trail-hardened labradoodle is suddenly trying to lick her face.

Catastrophic thinking took over as I imagined my overeager dog turning one of the best days of Schmitz’s life into one of the worst. I could imagine UTMB announcer Keith Byrne’s voice over the UTMB livestream: “Oh will you look at that… just what the hell is going on there? Emily Schmitz has been shoved hard off the course by what appears to be someone’s dog.”

“Keep Izzy the hell away from Schmitz!” I quickly messaged the group.

In fact, Schmitz’s race went well right from the outset. “I had a time in mind for arriving at Courmayeur [Italy],” Schmitz told Trail Runner in a post-race interview. At 83K (51 miles) into the 174K (108-mile) course, the Italian village on the south side of Mont Blanc is almost halfway around the range.

Leigh-Anne Burns, a Chamonix resident, happened to be in Courmayeur with Run the Alps when Schmitz passed through. Members of the tour group woke early to see the top runners come through the town at about 5:30 a.m. “She was looking focused and calm,” Burns said. “She looks ready to take on the next half of the race.”

“I got there an hour earlier,” Schmitz said—a worrying sign for her. Even as she was picking off other runners along the way, she was thinking, “You’re not supposed to do that… The race isn’t supposed to start until Champex.”

Champex-Lac, Switzerland, is 130K (80 miles) into UTMB, and many top runners consider it the place to quicken the pace. But Schmitz’s coach Terry Howell had also told her to race by feeling—which was exactly what she was doing. And it was paying off.

Matt Dunn, an Australian trail runner now living in the Chamonix valley, finished the race 22 minutes after Schmitz. The friends ran together much of the race, trading positions throughout the night. “Emily was super efficient at the aid stations, just in and out,” Dunn said.

After the Le Chapieux aid station at 52K (32 miles), Dunn told her, “I think I just saw Courtney!”

For Schmitz, that was not a good sign. She was worried they were moving too fast. “Oh shit!,” she answered. The two climbed together up Col de la Seigne on the French-Italian border. Dunn got there first, turning to yell, “Keep pushing!”

After Courmayeur, Schmitz started to fly. “She was moving so well and so efficiently, especially across the balconies,” Dunn said. Schmitz caught him on the famously smooth section of trail between Refugio Bertoni and Refugio Bonatti.

Later, at Grand Col Ferret, Dunn saw the intensity in her face. “Emily was in beast mode on that climb. It was amazing to watch. She was gone. I knew then she was going to have a big race. I thought, ‘No way am I coming with you.’ When Dunn got to the top of the col, Schmitz was a speck in the distance. “She stuck it out and held on until the finish line,” Dunn said. “It was great.”

Schmitz credited adding some uphill training with a weighted vest partly for her breakout performance. Of course, her knowledge of the course paid dividends, as well. In addition to living just off the UTMB course in Les Houches, Schmitz has raced CCC—the 100K championship at the UTMB World Series Finals—three times. The two courses overlap significantly. “I know the course so well, I was able to break it up into tiny pieces,” she said. “That helped.”

In third place for many of the final kilometers of UTMB, Schmitz was pushing hard to stay ahead of American Careth Arnold. (In the end, Schmitz finished nearly 50 minutes ahead.)

“We did a few descents together, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, she’s a really fast descender,’” Schmitz said. That extra push had an unintended consequence—she was steadily closing on second-place and another American, Rachel Entrekin. At the finish line, Schmitz would end up just one minute and 34 seconds behind.

“What’s on paper isn’t always right”

Amid the dozens of brand activations, splashy billboards, and even branded vending machines perched on mountain passes here during UTMB week, Schmitz’s third place result is a reminder of what happens when we tune it all out and focus on moving with resilience through the mountains. And in a world filled with badass women, she is one of the toughest people we know.

Mimmi Kotka, a part-time resident of Chamonix belongs to the same category. Kotka, similarly captured the attention of the trail running world with a gutsy third-place finish at UTMB back in 2021.

“Emily and I are the same age, and I’m just hugely inspired by her race,” Kotka said. “She raced with integrity and above her ‘on-paper capacity.’  To me, that shows that what’s on paper isn’t always right.”

Kotka thinks Schmitz “overperformed” thanks to a specific, hard-earned skillset: She points out that you need to strategize carefully during the first half of UTMB, taking care of yourself. But then called out something deeper: “You need grit. Grit and grace.”

For Meg Mackenzie, another Chamonix-based professional trail runner, Schmitz’s breakout performance comes down to her toughness. “Emily and I raced each for years in the Golden Trail race series, and somehow we always ended up in sprint finishes,” she said.

Then, at Western States 100 in 2024, Mackenzie paced Schmitz for 16 miles between Forest Hill and the Rucky Chucky river crossing. “Western States was a new level for her. I could see how deep she was digging. She just wouldn’t let up,” Mackenzie said. “Now, I channel her toughness into a lot of things I do.”

Also, Schmitz doesn’t seem  particularly motivated by the external validation that lures in many elite runners. “Emily is exactly the kind of runner that I think of when I hear the term ‘intrinsic motivation,’ said professional trail runner Hillary Gerardi, Schmitz’s neighbor. (Gerardi herself is no slouch. She holds the women’s fastest known time on Mont Blanc, and last week, she broke her own course record at Trofeo-Kima, one of the most technical trail races in the ultra-technical Skyrunning race circuit.)

“She doesn’t run for glory or attention,” Gerardi said. She isn’t comfortable in the spotlight. She puts her head down, she puts in the work, and she loves what she does. And she does it for herself and no one else.”

Stephanie Howe, another neighbor of Schmitz’s, is a longtime professional trail runner and Western States winner with top results at several of the UTMB events in Chamonix. She and Schmitz met three years ago and clicked almost immediately. “Emily is just very chill,” she said. In that regard, she’s a great training partner. We’ve spent a lot of time training together, doing big runs.”

The two meet up a few times a week, year-round. Howe has raced UTMB five times. “When Emily decided last winter that she was going to do UTMB, we started talking about the course.” A PhD nutritionist, Howe started advising Schmitz on her approach to nutrition in advance of UTMB’s 43KMonte Rosa race in July. “She executed her plan perfectly,” Howe said. Schmitz landed second at Monte Rosa. “For UTMB, we just built on that success.”

“Emily is just one of those people you really want to succeed,” Howe said. “It’s really cool to have played a small role in your friend’s success.”

If we all admire Schmitz’s quiet perseverance, it’s not the only reason it was great to see Schmitz on the UTMB podium. Caring, thoughtful, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, she’s an understated-but-steady force for goodness. Her Instagram is more often filled with dogs and cows, mountain views and alpine flowers than race results and sports cliches. In the burgeoning world of trail running, where athletes increasingly hype gear and tag brands to meet monthly contract quotas, her approach is  authentic and refreshing.

You’re more capable than you think you are

With the race less than an hour behind her, Schmitz slowly began to wrap her head around what had just transpired—conflating her plans and her reality in the hazy minutes after just turning herself inside out for 108 miles.

“I’m not a UTMB expert, but my theory is that to get a chance at the podium, you have to go kind of hard from the start,” she said. “I’m not fast enough to do that. I started fast and had a big fade.”

But, Schmitz was fast enough, even with that fade. She did land on the podium. Maybe in the moments after a blissful-but-somewhat confounding result, it wasn’t exactly clear how it had all come together so well.

“I’m not quite sure what the lesson is yet,” Schmitz said. A dose of reality came from interviewer Abby Levene. “The lesson is, you’re more capable than you think you are.”

“OK, so… there you go,” Schmitz said, as if she was sorting out someone else’s results.

As for Schmitz and her friends here in the Chamonix trail-running community, now might be a good time to let her know that proper congrats will be forthcoming when the UTMB start and finish line at Place du Triangle de l’Amitié returns to its former self, as the calendar ticks over into September.

It might be lunch at Galerie Café des Aiguilles on Rue Moulin or L’Atelier, next to La Poste by the Arve River. But this time, Schmitz, it’s on us.

Doug Mayer has lived in Chamonix full-time for nearly a decade. He is the founder of the trail running tour company Run the Alps and is author of The Race That Changed Running: The Inside Story of UTMB.