What It Takes Covering UTMB on the Ground

I knew Ben Dhiman was coming, but I didn’t know when. The leader of the 2026 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) was running well ahead of course record pace, and I was running far slower as I trod up the muddy trail to the course’s high point, Grand Col Ferret.

Turning a corner on the side of a verdant mountain, I saw a figure prancing down the rocks ahead of me in the pre-dawn light. As quickly as I could, I scrambled up to the side of the trail, crouched down, and pulled out my trusty iPhone 17 Pro. Swiftly and silently, Dhiman cruised past with a mountain biker filming the action for the livestream in tow. I watched his movements carefully in the center of my glowing phone screen, panning to follow him across the vast landscape. After getting the shot, I pocketed the device and continued my journey up, cresting the top of the pass just as the sun painted the glaciated tops of the mountains in front of me.

At this point, 12 hours into the crown jewel of ultrarunning, I was running (literally) on about one hour of sleep, fortified by the four-ish hours I’d gotten the night before. Obviously, running UTMB—or any of the seven races in the week leading up to it—is a gritty, exhausting, life-affirming undertaking. But covering the chaotic circus of UTMB week is its own beast, a neverending onslaught of mental, physical, and emotional challenges. As community engagement editor at Trail Runner (aka the guy who runs the Instagram, among other things), I’ve been to this race twice now, learning how to balance live race updates, athlete interviews, the expert analysis coming from our editors, and, ideally, my own well being.

Here’s what the 24 hours between the race’s rain-delayed start and the finish of the top runners looked like.

6 p.m. Friday, August 29: Standing Around

“Someone was standing there. He’s coming back.”

With typical French politeness, the woman beside me gave me the signal I’d been expecting. I’d need to be more creative with my spot-finding as the clock ticked towards the start of UTMB. So I took off my backpack, covered it with my waterproof poncho, and put it between my legs. Like an emperor penguin protecting its precious egg, I waddled forward into a narrow space between fans at the end of UTMB’s packed start-finish chute.

Here’s the thing about having a start-finish chute: If the start and finish are happening at the same time, you’ll get fans for both. That was the case Friday evening. Due to looming thunderstorms, the start of UTMB had been delayed two hours to 7:45 p.m. Meanwhile, the top runners at CCC, the 100K championship, were expected around 7:20 p.m.

What transpired was even more chaotic than the usual start line chaos. Race officials cleared an area in front of the roughly 2,400 runners waiting to start UTMB to leave room for the top three finishers of CCC. Luckily, my colleague Hannah Gross was behind the line to catch winner Cristian Minoggio, runner-up Miguel Arsénio, and third-place Hans Troyer as they ran into the electric town square. Meanwhile, I kept my penguin posture as I placed my phone in a gimbal, extended the tripod, and raised it as high as I could to get an unobstructed video of the start.

“Conquest of Paradise,” a song that serves as the soundtrack both for UTMB and for my dreams after the race, played over the speakers as the top runners toed the line. I clicked record at 7:44, just in case they sent the runners off early. At exactly 7:48, the song reached its conclusion and the runners set off towards me. With minor jostling, I got the shot I needed, stayed to see the adaptive athletes begin, and scurried off to the car waiting for me.

12 a.m. Saturday: Sitting Around

While we drove along the French side of the Mont Blanc massif, photographer Andy Cochrane, videographer Jonas Hill, and I shared condensed versions of our life stories, one at a time with room for questions. I love this about working with other journalists and creatives: curiosity drives the conversation, and by the time Friday turned into Saturday, we knew about each other’s career trajectories, favorite cities, current relationships, and Wilderness First Responder certifications.

In order to follow the race, I had embedded myself with Andy and Jonas as they followed Brooks athlete Chris Myers. Friday night held just two stops. First was Saint Gervais, a town with energetic, occasionally costumed fans 23 kilometers (14 miles) into the race. I lined up along a barricade between a group of vaping 20-somethings and a family with two young children, where I captured the condensed packs of top men and women. After sending the order of top runners to editor Abby Levene so she could update our live results story, I found Andy and Jonas and sprinted back to the car.

I ended up with this group because Andy had acquired a coveted media pass for the car, allowing us to get past police barricades and into the parking lots closest to the action. A wrong turn and ever-present traffic caused us to miss the top men coming through Notre Dame de la Gorge, but the power of our pass meant we still made it there before the leading ladies. We parked and ran up the trail as it climbed towards Italy.

Last year at this location, I had a miserable time, unable to get a view of the lead athletes as I was jostled around by drunk American brand reps and drunker local fans on the narrow trail. This year, security at the bottom of the trail and limited parking allowed for a more pleasant experience, and I captured the top women, as well as a runner carrying a full baguette in the straps on the front of his vest, coming through the tunnel of fans.

Back in the car, we inexplicably had to show our pass again on the way out, but were looking forward to getting a few hours of rest in the time before our next stop. That’s when we saw the line of brakelights ahead of us. The return to silence was gradual, but as we sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic with the clock approaching midnight, our conversation went from sporadic to nonexistent. After a grueling hour with no movement, we finally made it past the stream of 2,000 runners crossing the road ahead of us and headed home for a merciful hour of sleep.

6 a.m. Saturday: Running Around

I didn’t have my wallet anymore, but that was a problem for later. We’d departed Andy’s small AirBnB at 4 a.m. to drive to Switzerland, where we’d be running 5.5 miles up to the Italian border on top of Grand Col Ferret. On our hour and a half drive, I checked to make sure I had my headlamp (check), running vest (check), fleece (check), and wallet (nope). I made a mental note to stop by Andy’s place again after the race wrapped up.

We arrived at an uncrowded parking lot with a brilliant full moon lighting up the glaciers above us, strapping on our gear-filled vests in the early morning chill. Having never run together before, I had no idea what to expect from the 2,600 feet of vertical gain that awaited us, but we set a quick pace up the muddy trail. Since Notre Dame, we’d picked up another member, photographer Nick Danielson. Nick and Andy are frequent collaborators and thus frequent shit-talkers, and their banter kept the mood light.

With cowbells ringing below, I filmed the top five runners among a tree-less landscape that reminded me of the Scottish Highlands. (Author’s note: I have never been to the Scottish Highlands. Editors note: I have been to the Scottish Highlands and thought the same thing when running this section.) My energy was shockingly high at the top of the Col—I even had cell service! Sitting on a rock beside a couple dozen spectators, media, and medics, I edited and posted my video of the top men passing by. As I did, I heard a spattering of applause and looked up to see a team racing PTL, the crazy 300K event happening all week, plod on up to the Col. They stuck around to cheer on some racers, then made their way up the unmarked trail leading even higher above us. These three had been going for six days now, and still seemed to be having a great time. I made a mental note to race PTL someday.

Chris came by in 14th place, and Andy, Jonas, and Nick raced into action to capture him from every angle. We ran down the trail behind him and learned the bad news: his foot had been giving him trouble, and he was planning to withdraw at La Fouly. So, we followed at a respectful distance behind him back down towards town, where the team would film his emotional final aid station stop. I used the stop as a chance to capture women’s leader Blandine L’Hirondel as she blazed past a smattering of fans, 25 minutes ahead of her closest competition with 35 miles to go.

12 p.m. Saturday: Laying Around

More than 90 miles into an ultra as burly as UTMB, there tends to be a lot of space between the top runners. This year’s race was no exception, with both Ben Dhiman and Blandine L’Hirondel racking up 30-minute-plus gaps on the men’s and women’s fields, respectively, by the time they got to Vallorcine at mile 95. For me, that meant time to lay under a tree and make a plan for the rest of the day. I messaged our team group chat to get ready for the final few moments of the elite race. Hannah was positioned at the finish to capture the lead runners crossing the line. Abby was positioned in the media mixed zone to interview the top finishers. And I was in this sunny, quiet mountain town, capturing the runners before their final climb and descent.

Live tracking and streaming have changed how we consume ultramarathons. Fans are hungry for live updates on what they might be missing on the tracker or stream. So, at stops like this, I aim to immortalize a little slice of the race, along with analysis of how far apart everyone is, what they’ve just done, and what remains. Here in Vallorcine, exciting things were happening in the race for the podium: Caleb Olson had moved up into third in the men’s race, while Emily Schmitz was just a couple minutes back on Rachel Entrekin in their race for second.

With my phone stabilized by my trusty gimbal, I ran alongside the runners (at a respectful distance) as they approached the aid station, then filmed them entering the tunnel of fans that followed. It became a formula, one after the other after the other for all six runners. When Schmitz passed and I edited and posted my women’s updates reel, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. For now, my race coverage was done.

I walked to the train station for my scenic ride back to Chamonix. Andy had dropped me off in Vallorcine and gone back home to get some editing done, meaning transport was now my own responsibility. I nearly missed my train stop as I zoned out staring out the window, a sign of the toll sleep deprivation was taking on my mental capacities. Nonetheless, I retrieved my wallet from fellow sleep deprivation victim Andy, and headed back to my room to shower, brush my teeth, change, and attempt to feel like a normal person again.

6 p.m. Saturday: Standing Around, Reprise

I didn’t let myself lay down when I got back to my room, because I knew if I did, getting up would be borderline impossible. And I still had places to be. Rachel Entrekin and Emily Schmitz were mere minutes apart in the final few kilometers of the race. “If you’re able to come to the mixed zone to help with interviews that would be amazing. Impossible to get everyone at the same time,” Abby messaged me. So, to the mixed zone I went.

The noise and crowds of the finish line provided a bit of an energy boost, and I took my position among a gaggle of other journalists as we watched Rachel and Emily finish from afar. I’d done these types of interviews before, at events from the Boston Marathon to the U.S. Olympic Trials. So when Rachel walked up, I got a good position and started asking away.

“How did running the course beforehand help you during the race?” “Did you incorporate speedwork into your training?” “What were your aid station stops like?” “How does this compare to the smaller American races you’re used to?”

Somehow, after running 108 miles over 22 hours, Rachel still had enough presence of mind to answer all these questions thoroughly and wittily, and I thanked her for her time as I went off to find Abby. Eventually, I’d get sleep. For now, I went to the media center to reunite with the team, open my laptop, and get my bearings on what had been posted where.

Another race had passed with the requisite descriptors: historic, record-breaking, unprecedented, etc. We’d been there covering as much of it as we could. The team settled back into a quiet rhythm of click-clacking keys, punctuated by occasional questions and compliments. As I sat there, I thought back on the day, at the energetic fan tunnels and new conversations and quiet trails and mountain vistas and winding roads and all the moments in between. In the delirium of my continued sleeplessness, I couldn’t help but smile.