‘It Was Really Hard’: Courtney Dauwalter Overcomes Struggles to Set a New Hardrock 100 Course Record
Courtney Dauwalter turned in another dominant victory in the Hardrock 100 early on Saturday morning in Silverton, Colorado, breaking the previous clockwise course record. But she admitted that the last 30 miles were an enormous struggle for her.
The Hardrock 100-miler is considered the most difficult ultradistance trail-running race in North America and one of the toughest in the world. It sends runners on a massive loop through the San Juan Mountains with about 33,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. That includes a huge climb up and over 14,048-foot Handies Peak, one of the 58 peaks in Colorado that rise above 14,000 feet.
Dauwalter won the women’s race for the fourth time in five tries, finishing in fifth place overall in 26 hours, 3 minutes, 10 seconds. Her time surpassed the women’s clockwise course record (26:11:49) she set in 2024, but it just missed the overall women’s course record of 25:50:23 that Katie Schide set in the counterclockwise direction last year.
The 41-year-old of Buena Vista, Colorado, reached the finish line at 8:03 a.m. Saturday and kissed the massive rock to secure her victory amid several hundred cheering fans, but she said she struggled through the night and early morning hours.
“Handies was beautiful, but it was kind of the beginning of the end for me,” Dauwalter said with a laugh moments after finishing. “Going down Handies just made my stomach turn, so then I spent the night fertilizing the course quite a bit. It was a very cool first part of the race to get to the top of Handies, but a very difficult last 30 miles. Is that the hardest thing I’ve done? I hope not, but it was pretty difficult. It was really hard, and I’m really happy to be here.”
Fast Early and Never Challenged
Dauwalter had an uncharacteristically challenging year in 2025, one in which stomach issues forced her to drop out of the Cocodona 250 and she went from leading the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) to finishing a distant 10th. But she has come back strong in 2026, placing second among women and sixth overall in the Cocodona 250 on May 6 in Sedona, Arizona.
And at Hardrock, which started only 65 days after she crossed the finish line in Cocodona, she turned in one of the most dominant performances of her career. No woman has ever won Hardrock more than Dauwalter. The only time she didn’t win it was her first try in 2021, when stomach issues forced her from the race at mile 62.
She intentionally ran it this year with what she called a pure, minimalistic style—without a pacer for the first time and only her husband, Kevin, crewing her.
Dauwalter was considered the prerace favorite because of her previous Hardrock success, but Colorado runners Careth Arnold, the winner of last summer’s 90-mile TDS race in Chamonix, France, and Tara Dower, who placed sixth in the Western States 100 two weeks ago, were compelling contenders.
However, Dauwalter set the tone early in the race and was never challenged for the women’s crown. She was strong on the initial climbing sections and was the first woman over Grant-Swamp Pass. She had a 15-minute margin over Arnold at the Chapman aid station and kept increasing it as she moved up in the overall standings.
Dauwalter reached the Ouray aid station (mile 44) ahead of course-record pace with a 42-minute lead over Arnold and a 1:40 margin over Dower. By then she was already seventh overall behind six men and continuing to move up.
She passed Ryan Smith, a Scottish runner from Boulder, Colorado, and Tom Evans of Great Britain on the way up to Engineer Pass and then caught and passed Jason Schlarb (Durango, Colorado) at the start of the long climb up to the 3,020-foot crest of American Grouse Pass to move into third place overall, trailing only Frenchman Ludo Pommeret, the eventual overall winner of the race (21:11:36), and Utah runner Jimmy Elam, who would go on to finish second (23:48:56).
But the smile she was sporting early in the race had been replaced by a stern grimace as she trudged up to the tallest point on the course.
Dauwalter reached the summit of Handies at sunset still in third place overall, but then things turned sideways for her. After throwing up repeatedly before and after the mile-72 Sherman aid station, she regrouped a bit and kept moving slowly.
Although she was caught by David Ayala (Bozeman, Montana), and Smith in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning and slowed over the final 20 miles, she still managed to keep moving forward and surpass her own clockwise course record.
“I felt good early in the race and was climbing well,” Dauwalter said. “But it was a struggle through the night. All three times I have run (Hardrock) in the clockwise direction, my stomach always goes and I wind up puking before I get to the Sherman aid station. I have planned for it and trained for it and changed my nutrition, but it still happens every time. So I don’t know. There were times I thought I was just going to lay down on the trail and stay there forever."
As of 9 a.m. MT, Arnold was in second place in the women’s race but still several hours from the finish line.
Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, The Chicago Tribune, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.