Jason Schlarb finished third at the 2024 Hardrock 100, showing that after a few years of recovering from a knee injury, he’s back in top form. During this interview, he talks about how the early miles of the race played out with the top men running close to each other, his back-and-forth battle with Diego Pazos throughout the second half of the race, issues with nutrition, and how it feels for him to put together a solid race after his injury, even if he is his own worst critic.
For more on how the race played out, check out our in-depth 2024 Hardrock 100 results article.
Jason Schlarb Post-2024 Hardrock 100 Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Bryon Powell of iRunFar here with Jason Schlarb after his third-place finish at the 2024 Hardrock 100. How are you, Jason?
Jason Schlarb: I’m good. I just had a flashback to our interview after Hardrock, next to that brown barn, old wood building.
iRunFar: Yep.
Schlarb: It’s just eight years.
iRunFar: 2016.
Schlarb: Yeah, it’s been a little while.
iRunFar: That was a good run.
Schlarb: Yeah, that one is a great run too.
iRunFar: You were co-winner with Kilian Jornet that year.
Schlarb: Yeah.
iRunFar: And a great time.
Schlarb: Yeah.
iRunFar: Probably one of the top performances of your life.
Schlarb: I mean, yes.
iRunFar: If I could say that.
Schlarb: Run Rabbit Run [100 Mile], the first course record and that are my two I think most proud runs or races I’ve ever done.
iRunFar: Well, we’re going to change that in this conversation because you’ve had one hell of a hard three years.
Schlarb: Yeah, yeah.
iRunFar: I felt bad writing the preview, being like, “Here’s all that Jason’s done, and he hasn’t been even quite close to that level yet,” since your first ski injury and all that. We’ll get into the details, but how does it feel to have a top level performance?
Schlarb: I’m a critic of myself always, and the great news is I have the fitness. I have the strength. Looking at Ludo[vic Pommeret], I am in the late 40s and in my body, I had a sub 23 yesterday. At mile 55, I started puking and really didn’t take nutrition solidly for the rest of the race. But yes, the last three years has been rough. After my knee surgery, the meniscus, I had another one to trim up the meniscus last year, and no, I haven’t been able to put those performances together, but now it’s good to have the fitness, the strength, the health, and be back at Hardrock and get on the podium.
iRunFar: Yeah. So you were talking, you had the fitness to get 23. How do you have that confidence, again, when you have them… I mean, the workouts, again, what made you think that I can…?
Schlarb: Well, I know me, and I know Jason Schlarb of 2016, and I’ve lived here for 10 years. This is my home. I know the routes, I know the segments. I know the Strava. I know the data. I know my speed workouts, and even working with my coach, David Roche, he knows how I have been and what I can do, and so to get to that place… I’ve actually been there, believe it or not, since the end of last year. But due to some… My stomach has been really giving me a problem the last three years, so I went to Madeira [Island Ultra-Trail] this spring and had a 20 something place, but I, again, wasn’t able to fuel. In training and everything, things are great. Fantastic. I’m back. The knee is strong. Everything’s good.
iRunFar: Yeah, so you’re out there yesterday.
Schlarb: Yeah.
iRunFar: You started in no man’s land off the bat. Are you in fourth by yourself? For how long? Are you actually in fourth alone or what’s the first quarter, half the race like?
Schlarb: We went across Mineral Creek and went up Bear and we were together and I was able to hang out, Diego [Pazos], myself, François [D’Haene]. Ludo was just a little bit up ahead, but yeah, Ludo and François started to take off. I know the course, I know this place. I know my body. I knew exactly what I needed to do, and so patience was the right choice for me, and then slowly start to pass and get up there and catching François when he was climbing up Bear Creek, I was like, “Okay, I’m ready. This is the right spot.”
iRunFar: Bear Creek in Ouray?
Schlarb: Yeah, sorry.
iRunFar: There’s three of them on the course.
Schlarb: Yeah, a time later. But I ran my own race. I’d like to run by myself despite running with Kilian from Handies to the finish in 2016. When I first saw him, I was like, “No, I don’t want to be your entertainment. I don’t like to be around other people. I want to run every step exactly how I want to. That’s my style.” But that was when things went south a little bit, and then I ran back and forth with Diego a lot.
iRunFar: Yeah. Well, you were for, I don’t know how many miles, it could have been almost half the race, it felt like you were 10 minutes ahead of Diego.
Schlarb: Yeah.
iRunFar: Was that just at the aid stations and the splits and that, or on the course was it a little more dynamic?
Schlarb: I was in front of Diego for quite a while, and when I passed François just before Engineer Pass, I wasn’t even thinking about Diego, because Diego said, “Oh”… I felt like the altitude must be getting to him. François knows. He’s been here. He obviously has success and Ludo being here, I trained with him a bit. He stayed in my cabin and I knew that he was ready too. But Diego, I wasn’t certain that he was going to do well, and I didn’t know where he was behind me. I wasn’t asking for information or anything at the aid stations. I was just focused on getting close as I can to Ludo. That was my goal. But then I saw him coming down Camp Bird Road, and I was like, “Okay, let’s go,” and threw down some sub-seven [minute] miles and thought he was done. But then again, my stomach kind of went, and so then Diego and I had got to have like we did in Oman a number of years ago, we got to spend a lot of time going back and forth.
iRunFar: Yeah. What was that race like to the finish? When did he make his final pass, and did you feel like you were then still racing to catch him in second place?
Schlarb: No.
iRunFar: No?
Schlarb: No. It was more survival, unfortunately, and I’m kind of ashamed to say that it was just like, it wasn’t so much of a race. It was like, okay, I’m taking maybe 50 to 80 calories every two hours and I’m drinking water to the tune of maybe 10 ounces every two hours, because I just couldn’t, and it would just keep coming up, and so it was more of a, this is all I possibly could do. Diego could literally be as close as you are to me, and I couldn’t pass him. That’s how I felt. Going down the descent through the final descent, I started walking down the descent. When the legs don’t get fuel and they don’t get hydration for hours.
iRunFar: Running on empty at Hardrock is a long, grueling experience.
Schlarb: It wasn’t really a strategic racing thing. It was like, “I’m doing my absolute fastest every single step.”
iRunFar: It might not be very fast for you. Yeah.
Schlarb: But I mean, at the top of Cunningham/Little Giant, Diego is almost… not as close as this, but he was a minute ahead of me, but I knew that as soon as he went down, he was descending better than I was. I’m not sure what his issues were and stuff and how he was doing, but I knew that there was no way I was going to be catching him.
iRunFar: But you still ended up with a third-place finish.
Schlarb: Yes.
iRunFar: And a very solid run. And so you have the confidence going into the race kind of knowing what your performance is, but I know it wasn’t a perfect race, but can you get more confidence in the aspect of actualizing it? You can have the fitness, but if you can’t put it mostly together on race day, what does that mean? And you largely did, if not did.
Schlarb: Yeah. I’m in shape. I’m strong. I’m altitude adjusted, and I was able to put most of that together yesterday, and I’m happy about that. I’m excited. I’m signed up for TDS.
iRunFar: You beat me to it. Yeah. You got TDS coming along.
Schlarb: Yeah. The most technical, I think coolest trails of the UTMB race series. I’m excited to try this TDS thing out. It’s pretty close, but I’ve got a lot of experience. I’m older. I feel like I can do more of these kind of crazy moves I think with this.
iRunFar: I hate to say it, but the old man strength kind of starts along wisdom, experience.
Schlarb: Yeah, just like Courtney [Dauwalter] was able to run those three hundreds last year. You get to a point where you can really manage things just right, especially in training. In racing, I haven’t quite got it all the time. I know that Courtney too had stomach issues yesterday, so yeah.
iRunFar: You’re not alone in that.
Schlarb: I know.
iRunFar: I haven’t talked to Ludo about his details, but he probably did too.
Schlarb: Well, with the sport changing and being able to take more carbs per hour is such an advantage. I’ve seen it in my training. I know it absolutely works. I do it for all my long runs, but I haven’t been able to dial it in the race, and that’s the piece of the puzzle I’m trying to figure out now.
iRunFar: I hadn’t thought about asking you this until just now. It’s like you’re 46, right?
Schlarb: Yeah.
iRunFar: And Ludo is 48. We’re in a sport where you think the competitive level’s not just gone up a little bit. It’s leapt up, and there’s a lot of fast younger folks, whether that means 20s or 30s, but here you are, and the two of you, Diego’s not the youngest runner either, but what do you think about that?
Schlarb: Gosh, there’s just some… I feel like I’m gifted, so is Ludo, and I think that’s that natural talent part, and then also right here, particularly in these kind of races, even UTMB or Hardrock, it takes so much more than how fast can you run and how young are you. How quickly can you recover. How springy are those muscles. It becomes, I can run pretty fast for a really long time and never quit, never have that mental breakdown. I think that that’s a big part of it, and then slowly moving to the mountains. There’s so much multifactorial things to running fast at a tough, slow, long, hard hundred miler.
iRunFar: Awesome. Well, congrats on your great race here. Good luck at TDS. Thank you, Jason.
Schlarb: Thank you.
