Jim Walmsley of the U.S. is back to race the 2024 UTMB, as the reigning men’s champion. In this interview, he talks about life in both the U.S. and France, his approach to recovery and training between winning the 2024 Western States 100 and returning to the 2024 UTMB, and his long-time ambition of completing both races in one season.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth men’s and women’s previews and follow our live race coverage starting Friday.
Jim Walmsley Pre-2024 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Jim Walmsley. It’s a couple of days before the 2024 UTMB. Here we are again, Jim.
Jim Walmsley: Yep. Welcome back to France. But I guess usually the past couple of years it would be welcome, but I just arrived about a month ago, so yeah. We’re both back in France, and doing it again.
iRunFar: It was just nine weeks ago that we saw you at the finish line of Western States. Talk us through the last nine weeks. You’ve had a lot going on. You’ve come to Silverton. You hung out in the San Juans in Colorado, and then you came back and re-assimilated to France.
Walmsley: Yeah, part of the idea was we wanted to step back, go back to Flagstaff, kind of reassess and absorb, like, France, our stay in France, our living in Arreche. Just kind of analyze more and more what we want to do, where we want to spend our time, kind of going forward and just be patient about an entire process. I think a lot of that goes to knowing we need to go back home to Flagstaff to kind of reflect.
With that, became, well, what’s the race season going to look like? And then that went to, well, I’d like to do an early season race, and then we’ll be at altitude. We’ll be back in Flag. Yeah, the opportunity to do Western States again comes up with that. And then obviously, I guess last year, even foresight of all of this happening in September. So having to qualify for Western States, and then talking Simon Gosselin into qualifying as well. And then like, hey, Western States is a good idea, come to Flagstaff.
iRunFar: Just bringing your French friends to Flagstaff.
Walmsley: Yeah, exactly. So we had little France in Flagstaff for a while.
iRunFar: Little France. I love it.
Walmsley: Yeah, really good training process, I’d say. Like, caught a few months of being healthy, consistent, kind of vanilla, boring, rinse and repeat training.
iRunFar: As you want it to be.
Walmsley: Yeah, just about perfect, I guess, when you look at it that way. Where in years past, maybe I looked at perfect training as like, not only rinse and repeat and boring, but also big, fast, testing yourself, testing yourself with long runs, testing yourself with short runs.
iRunFar: Testing yourself a lot.
Walmsley: Yeah, and it just kind of goes to a bit tiring. And yeah, but then Western States ended up going really well. Things kind of checked out, but I think I didn’t end up racing earlier in the year. So in some ways, I felt like a lot of rust was busted on that race. And kind of the recovery from Western States was not ideal, and had a few injuries. Like, not injuries, but like things like hurting from the race just days after, and like, oh, I want to pay attention to this and that. But more or less just kind of had lingering inflammation that became a problem just to get back into things.
And yeah, so it’s been a big reminder in the last nine weeks of why Western States and UTMB, the two of them have always been a challenge for me. And why in 2021, I finally, I mean, essentially just mid-race, running out of energy, being over it, and saying, screw it. Like I’m going to go focus my time and energy at one race at a time, and step back from the race in 2021 and say, all right, I’m going to focus on this race in 2022, 2023. And we’ll see how that goes. So now, I guess I’m removed away from that enough to try it again, and quickly reminded that it’s not easy, it’s not perfect, and it is what it is, and it’s interesting.
Like it kind of almost makes me sad in some ways of the number of times I’ve put a foot forward coming right off of Western States, and not having just a reset build and a good foundation to go into such a race like UTMB. And against so many competitors, and like this is your representation in Europe, is this. Whereas, flip it the other way of like, yeah, we’ve seen lots of people struggle with coming right back from Western States, and it’s not uncommon. And yeah, I go through it, too.
iRunFar: It’s interesting for me to hear you sort of reflect back to, in the past, you tried to put two and two kind of opposites together, Western States and UTMB in one summer. And then you said, you know what, I’m going to focus on one, and then the other. But now it’s kind of coming full circle of like, okay, here’s the next challenge of can I put these two kind of different 100 milers together in a short period of time.
Walmsley: Yeah. Well, 2019, I didn’t run. I took the opportunity instead to try Sierre-Zinal and Ultravasan kind of back-to-back, and that was its own interesting challenge. But that was one of the years that François [D’Haene], and Kilian [Jornet], or Xavier [Thévenard] didn’t win, one of those rare moments, and then you’re like, man, that could have been basically a missed opportunity of just not putting your name in the hat. And then even 2022, 2023, I’m not at Western States, and it’s just hard to choose one or the other. And then this year, it was just like, well, let’s do both. Like, I miss not being on the line for both, but then it’s just interesting trying the second one. And just sequentially in the calendar, UTMB second, depending how you look at it.
iRunFar: So, connect the dots a little bit, sort of recovery and training-wise over the last nine weeks between Western States and UTMB. A little bit of recovery. You said there were a few niggles to monitor, we know you were out training near where we live in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, and then you’ve been here for a month or so.
Walmsley: Yeah, so, I guess Western States kind of presented, and just being back in Flagstaff, and we’ve always gone out to Hardrock… people ask me about that race. And I’m like, well, I always have just been cheering here since 2015, and it’s like, I really enjoyed training here and cheering. And why do I want to change that routine? But this year was an opportunity to go camping in the San Juans and reflect again on the things we’re missing of our normal, or what became our normal routine for quite a few years in the U.S. And I hadn’t been back to Hardrock the last two years being in France, so, it was interesting.
It was nice, good. I mean, I really liked the disconnect going from Western States and then just out of cell service in Colorado. I liked that move, yeah. So, it was an opportunity just to kind of get back into trying our routine that we used to do. And now I get to kind of come here at the race and reflect on how that process has been, how it’s set me up, or even potentially held me back this year, or years past, and this or that. And I think it just kind of goes it’s probably not the ideal calendar or schedule of what you want to do in between the two races.
iRunFar: But it’s your schedule, right?
Walmsley: Yeah, I mean, I’m in control of it.
iRunFar: This is your deal.
Walmsley: But, I guess, like many of us, I’m a big fan, and, I love this sport, and I love running in the mountains. So, there’s the race side, but there’s also a human side where you need to fill up your own cup.
iRunFar: Exactly.
Walmsley: And, I take a lot away from being out in the mountains and disconnected from cell service and discovering new trails and stuff, so, yeah.
iRunFar: I guess that’s why, what I meant about that was that it feels like watching you, you have several different mountain homes or geographic homes at this point.
Walmsley: Yeah, yeah.
iRunFar: And it feels like you sort of have to check in with those just to get what you are needing out of your spaces.
Walmsley: Yeah, I mean we definitely missed the high altitude of Colorado. And even in general, here in France, we missed the lung-burning climbs. Instead, you replace it with just absolutely leg-burning climbs, and it’s just a bit different sensation, but it’s also interesting to reflect on how it’s affected racing. And more or less, I mean, when I was living full-time in Flagstaff, I think I have lots of friends that would probably attest that no way I was going to sleep at sea level. Like, no way. I’ll drive down to Phoenix and I’ll drive back up in the same day. Like, yeah, I’m not going to do it.
And now I’ve had to kind of accept not being “the high altitude athlete,” but it was also a big adjustment going back to Flagstaff and trying to sleep more normally back at home in Flagstaff, and it being different. And then also seeing results, be pretty good, and feel like I’m improving on climbing and steeper things while I’m here. It forces you to take a different perspective of well, why is it working then? Is it needed? Is this that? What are the factors that are making for the improvements?
iRunFar: And probably those factors are shifting because, like, your career continues to evolve, and you’re putting more miles in the bank, and more miles in all these different types of terrain, and your body is just uptaking all this stuff a little bit differently, isn’t it?
Walmsley: Yeah. I think for this double I’ve thought a lot about, yes, obviously Courtney [Dauwalter]‘s done some good doubles. But then even I live very close to Rob Krar in Flagstaff, and I’ve had a few conversations with him and him discussing the year he did Western States, Leadville, Run Rabbit, one of the best triples ever done.
iRunFar: Ooh, good point and good memory there, I like that.
Walmsley: But I remember discussing with him and just the lack of anything he did in between the races. Oh, interesting. And just kind of drawing on it’s okay to rest right now in between the races.
iRunFar: Interesting.
Walmsley: And kind of drawing on it’s okay to rest right now, in between the two races. Although it’s nine weeks, so maybe it stretches what either of them kind of did, the gap between the two. I just know in years past I’ve always done a little bit too much, and felt fatigued, so, yeah. If anything, it has been different.
Each ultra ends up kind of being unique and so, yeah, the cards that I have in my hand this year are different, but also I wouldn’t be lining up if I didn’t think I had a chance to compete up front and compete and even then now looking at things I’ve never done. I haven’t finished both races, so that’s one of those, you can go down the checklist of what you want to do here, and it kind of falls to that. I’ve tried it many times, and I still haven’t done both, or finished both. So, even that one’s still on the board to get some positive points.
iRunFar: I feel like you’ve been at this race many times. You’ve had various levels of success. You had, of course, your best success last year, winning, setting a course record despite it being a very evolving course. You must have a different perspective on your approach to it this year, because you’ve already met that high-level goal you had for yourself last year. Where has your mindset been in the motivation, the drive to come and do this again?
Walmsley: Well, I think after last year there were a lot of questions of what do you do next and this and that. And I think when you have the opportunity to be on top of the sport for even a glimpse of a moment, like, the more I reflected on that of, like, well, that doesn’t last long. You don’t know how long. And, the reflection kind of went, well, I got to try to compete to stay at the top. So then it turned into, well, yeah, like when people are in a sport and they win a championship, what do they want to do the next season? Like, you finally won the championship. And, well, let’s build to try to do it again.
And so that kind of became the theme and goal, but at the same time now going through the process, and doing the two races, or not yet, but doing Western States and coming off the recovery and, ups and downs with that, kind of goes to it’s not the build from last year. I need to accept with, like, where I’m at. I don’t have a fully focused training block towards UTMB this year. So it’s a different hand I have this year.
iRunFar: It’s interesting to hear you say that because you said the same thing for Western States, that your build for that one was evolved compared to your prior Westerns from just a few limitations going on. So lots of things work for you.
Walmsley: Yeah, I mean, even lots of things popped up this winter, and I think that kind of goes to figuring out how you can train with what’s going on. Little injuries, little niggles. Where you are, whether you’re taking vacation, whether you’re in San Juans, whether you’re at the beach. Making the most of what you’re able to train with, and just being effective with that scenario. So, and then just listening to how to best set you up to try to show up healthy and give yourself a chance. Because if you’re on the line, that’s where it all starts, so you got to get there first.
iRunFar: Last question for you. For me, watching you be here over the years, people’s relationship with you have evolved, right? Like, maybe there was this air of American skepticism, but now I feel like there are multiple countries, and multiple communities who sort of claim you and get behind you and sort of boost you. That change, like, I see it, I feel it. Do you feel it? And what is it like for you?
Walmsley: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s interesting. I think UTMB, at least living in France, people here were absolutely stoked for me, and that means a lot. And then, I mean, it was months before I went back to the U.S., and then it was like I went back to the U.S. and I just had people, just like, it is home in Flagstaff and like, it is nice. And yeah, it’s interesting. I’m just really fortunate to build communities and have people cheer for me, and yeah. I feel like all I can do back is just give my best foot forward, try my hardest, and keep working hard. And people latch onto that and we can all relate with hard work. And that’s kind of what we can control in some ways so.
And even just, maybe that’s just the American ethos in some ways of we have some power to try a little harder, which is sometimes good and bad. I think when I reflect on being in Europe and then looking at more U.S. stuff going on it’s like, well, maybe it would be better to take a step back. Or to do a little different terrain, or a different sport, and this and that. And earlier in my career coming more from just a runner/track background, this and that, and it’s like no.
Like East Africans, they run year-round. They don’t do skiing. Like, no way. And then traditionally 90s running in the U.S., this and that, like speed workouts. And then look at 70s, volume based. We’re back to a little bit of volume base, this is that. And yeah, I don’t know. It kind of just goes to there’s many different ways to prepare, and each way doesn’t even have to be the same for one athlete year to year. So I think I’m learning that, and it makes it more interesting and stuff. But yeah, it’s been interesting.
iRunFar: Well, best of luck to you. I think there is no doubt to any of us that you will be putting your best foot forward. That’s what Jim Walmsley does, so best of luck to you and doing that this weekend.
Walmsley: Thanks so much. Yeah, good to see you here again, and looking forward to everybody out on the course. Yeah, it’ll be crazy, just like every year.
iRunFar: It will be crazy.
