Tom Evans from the U.K. returns to the 2024 UTMB after a third-place finish in 2022 and a disappointing DNF in 2023. In this interview, he talks about how he prepared for the specific demands of UTMB, how his winter cross-country running season is translating into ultra racing, and what he hopes to achieve this lap around Mont Blanc.
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.
Tom Evans Pre-2024 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Tom Evans. It’s a couple of days before the 2024 UTMB. We find ourselves here again in Chamonix. Hi, Tom.
Evans: Meghan, thank you so much for having me. And yeah, you’ve chosen a wonderful spot and you’ve brought the nice sunshine with you as well.
iRunFar: Well, you are the local here, so I feel like you’re the one who’s more controlling the weather.
Evans: Oui, c’est vrai!
iRunFar: Okay, so you were here at the starting line last year, you’ve been here at the starting line in the past, but I think it’s maybe a different Tom Evans here this year.
Evans: I raced here for the first time in, or for the first UTMB, in 2022 and had…
iRunFar: An amazing race.
Evans: Yeah. It’s very rare that things don’t go wrong in races, and yes, there were some things that didn’t go perfectly, but there was no moment where I thought, “I’m having a really low moment.” And I definitely didn’t find the race easy, but I didn’t really struggle at points. I ran as well as I could have done, and I couldn’t have been happier. So I then came here in 2023, kind of expecting to have the same thing.
iRunFar: A fun little march through the mountains.
Evans: Yeah. By that point, I had done Western States twice, and had two good results. I’d done UTMB once and had a good result. So I just thought, “Oh, a hundred miles, this is easy.”
iRunFar: I figured out one hundred mile running.
Evans: Exactly. When are having bad days, I’m like, how is…
iRunFar: You just haven’t cracked the nut yet.
Evans: Yeah, exactly, this is… So yeah, I was definitely brought down to earth and realized what a hundred-mile race in the mountains can do because it will chew you up and spit you out. So a very, very different mentality and very different training, both in terms of everything, from locations to the speed work to the sessions that I’ve been doing. Everything this year has been different, and I guess in a way looks similar to my Western States build-up, but very different at the same time. Very similar structure, very similar hours, but fundamentally different because when we talk about training, we talk about you train for the demands of the race.
And everyone can do this, so you can work out, okay, in order to do this race, what have I actually got to be able to do? And then you work backwards from that. Okay, well what do my training sessions look like in order to take me one step closer to what I need to do in this race? So yeah, this year has been, what are the demands of the race? Okay, cool. I know that.
I’ve run CCC twice, UTMB one and nearly a half times, and I feel like I know what I need to do in order to put myself in a position to have a really good day. But again, it’s 100-mile racing and you try and control what you can control, but sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But yeah, definitely different physically and different mentally, coming into this year.
iRunFar: Last summer, you tried to connect the dots of the gray to Western States-UTMB double, which is just a… This is a tricky race, that’s a tricky race, and then getting them both right in one summer is, I don’t know, one of the hardest things in this sport right now. This year you’re taking, from the outside looking in anyways, a much more traditional 100-mile build. You did start off with a fairly non-traditional winter when it comes to long-distance running. You started with a cross-country season, which is really cool.
Evans: I did. In the UK, and I think in Europe especially, cross country is the fundamentals of running, it’s where I started running, it’s where everyone, in their local running clubs, it’s what you do in winter. And in a way, it’s like trail running because splits don’t really matter. I think the cross-country racing in the US is really cool, but it’s also really fast because a lot of it’s on golf courses, it’s not muddy, it’s typically not hilly. Whereas I’m doing my county championship, my state championships, was around four farmer’s fields, and if you can say four farmer’s fields quickly, you’re doing well.
iRunFar: I will try but I’m proud of you for that.
Evans: And in places, you’re knee-high in mud. So if you feel like you’re running three minutes per kilometer or 5’30” a mile, and actually in reality you’re running seven minutes a mile, and it doesn’t matter because it’s the effort.
iRunFar: You’re trying so hard. Yeah.
Evans: So I guess it’s similar to running in the mountains. Understanding, yes, it’s a short race, it’s 10 kilometers so it’s just over 30 minutes. But yeah, I guess all of those, you don’t worry about those metrics, you just run on feel and it’s a race. It doesn’t matter who’s at the first corner first. Same as here. It doesn’t matter who gets to Les Houches first, it doesn’t matter who gets to Vallorcine first, the winner is the person who gets back to Chamonix first. And I think it’s very similar to cross country. So I also got to race, I’ve raced 13 times this year, that’s probably the most out of anyone. So a lot of them were shorter, 10 kilometers, eight kilometers.
iRunFar: Were nine of them, 10 of them, cross country?
Evans: Yeah, I’ve done three chair races this year.
iRunFar: Okay, cool.
Evans: So it’s been a really cool way. I’ve been able to practice race week. I’ve been able to practice other things that you don’t want to make those mistakes in the day. So yeah, I transitioned from cross country, culminating in racing the cross-country world championships.
iRunFar: You guys did really good there.
Evans: Yeah, we did really good. I had a bit of a niggle going into it, but managed to deal with it and still managed to finish in the top third, which was great. And I was super happy and a really nice well-earned… Yeah, that was the goal for the beginning part of the year. And I then transitioned from there and had five weeks until Transvulcania. So I recovered and did some training and was really happy with my race in Transvulcania, finishing joint second. I was really worried, I’d not been on training camp, I’d not done any climbing, I’d not done any long descents, but actually the cross-country speed and conditioning I guess had played huge dividends and actually then found it really very straightforward to get back into doing long runs.
iRunFar: That’s interesting.
Evans: It was really interesting. And then-
iRunFar: I guess it’s because you’ve opened up your high end so far that the middle and the lower end just-
Evans: Relatively easy.
iRunFar: Oh, that’s interesting.
Evans: Which is really interesting. So I guess we’ve tried to carry that across, and even now still keeping a little bit of that in. And I was supposed to race at Zugspitze, but I didn’t because of this little niggle that was hanging around and finally got that sorted to race Lavaredo. But again, because I had been dealing with this, I hadn’t been on training camp, I’d been training at home, and lots of time on the treadmill. So just trying to get things dialed in. And again, really happy with the performance at Lavaredo and just over 12 minutes behind the King of Lavaredo, Hannes [Namberger], and you can’t, at that race, if anyone’s going to beat you, it’s-
iRunFar: It’s okay to be beaten by Hannes.
Evans: It’s okay to be beaten, you’re the next best person on that course. So yeah, I was really happy with that. And then I’ve gone straight from Lavaredo, I’ve only been home for six nights since Lavaredo, or spent a couple of weeks in Chamonix, and almost two months in [Les] Tines. Yeah, the last 12 weeks has been incredibly traditional ultrarunning, a hundred miles, goal being running around Mont Blanc.
iRunFar: Last year when we interviewed you before the race, you talked a lot about, you felt like one of your weaknesses was preparing to run through the night, and I think that’s where you had challenges ultimately. Looking back, now that you have the hindsight of one really great experience at UTMB, a less great one, and also your CCC experiences, what sort of hindsight vision are you bringing forward with you to Friday, Saturday?
Evans: I think at night, I guess that’s being ticked off, that’s the reason I raced Lavaredo.
iRunFar: Okay.
Evans: You get the perfect-
iRunFar: It’s a night race.
Evans: It’s a night race. You get to run. It was a 12-hour race, I started at 11:00 p.m.
iRunFar: You were destined to do that one, your body just decided that for you.
Evans: The race that I pulled out of, it was also a night race. There was logic in picking a race that started at night because I wanted a whole run through the night because I’m typically not that comfortable running at night. So there is method, again, we work back, what are the demands of the race? Running at night.
iRunFar: I got to figure out nighttime.
Evans: How do I figure that out? What’s the best lamp for me to use? Is the best lamp for me the best lamp for everyone else? Maybe, maybe not. And so yeah, I think that’s changed. And I think the big thing for me is patience. I’ve always liked rushing things, whether it’s at school or racing. I like front running. I think nowadays it’s … I couldn’t tell you the last time a man front run in any major race from the very, very beginning.
iRunFar: Who sticks it then?
Evans: Who sticks it? And I think especially a race like here, the last time here would’ve been Pau Capell, and that was an incredible race, and I think left everyone fairly speechless. And I’m not saying that I don’t think that can happen. I can’t do that. That’s not my style of racing. My style of racing is if I can control the first half, I’m then able to race the second half, rather than trying to race the second half, then I’m not able to control anything in the second half. Like I found out last year, and the pace was way too hot last year, and both Jim [Walmsley] and Zach [Miller] had really, really low moments. They managed to pull it together, they managed to get through it, and ended up having incredible runs. But you compare, from last year, Germain [Grangier]’s run compared to Jim and Zach’s and…
iRunFar: Two different animals, wasn’t it?
Evans: Two completely different styles of racing. And so yeah, definitely the more conservative approach at the start, trying to be patient. And I think it’s going to be a fairly challenging year this year because it’s going to be hot, but I don’t think it’s going to be crazy hot, but it’s still going to be hot. It’s like a Western States and people say, “Oh, it’s not a hot year.” Yeah, it’s still…
iRunFar: 90-something degrees. Yeah.
Evans: It’s still going to be hot and it feels way hotter here. And especially the climb coming out of Courmayeur, it’s really hot, it’s really humid, it’s really sticky. And I think that will be a major part of the race, and somewhere where we’ve identified where it’s, yeah, have a few strategies for getting through that part. And yeah, I think just approaching it at way more of a, taking a step back and looking at everything from a hundred-mile perspective rather than looking at it as a… this is just an extension from a Western States.
iRunFar: Well, you nailed it when you said a few minutes ago that the race is not won in Vallorcine, the race is won at the finish line. And the patience thing is the reward, if you can do that.
Evans: For sure. But regardless whether it’s winning a race, the race finishes here, it’s not a 100k race, it’s not a hundred-mile race, it’s 107-mile race. You have to get here. And so, one of my big goals this year is finishing.
iRunFar: To get here.
Evans: To race sensibly. And if I really struggle and I end up hiking the last 15 hours, which I really hope I don’t, it’s my fault, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences. It’s so easy to pull out of races, and the more you pull out of races, the easier it then becomes. And I so nearly pulled out at Lavaredo because I’d gone through the night, that was the main, it was right, we think we’ve sorted out your nighttime, let’s go through it. So when it got to daylight, I was like, “Oh, I just pull out, it’ll be easy.”
iRunFar: Practice what I need to practice.
Evans: Yeah, exactly. I practiced what I need to practice and now it’s really easy. So yeah, the more you pull out, the easier it becomes. So I think for me, sticking in when it got really tough at Lavaredo, which it did, because I wasn’t prepared, this has now been a really nice full circle moment that now I feel incredibly calm and ready to give it a really good shot on Friday night.
iRunFar: Amazing. We look forward to seeing you do the full hundred miles, or 109 miles or whatever this is, and seeing you back in Chamonix.
Evans: Hopefully have a post-race interview.
iRunFar: There we go.
Evans: Thank you very much.
