Tom Evans: ‘I will be back at the UTMB every year until I win’
Tom Evans is, without a doubt, one of the greatest ultramarathon runners in the world. In 2023, the 32-year-old Brit won the historic Western States 100 in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains – a hallowed 100-mile race that features majestic gold country terrain, 5,500m of elevation and enough prestige to attract the greatest endurance athletes on earth. Just a year before that, in 2022, he finished an outstanding third at the iconic, 176km-long UTMB World Series Final – more commonly known as the UTMB.
The former British Army Captain first asserted his ultramarathon prowess in 2017, when he came third at the seven-day Marathon des Sables in the merciless Sahara Desert on his inaugural shot at the event. Since then, the Red Bull athlete has won a raft of tough trail ultramarathons in the UK, Switzerland, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Spain and Portugal, as well as the testing 101km CCC in 2018 – one of the UTMB World Series Finals races that finishes in Chamonix, France.
But, that aside, Evans is also a human being.
‘Sometimes things don’t go to plan…’ he posted on Instagram at the start of this month. ‘I am not going to lie, this one hurts and I am disappointed and frustrated. But this is trail running, this is sport and this is the puzzle!’
The ‘one’ to which Evans was referring to was his DNF at the 2024 UTMB. A legendary foot race around Mont Blanc that features almost 10,000m of positive elevation, technical alpine trails and an unpredictable range of weather conditions, the UTMB humbles and defeats even the best and most experienced in the game. This year’s race – which set off from Chamonix at 6pm, local time, on Friday 31 August – featured particularly punishing conditions, with daytime temperatures of up to 30°C dropping substantially in the mountains overnight. In fact, of the 2,761 runners who set off from the start line, 1,001 did not complete the course. These runners include Evans, 2023 UTMB champion and course record holder Jim Walmsley, 2019 UTMB champion Pau Capell, numerous other elites and many amateurs. As such, the UTMB is not just any old race – it is an adventure; an unknown; a gamble.
We caught up with Evans to hear more about the challenges presented by this year’s UTMB – and what’s coming next in his impressive running career.
Learning from the elements
‘This year, physically, it felt so easy,’ says Evans, reflecting on his 2024 UTMB campaign from a secluded, sun-soaked chalet in Chamonix, just a day after it came to a premature end. While he was forced to withdraw from the race, he still clocked more than 100K before doing so – which is more than most people could ever imagine running in one go.
‘Physically, I’m in the best mountain shape I’ve been in,’ he continues. In one way, it’s a positive, because you think, “Okay, cool, this works – that’s great for next time”. But then, in a way, it’s super frustrating, because although it was a really great race and Vincent [Bouillard, winner of the 2024 UTMB] was incredible, it wasn’t as if someone ran ridiculously fast off the front.’
A threat to his competitors from the start, Evans was in third position when he passed through Courmayeur in Italy, which roughly marks the halfway point in the mammoth race. He swept through the small town before 3am on the Saturday, just a minute behind the first two runners. And yet, despite this formidable front, problems with hydration and fuelling – which can never be underestimated – were already starting to have an impact on Evans.
‘For me, where it went wrong – and something that I’ve still not been able to fully get a grip on – is hydration. I got incredibly thirsty, and when I get really thirsty, I then can’t eat properly – and I’m still yet to fully figure that out. And while it wasn’t crazy hot, it was really humid, so I think I probably just didn’t give that enough thought.
‘People talk a lot about your training and your nutrition – they’re sort of the sexy subjects. But hydration is, I guess, kind of a missed thing. So, I think my area of focus for the rest of this year will be to try to close that off. I will probably go out to the Red Bull Performance Centre in Austria and do an array of testing out there to try to come up with a plan that works.’
While Evans says that he fares well in the heat and in the desert – and can therefore thrive in races like the Western States 100 and Marathon des Sables – the hot, inescapable humidity that you find in Europe during the summer months continues to be his nemesis.
‘Pre-race [at the 2024 UTMB], I was in an ice vest to keep cool – then, when I came off the course, I was in a waterproof top and trousers, a thermal top, a buff and a hat, because I’d slowed down and got dehydrated,’ reflects Evans. ‘While it wasn’t cold, it was pretty windy and I was just weak. I just felt so cold. And I found myself starting to go down.’
Having struggled with his nutrition for around four hours, Evans’ eventual decision to bow out of this year’s UTMB was, without doubt, the most sensible and admirable – albeit immensely difficult. To push on through the night on next to no energy reserves would have been detrimental, if not impossible – especially with 70km still left to go.
Dialling into the specifics
It’s common to assess the success of a race according to the data it produces – your splits, your average pace, your relative effort and so on. But you can’t do that for a race like the UTMB. Too many external factors are at play in an ultramarathon of this ilk – the natural environment perhaps being the most overbearing and decisive.
‘The majority of the athletes who did well in the [UTMB World Series Finals] races this year are the ones who are relatively local to Chamonix,’ says Evans, highlighting French winner Bouillard – who hails from Annecy, situated just over an hours’ drive from Chamonix – as a prime example.
‘So I think those who are more prepared for the specific environmental conditions, without trying to simulate it, were the ones who performed, which I think is really interesting – and it’s probably not analysis that anyone else has done.’
Although he did not have the Alps on his doorstep every day, Evans says that the physical training sessions and periodisation that he did before the 2024 UTMB ‘was perfect’. He completed some initial training on the treadmill and in the Peak District in the UK, followed by a specific eight-week block directly before the race.
‘Running on the treadmill at an incline is brilliant because it gets you really strong and it’s great for overall condition, but you get into a rhythm and every step is exactly the same,’ says Evans, thinking back to his foundational training. ‘Then, when you come onto the trails, you get out of step because there’ll be a rock and you’ve got to avoid it. So you definitely need to supplement your normal training with running on an incline or off-road – and it doesn’t need to be super hilly or technical.’
The great UTMB goal
As for Evans’ training in particular, he is confident that a blueprint is now in place for what needs to be done, physically, going forward – and how to identify and tackle those game-changing environmental factors. After all, the UTMB is the race for Evans.
‘It’s no secret that the UTMB was my main race this year,’ he says. ‘Yes, I put all my eggs into one basket and put a lot of pressure and a lot of stress on myself for it.
‘But I think there’s a lot to be said for going into a race quietly – for not doing lots of media before, or for having a podcast or YouTube series based around the UTMB,’ he notes. ‘I think those things have helped me as an athlete to grow with supporters and fans, and people really like it – but at the same time, there is a fine line between being a professional athlete and a running influencer. It’s not that I haven’t been focusing on training, because that has been the main effort – but you’re still doing a lot outside of it.
‘The modern day athlete has to be a 360-degree athlete who’s all over social media, training, interviews, whatever it is – and it’s about getting the balance.’
But that’s not all. To Evans, sport has an inevitable ‘One Race, One Day philosophy’, which applies to more than just trail running.
‘You see some athletes who had a relative shocker at the Olympics, who then, two weeks later at a Diamond League meet, are running world records,’ he notes, using the 2024 Paris Games as an example. ‘Why couldn’t they do that two weeks ago? Physically, nothing has changed. But why couldn’t they do it then? And why could they do it now?’
The same goes for the UTMB. If it was held a couple of weeks later, for instance, with alternative weather conditions, could the outcome have been different? Why is it that some UTMB contenders can excel on the day (or, indeed, days), when it matters most, while others fall short and instead perform optimally when the stakes are not as high?
My sense – as someone who has never attempted a mountain race, let alone the UTMB – is that you essentially need all the stars to align in order to fare well at the 176km alpine mission. I ask Evans, who aspires to become the first British UTMB champion since Jez Bragg in 2010, whether this is a fair assessment.
‘Correct,’ he answers, without hesitation – and still undeterred by the uncertain nature of the race. ‘I will be back at the UTMB every year until I win, if it’s possible. Thankfully, I’ve already qualified for next year. Next year will look fairly different to this year.’
Recovering, riding – and more running
To be ready to tackle a race with even greater strength and determination than you have done before, you need time to reset and recover from the initial effort – especially if that race is as mentally and physically taxing as the UTMB. So, how will Evans move on from this year’s attempt?
‘I think that after a race like this there can’t be a planned recovery time,’ he says. ‘I’m going to do a little bit of bike racing in the coming weeks and months and try to qualify for the Gravel World Championships. If I had another serious running injury [Evans underwent surgery for a stress fracture in 2021] and I couldn’t run properly, I’d try to become an old pro cyclist,’ he smiles. ‘I love it. And now that we have the Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe cycling team, could that open any doors?
‘But I’ll see how recovery goes,’ continues Evans, moving back to the realm of ultramarathons. ‘I would like to race again this year. I don’t feel satisfied with my racing this year, because it’ll be the first year since running professionally that I’ve not won a big race. And no, you can’t win every race. You can’t win every year. But if I do race, then I’d like to race Grand Raid de la Réunion or Diagonale des Fous – then go on holiday in Mauritius after that.’
That aside, Evans has high hopes for trail running more broadly and is looking forward to seeing – and spearheading – the growth of the sport in the coming years. After all, there is now a bigger selection of trail races on the scene, a wider range of trail shoes and gear coming from top running brands, and a greater awareness of and interest in once-niche events like the UTMB. According to the UTMB Group, over 2 million people used the UTMB Live tracking system to follow runners in the week-long UTMB Mont-Blanc – encompassing the UTMB World Series Final and seven other trail races – in 2024. That amounts to 20% more views than last year. What’s more, the official UTMB social media channels received three times more engagement during the 2024 UTMB Mont-Blanc than it did in 2023.
‘Road running is brilliant,’ states Evans. ‘Running is brilliant in general. And many road runners have always run done their Sunday long run off-road, which is, by definition, on a trail. So everyone has always realised that running off-road is really good for you.
‘And when you run off-road, don’t worry about the splits, because running to splits can be really stressful,’ he continues, speaking to runners who are new or adapting to the trails. ‘If it’s really hot or really windy, your pace is going to slow down. When you’re running uphill, your heart rate is going to be higher, but when you’re running on the flat and downhill, your heart rate is going to be lower. So, when you go on the trails, you run to feel a lot of the time and get to know your body so much better, which alleviates all that stress.
‘I think trail running has the ability to completely change the running dynamic,’ adds Evans. ‘It’s such a fast-growing sport and there are some big brands that are focusing on trail running next year, which is really exciting.’
To find out more about Tom Evans, visit his Red Bull athlete page: redbull.com/gb-en/athlete/tom-evans
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