In working circles, Dale Garland is greatest often called the run director and one of many authentic founders of the Hardrock 100, held in Silverton, Colorado, every summer season. He’s a beloved determine identified for greeting every runner of the occasion on the end, regardless of the hour or climate. He’s also referred to as a well-loved trainer who spent all 31 years of his profession on the similar faculty in Durango, simply an hour south of Silverton, passing on vital management classes to his college students and dragging a few of them, most famously Dakota Jones, into the working world with him. Garland has had such an outsized affect within the ultrarunning world as he heads into the 2025 occasion, its thirtieth working, that it’s arduous to think about what it will be like if he’d chosen a unique life path.
However Garland’s trajectory to being Hardrock’s run director from the beginning in 1992 was something however assured. If it wasn’t for studying in regards to the Colorado Path being in-built his Durango yard in 1986 to nudge him towards eager to run it, he could have by no means gravitated towards path working. And if it weren’t for a cease in Leadville on his Colorado Path journey, he could by no means have heard of or entered the Leadville 100 Mile and gotten into extremely racing. And if that hadn’t occurred, Garland could by no means have encountered Gordon Hardman and his thought to begin Hardrock. And if unhealthy hips hadn’t taken him out of the game prematurely, Garland could have by no means had the time to dedicate to rising the occasion into what it’s at present.
Whatever the alternatives positioned in entrance of him, Garland appears to say sure to them and has a willingness to take dangers on huge concepts. He’s proven again and again that he can construct a group with the fitting mixture of talent units round him for achievement, and a self-belief that it’s going to all work out. And when he messes up, he learns from his errors. A few of his favourite tales to inform are of how two of Hardrock’s most revered traditions arose from him messing up throughout the first working of the occasion. For Garland, there’s an answer to any downside, and there’s at all times a strategy to do one thing higher. This willingness to study, adapt, and tackle huge initiatives has taken Garland on a journey that’s as extraordinary as it’s unlikely.
First Operating of the Colorado Path
Most ultrarunners observe a considerably conventional path into the game, beginning with shorter races and regularly growing distance as they construct endurance and expertise. Though Garland, coming of working age within the period of Frank Shorter and the street working craze of the Eighties, had accomplished a reasonably commonplace development of street working, beginning with 5ks and constructing to marathons, his soar in distance in path working was something however conventional.
Dwelling in Durango, Colorado, in 1986 after graduating from faculty, Garland learn an article in regards to the constructing of the Colorado Path. The 486-mile path was set for completion in 1988, and when Garland reached out to Gudy Gaskill, the matriarch of the path and undertaking, asking how he might be concerned, she prompt that he run the path from Durango to Denver and get there in time for the opening ceremonies. Garland instantly latched onto the concept, no matter the truth that he had minimal expertise within the ultrarunning world, which was very a lot in its infancy within the late 80s. He was contemporary out of college and on the lookout for an journey.
Garland, a sixth-generation Coloradoan, grew up in Arvada on the Entrance Vary, simply outdoors of Denver. Not able to go to school after being “a typical highschool child,” he joined the U.S Military for 3 years after graduating. Of the expertise, he says, “I used to be able to go to school after that,” and he settled on Fort Lewis School in Durango.
The small faculty has at all times had a popularity for encouraging scholar involvement in mountain sports activities and the outside, and Garland says, “I bought immersed in it. There was a fairly robust working tradition there and entry to trails and every little thing like that. It was the place I lower my working enamel.” With the La Plata Mountains rising to the west and the San Juan Mountains to the north, Durango is a playground for mountain athletes of all types, and Garland embraced the tradition and group.
With the Colorado Path thought nestled in his mind, Garland instantly went to work turning it right into a actuality. He says, “I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, and so I began speaking to some pals.” He managed to persuade three others to hitch him on the enterprise. When describing the preliminary state of the crew, Garland says, “The farthest one in all us had run as soon as, I feel, was a 50k. That was a complete sum expertise of our ultrarunning expertise or experience.”
However Garland and his pals had the gumption to make it occur. Or possibly they simply lacked the sense to appreciate that what they have been making an attempt was enormous and inconceivable given their expertise stage. He does admit that that they had many individuals questioning their mission, however explains, “We have been all form of goal-oriented, and we had this objective that we wished to do.” Whereas their households have been skeptical at first, they signed as much as assist the quartet alongside their run by agreeing to shuttle their gear and arrange their camps every evening. The entire thing turned a household affair.
Dale Garland after ending the Colorado Path in 1988 (left) and an early version of the Hardrock 100 with veteran Hardrock 100 finisher Blake Wooden pictured (proper). Photographs courtesy of Dale Garland.
Garland says all of them assumed totally different roles within the planning and execution of the run. “We had the navigator, and we had the bodily therapist. My job was to be the PR cheerleader form of man and the general organizer.” He goes on to clarify his talent set, “I’d accomplished a whole lot of race directing in Durango for the Durango Motorless Transit group, now extra generally often called the Durango Operating Membership, and so logistics and group got here straightforward to me.”
As for the bodily facet of issues, he says, “We did spend a whole lot of time studying about working lengthy distance on trails, and we form of took the chance and figured it out as we went.”
Whereas navigation of the newly lower and sparsely marked path proved tough, the group made it from Durango to Denver in 17 days, simply in time for the opening ceremonies. Garland says, “It was a transformative expertise for me as a result of that’s the place I actually developed this love of long-distance working and being in a group of people that thought this was fairly cool.” There was a way of satisfaction that got here from being the primary ones to run the path. Garland says, “After that, ultrarunning and long-distance path working turned my factor, and I simply by no means seemed again after that.”
Seeds of Concepts
If an opportunity studying of {a magazine} article in regards to the constructing of the Colorado Path nudged Garland into ultrarunning, it was a cease in Leadville throughout the Colorado Path run and an opportunity encounter with a poster promoting the Leadville 100 Mile that supplied the subsequent step. Having accomplished just a few 50-mile races in preparation for the Colorado Path, Garland reached out to Merilee Maupin (previously O’Neal), the co-race director of Leadville, and requested if he might run. He says, “This was 1988 when in the event you had a pulse, you can run many of the 100 milers, and there weren’t very many.” This was lengthy earlier than the times of lottery methods, waitlists, and occasions with 1000’s of individuals.
Garland completed the race and liked it. He went again the yr after, and the yr after that, ending the race 4 instances between 1988 and 1991 and as excessive as sixth place in 1990. Over the time interval, he turned pals with Maupin and Ken Chlouber, the opposite co-director, and admired the best way they used the race as a strategy to carry financial growth to their city, which that they had watched crumble economically as the massive native mine, referred to as the Climax Mine, declined in productiveness and finally closed in 1987.
After a few years of racing Leadville, Garland got here throughout a small blurb in “UltraRunning Journal,” the principle supply for ultrarunning information within the late 80s. Garland describes studying the web page within the journal, saying, “It was virtually like an advert from a man who mentioned, ‘I’m considering of organizing a 100-mile run in southwest Colorado connecting the 4 mining cities of Silverton, Telluride, Ouray, and Lake Metropolis.’” The objective, like in Leadville, was to carry financial growth to an space that was struggling after the tip of mining within the area. It was just a few phrases, but it surely was sufficient to spark Garland’s curiosity, and he reached out to the creator, Gordon Hardman. Though the 2 tossed the idea round, Garland put the concept on the shelf to pursue different ventures, like working the Western States 100.
Dale Garland with the now retired aid-station coordinator, Lois MacKenzie, on the 2013 Hardrock 100 award ceremony, or what they name ‘commencement.’ Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Getting Volunteered for Hardrock 100
In 1990, Garland was deep into the groove of ultrarunning and had traveled to California to race Western States. Hardman was additionally racing the occasion, and Garland’s dad ended up hanging out at an support station with Hardman’s spouse. As tends to occur when ready for runners at support stations, the 2 began to speak, and in keeping with Garland, his dad advised Hardman’s spouse, “Gordon ought to lean on Dale. I do know Dale would love to assist him set up Hardrock.”
After the race, Garland and Hardman bought again into contact and began planning in earnest. Their first step was to recruit assist, and as Garland had accomplished together with his Colorado Path run, they put collectively a group with a variety of abilities.
Garland explains, “Gordon had some expertise with ham radios, so he bought a few of his ham radio buddies to assist. John Cappis and Rick Trujillo, who had each grown up within the space, knew the paths on the course rather well, so that they developed into the course administrators. Charlie Thorn was our historian. He was the man who form of saved all of the data and saved us organized.”
That left Garland to take care of the precise race logistics, and he turned to his buddy from Leadville, Maupin, for recommendation. She helped him with the small print, together with desirous about small issues that Garland would have by no means thought of. The mentorship was invaluable and helped Garland to plan an occasion far past the scope of something he’d accomplished earlier than.
Garland speaking to Kilian Jornet after a more moderen version of the Hardrock 100. Photograph courtesy of Dale Garland.
Errors to Traditions: The Early Hardrock Years
After greater than a yr of planning, the group launched the primary version of the Hardrock 100 in 1992. David Horton received, and Hardman, Thorn, and Cappis positioned third via fifth in a subject of 18 finishers. Garland calls it a “enormous studying expertise,” and goes on to say, “We’re fortunate we didn’t kill anyone.” Their course markings bought eaten by marmots, and Garland says, “I’m stunned everyone got here again, to be sincere.”
The varied small particulars apart — like course markings — Garland had forgotten a key part of placing on a race, solely to appreciate it when somebody at first line requested what the precise end line was. Garland had utterly forgotten to consider that, so he improvised, telling the runner, “It’s important to go contact that rock.”
Touching the rock finally turned to kissing the rock, and over time, the unique rock was an enormous rock used throughout the rock drilling competitors on the Hardrockers Holidays occasion, additionally held in Silverton, with the Hardrock brand painted on it. When that first painted rock cracked in half, they bought a brand new one. Now a racer isn’t thought of completed till they kiss the rock. It’s an immediately recognizable photograph the path working world over.
What began as an oversight shortly morphed into one of the vital iconic traditions of the race.
The unique Hardrock 100 rock, being kissed by a proud finisher. Photographs: Blake Wooden and Dale Garland
That very same first yr, on the second evening of the occasion, Garland and the remainder of the organizers have been huddled in a camper that they had arrange on the end line, exhausted from the trouble of placing on the occasion, after they heard a knock on the door. Garland says, “This man, and I don’t bear in mind who it was, I want I did. He goes, ‘I simply completed Hardrock. Is there anyone I ought to inform that I completed?’”
Garland felt terrible that this racer had simply accomplished such an enormous accomplishment and arrived again at an empty end line. He says, “That actually made me suppose any person ought to at all times be there to say congratulations, and so I made it my mission to be on the end line for each finisher, in order that by no means occurs once more.” Greater than 30 years later, Garland nonetheless makes a degree to greet as many racers as he can, and if he can’t, he makes certain that another person is there in his place.
Out of a mistake comes one other Hardrock custom that has change into a fixture of the occasion.
Anne-Lise Rousset finishes the 2023 Hardrock 100 in second place, and kisses the modern-day Hardrock rock. Photograph: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Trendy-Day Hardrock
As Hardrock was launched in 1992, Garland’s personal working profession was coming to an finish. That yr, Garland needed to drop out of Leadville because of hip ache. Not lengthy after, he underwent two hip-replacement surgical procedures and needed to come to the acceptance that his working profession was over. He says, “As soon as I discovered that I couldn’t run anymore, I went via denial. I went via anger. I went via, Okay, what am I going to do now?” Whereas Garland might change working with mountain climbing, Hardrock turned his strategy to keep linked to the ultrarunning group as a result of leaving all of it behind was out of the query. The timing of the damage put Garland in a state of affairs the place he might focus the vitality and time that he’d beforehand put into his personal private working into the occasion itself. This shift in priorities, whereas arduous for Garland on the time, is probably the rationale Hardrock has grown into what it’s at present.
It’s been a very long time since Garland and the unique Hardrock group put collectively a scrappy occasion via the San Juan Mountains. Now, there’s a 21-person run committee, a lottery to get in, and a end line that’s by no means deserted by followers. Excessive-profile athletes have introduced worldwide consideration to the occasion, and folks wait years for his or her alternative to run.
Dale Garland stops for an influence nap mid-Hardrock 100. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
But, a lot of the occasion stays the identical. It nonetheless maintains its close-knit really feel; the mountains it traverses are nonetheless large; and everybody who’s concerned, whether or not racing, crewing, spectating, or volunteering, seems like they’re a part of one thing. Garland says of the expansion, “It was by no means our intent to be the subsequent Western States. It was by no means our intent to be a competitor of Leadville or to be the most important and greatest and baddest and no matter. It was nearly doing one thing that all of us believed in, that we had shared values in.” The unique values nonetheless function prominently on the occasion’s web site, and in some ways, at its core, the 2025 occasion isn’t all that totally different from the unique because it heads into its thirtieth version.
It’s arduous to fathom what Hardrock would appear like now had Garland not learn that article on the Colorado Path in 1986 and gone out to run it in 1988, or had he not discovered of the Leadville 100 Mile, or had his hips held as much as an extended and wholesome working profession. It’s straightforward to chalk all these occasions as much as likelihood and to think about that had Garland not discovered himself as an ultrarunner in the end working with Hardrock, he would have ended up equally as concerned and obsessed with one thing else, as a result of that’s simply who he’s. However it was working and the San Juans that captured his creativeness so a few years in the past, and it’s truthful to say that the ultrarunning group is healthier for it.
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