In operating circles, Dale Garland is greatest referred to as the run director and one of many unique founders of the Hardrock 100, held in Silverton, Colorado, every summer time. He’s a beloved determine identified for greeting every runner of the occasion on the end, irrespective of the hour or climate. He’s also called a well-loved trainer who spent all 31 years of his profession on the identical faculty in Durango, simply an hour south of Silverton, passing on essential management classes to his college students and dragging a few of them, most famously Dakota Jones, into the operating world with him. Garland has had such an outsized affect within the ultrarunning world as he heads into the 2025 occasion, its thirtieth operating, that it’s laborious to think about what it might be like if he’d chosen a special 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 desirous to run it, he could have by no means gravitated towards path operating. 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 this time.
Dale Garland delivering the Hardrock 100 pre-race briefing. Picture: John Porter Pictures
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 repeatedly that he can construct a workforce with the suitable 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 in the course of the first operating of the occasion. For Garland, there’s an answer to any downside, and there’s all the time a approach to do one thing higher. This willingness to study, adapt, and tackle huge tasks has taken Garland on a journey that’s as extraordinary as it’s unlikely.
First Working of the Colorado Path
Most ultrarunners comply with 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 operating age within the period of Frank Shorter and the street operating craze of the Nineteen Eighties, had achieved a reasonably commonplace development of street operating, beginning with 5ks and constructing to marathons, his bounce in distance in path operating was something however conventional.
Dwelling in Durango, Colorado, in 1986 after graduating from school, 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 instructed that he run the path from Durango to Denver and get there in time for the opening ceremonies. Garland instantly latched onto the thought, 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 in search of an journey.
Garland, a sixth-generation Coloradoan, grew up in Arvada on the Entrance Vary, simply outdoors of Denver. Not able to go to varsity 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 varsity after that,” and he settled on Fort Lewis Faculty in Durango.
The small school has all the time had a status for encouraging scholar involvement in mountain sports activities and the outside, and Garland says, “I bought immersed in it. There was a fairly sturdy operating tradition there and entry to trails and every little thing like that. It was the place I reduce my operating 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 mates.” He managed to persuade three others to affix him on the enterprise. When describing the preliminary state of the crew, Garland says, “The farthest one in every of 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 mates had the gumption to make it occur. Or possibly they simply lacked the sense to comprehend that what they had been making an attempt was big and unbelievable given their expertise degree. He does admit that they’d many individuals questioning their mission, however explains, “We had been all form of goal-oriented, and we had this purpose that we needed to do.” Whereas their households had 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). Images courtesy of Dale Garland.
Garland says all of them assumed completely 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 elucidate his talent set, “I’d achieved a number of race directing in Durango for the Durango Motorless Transit group, now extra generally referred to as the Durango Working Membership, and so logistics and group got here simple to me.”
As for the bodily facet of issues, he says, “We did spend a number of time studying about operating lengthy distance on trails, and we form of took the danger and figured it out as we went.”
Whereas navigation of the newly reduce 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 operating and being in a group of people that thought this was fairly cool.” There was a way of delight that got here from being the primary ones to run the path. Garland says, “After that, ultrarunning and long-distance path operating turned my factor, and I simply by no means appeared 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 in the course of the Colorado Path run and an opportunity encounter with a poster promoting the Leadville 100 Mile that supplied the following step. Having achieved a couple of 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 if you happen to had a pulse, you possibly can run a lot 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 beloved it. He went again the yr after, and the yr after that, ending the race 4 occasions between 1988 and 1991 and as excessive as sixth place in 1990. Over the time interval, he turned mates with Maupin and Ken Chlouber, the opposite co-director, and admired the way in which they used the race as a approach to convey financial growth to their city, which they’d watched crumble economically as the large native mine, referred to as the Climax Mine, declined in productiveness and ultimately 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 nearly like an advert from a man who stated, ‘I’m pondering of organizing a 100-mile run in southwest Colorado connecting the 4 mining cities of Silverton, Telluride, Ouray, and Lake Metropolis.’” The purpose, like in Leadville, was to convey financial growth to an space that was struggling after the top 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 writer, Gordon Hardman. Though the 2 tossed the idea round, Garland put the thought on the shelf to pursue different ventures, like operating 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.’ Picture: 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 accordance with Garland, his dad instructed 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 achieved together with his Colorado Path run, they put collectively a workforce 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 very well, in order 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 cope with the precise race logistics, and he turned to his buddy from Leadville, Maupin, for recommendation. She helped him with the main points, together with fascinated by small issues that Garland would have by no means thought-about. The mentorship was invaluable and helped Garland to plan an occasion far past the scope of something he’d achieved earlier than.
Garland speaking to Kilian Jornet after a more moderen version of the Hardrock 100. Picture 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 by way of fifth in a subject of 18 finishers. Garland calls it a “big 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 shocked everyone got here again, to be sincere.”
The varied small particulars apart — like course markings — Garland had forgotten a key element of placing on a race, solely to comprehend it when somebody initially line requested what the precise end line was. Garland had utterly forgotten to consider that, so he improvised, telling the runner, “You need to go contact that rock.”
Touching the rock ultimately turned to kissing the rock, and over time, the unique rock was a giant rock used in the course of 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-about completed till they kiss the rock. It’s an immediately recognizable picture the path operating world over.
What began as an oversight shortly morphed into some of the iconic traditions of the race.
The unique Hardrock 100 rock, being kissed by a proud finisher. Images: Blake Wooden and Dale Garland
That very same first yr, on the second evening of the occasion, Garland and the remainder of the organizers had been huddled in a camper they’d arrange on the end line, exhausted from the hassle of placing on the occasion, after they heard a knock on the door. Garland says, “This man, and I don’t keep 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 basically made me assume anyone ought to all the time 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 positive that another person is there in his place.
Out of a mistake comes one other Hardrock custom that has turn into a fixture of the occasion.
Anne-Lise Rousset finishes the 2023 Hardrock 100 in second place, and kisses the modern-day Hardrock rock. Picture: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Trendy-Day Hardrock
As Hardrock was launched in 1992, Garland’s personal operating 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 operating profession was over. He says, “As soon as I discovered that I couldn’t run anymore, I went by way of denial. I went by way of anger. I went by way of, Okay, what am I going to do now?” Whereas Garland might exchange operating with mountain climbing, Hardrock turned his approach to keep related 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 scenario the place he might focus the power and time that he’d beforehand put into his personal private operating into the occasion itself. This shift in priorities, whereas laborious for Garland on the time, is doubtlessly the explanation Hardrock has grown into what it’s at this time.
It’s been a very long time since Garland and the unique Hardrock workforce put collectively a scrappy occasion by way of 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 other people wait years for his or her alternative to run.
Dale Garland stops for an influence nap mid-Hardrock 100. Picture: 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 following 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 characteristic prominently on the occasion’s web site, and in some ways, at its core, the 2025 occasion isn’t all that completely different from the unique because it heads into its thirtieth version.
It’s laborious to fathom what Hardrock would seem 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 operating profession. It’s simple to chalk all these occasions as much as chance and to think about that had Garland not discovered himself as an ultrarunner finally working with Hardrock, he would have ended up equally as concerned and keen about one thing else, as a result of that’s simply who he’s. However it was operating and the San Juans that captured his creativeness so a few years in the past, and it’s honest to say that the ultrarunning group is healthier for it.
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