Ahead of her superb performance at Mt. Fuji 100, Courtney Dauwalter had spoken about the race providing the opportunity to find out what she’d learned in the six years since she’d last run in the Japanese event.
Back in 2018 she won the women’s race in dominant fashion in a time of 23:57:48 and took 16th overall behind Dylan Bowman, who clocked 19:21:21.
Since then of course she’s gone on to win every race that matters, including the unprecedented 100-mile treble of Western States / Hardrock / UTMB last year, to establish herself as the GOAT of women’s ultrarunning.
And writing in the lead-up to the 2024 version of Mt. Fuji she said: “I remember the climbs being steeeeep and the runnable sections being fast. I also remember throwing up a lot and bonking hard around mile 80, slogging my way in to the finish.
“Will be fun to (hopefully) see how much I’ve grown and learned about running 100 miles in the last six years.”
The answer was emphatic with a stunning time of 19:21:22 – pretty much identical to Bowman in 2018 – which was good enough for third overall, just 10 minutes behind winner Guomin Deng, and of course another clear-cut triumph in the women’s race.
‘Stunning sunrise’
And afterwards she said: “I felt so lucky to be out there seeing the sunrise with Mt. Fuji – it was absolutely stunning.
“Generally I just felt like it was the best day to be out moving with my feet on an amazing course and in a beautiful place with a wonderful community.
“That was what kept me moving towards the finish line.”
‘I wanted to learn from her’
Over the last couple of hours of the race she had swapped second place with Qin Guidu – just 30 seconds separated them on the line – and he was quick to pay tribute to her afterwards.
He said: “This is not only my first 100-mile race but also my first time at Mt. Fuji
Courtney is a world-class superstar and I’m a fan of her performances so coming into this race I wanted to learn a lot from her.
“To be honest, running into aid station eight I was really tired and running out of energy so when Courtney passed me I thought maybe the purpose of this race for me is to learn from her.
“So I tried to just stay up with her and she gave me a lot of advice along the way.
“In fact I thought she would come past me for second but maybe she cared about my pride and let me come in second – thankyou Courtney!”
