Vincent Bouillard made ultrarunning history at Western States over the weekend, shattering the course record by nearly 25 minutes as well as joining the select group of people to win both that race and UTMB, the two biggest 100-milers in the world.
The Frenchman crossed the line at the Placer High School track in 13 hours, 46 minutes and 15 seconds, the first person to go sub-14.
Having set off at 5am local time from Olympic Valley, the clock stood at just after 6.45pm in Auburn – which might have shocked pretty much everyone, but not Bouillard and his inner circle.
Target time
For chatting to Dylan Bowman on the live broadcast afterwards he revealed that ‘new Dad power’ played a key part, having become a father for the first time in the last year.
He explained: “We’re the happiest parents. Our little one is almost seven months now and it’s a big trip for us to come all the way here to California and we’re fortunate to have a lot of friends that we can share this trip with and introduce her to family and friends.
“One of the objectives that we had set with the crew was to arrive before bedtime. Her bedtime is between 6:30 and 7:30. So that gives you an idea of the timing target!
“I think she’s still not asleep! And then – and I’m not making it up – this race hurts everywhere but I kept repeating to myself that something that we’ve told each other too is it’s nothing compared to giving birth.”
Finishing strong
And talking through the race he said the pace was hot from the start in what were way lower temperatures than normal in California.
He said: “The early climb to the escarpment is always a bit of a, not a warm up, but like a preamble to the race. But I think the steep pitch right before we got to the top really kind of signified like, okay, it’s game on and we’re not here to joke today.
“I still don’t have a tonne of experience on the 100 mile. This is the third one I’ve finished and I think I may have a tendency to start a little too fast so I wanted to try and be a little more conservative.
“I want to keep the brake pedal on a little bit and save some legs for the more runnable stuff at the end.”
And it played out perfectly as it wasn’t until mile 90 that Bouillard moved past Francesco Puppi and into the lead, adding: “I think we pushed each other really, really well. And Francesco had an incredible performance on his Western States debut.
“I didn’t have that strategy to pass him at mile 90 but I knew that I could run well still on the runnable stuff. And I was okay, if I can maintain this pace, I know I’m decently fast even compared to historical splits and what I had forecasted.
“I realised we were definitely running under 14 hours at that point so I was just going to give it my best. And if it works, it works. If not, there’s going to be a better champion than me.
“I’m lucky that it went well for me today. There are so many other strong competitors today, including, unfortunately, some that had to drop out. I’m bummed for Jim [Walmsley] that he couldn’t give us a true fight because he deserved better than that. Unfortunately it was the same for Kilian [Jornet].”
