Marianne Hogan’s second-place finish at UTMB

On Aug. 27, Marianne Hogan, 32, of Montreal, achieved something only three other athletes—none of them Canadian—have ever done: climb the podium at France’s Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (utmb) and California’s Western States Endurance Run in the same year. Hogan finished second at utmb behind Katie Schide of the U.S., in 24 hours, 31 minutes and 22 seconds, just nine weeks after finishing third at Western States. (In fact, no Canadian-born runner had ever podiumed at utmb, though Hogan’s friend and now compatriot, Mathieu Blanchard, also took second-place honours on this day after finishing third in 2021 as a French citizen.) It was Hogan’s first time at both races.

About 100 km in, Hogan overtook Schide, leading the women’s race for around 27 km, but was unable to maintain her lead; it emerged later that, with 45 km left in the race, she felt a sharp pain in her left leg, which turned out to be a tear in her psoas (hip flexor). At that point, she was concerned only with maintaining her position as she counted down the kilometres to the finish line in Chamonix, walking when the pain was too great.

Hogan burst onto the ultratrail scene in late 2021, seemingly out of nowhere, taking second at Ultra-Trail Cape Town behind 2021 utmb champion Courtney Dauwalter (widely considered the world’s top female trail runner) and winning the Bandera 100k in Texas, which earned her a golden ticket to Western States. In fact, she was already one of Canada’s fastest trail runners, with multiple wins in 2016 and 2017; a badly broken leg took her out of the scene for more than six months, after which she temporarily switched gears, taking on a gig as a para-triathlete guide and assisting Jessica Tuomela to a fifth-place finish at the Tokyo Paralympics before returning to the ultratrail scene in fall 2021.

When Hogan sprained her ankle during the build-up for Western States, it put a damper on fans’ expectations for her performance; but if there’s one thing they’ve learned this year, it’s never to underestimate what she can do when the chips are down. No doubt her third-place finish at States (behind fellow Canadian Ailsa Macdonald and winner Ruth Croft of New Zealand) was a huge confidence-booster ahead of utmb; but with only nine weeks separating the two races, it takes more than confidence to perform well at the second one. Hogan more than delivered, and we look forward to watching her slay in 2023.