A Profile of Hardrock 100 Run Director, Dale Garland – iRunFar

In working circles, Dale Garland is finest referred to as the run director and one of many unique 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 called a well-loved trainer who spent all 31 years of his profession on the identical college 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 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 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 concerning the Colorado Path being inbuilt his Durango yard in 1986 to nudge him towards desirous to run it, he might have by no means gravitated towards path working. And if it weren’t for a cease in Leadville on his Colorado Path journey, he might by no means have heard of or entered the Leadville 100 Mile and gotten into extremely racing. And if that hadn’t occurred, Garland might by no means have encountered Gordon Hardman and his thought to start out Hardrock. And if dangerous hips hadn’t taken him out of the game prematurely, Garland might have by no means had the time to dedicate to rising the occasion into what it’s right this moment.

Whatever the alternatives positioned in entrance of him, Garland appears to say sure to them and has a willingness to take dangers on large concepts. He’s proven repeatedly that he can construct a crew with the correct mixture of ability units round him for fulfillment, and a self-belief that it’ll 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 through the first working of the occasion. For Garland, there’s an answer to any drawback, and there’s at all times a solution to do one thing higher. This willingness to be taught, adapt, and tackle large 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 step by step rising 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 carried out a reasonably commonplace development of street working, beginning with 5ks and constructing to marathons, his bounce in distance in path working was something however conventional.

Residing in Durango, Colorado, in 1986 after graduating from faculty, Garland learn an article concerning 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 mission, asking how he may very well be concerned, she recommended 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 faculty 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 Faculty in Durango.

The small faculty has at all times had a repute for encouraging pupil 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 all the things like that. It was the place I minimize 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 neighborhood.

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 associates.” 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 believe, was a 50k. That was a complete sum expertise of our ultrarunning expertise or experience.”

However Garland and his associates had the gumption to make it occur. Or possibly they simply lacked the sense to appreciate that what they have been trying was enormous and unbelievable given their expertise degree. He does admit that they’d many individuals questioning their mission, however explains, “We have been all type of goal-oriented, and we had this purpose that we needed to do.” Whereas their households have been skeptical at first, they signed as much as help the quartet alongside their run by agreeing to shuttle their gear and arrange their camps every night time. The entire thing turned a household affair.

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 type of man and the general organizer.” He goes on to clarify his ability set, “I’d carried out numerous 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 numerous time studying about working lengthy distance on trails, and we type of took the chance and figured it out as we went.”

Whereas navigation of the newly minimize and sparsely marked path proved troublesome, 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 neighborhood of people that thought this was fairly cool.” There was a way of pleasure 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 concerning the constructing of the Colorado Path nudged Garland into ultrarunning, it was a cease in Leadville through the Colorado Path run and an opportunity encounter with a poster promoting the Leadville 100 Mile that supplied the subsequent step. Having carried out 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 may run. He says, “This was 1988 when in the event you had a pulse, you may run many of the 100 milers, and there weren’t very many.” This was lengthy earlier than the times of lottery programs, waitlists, and occasions with 1000’s of individuals.

Garland completed the race and liked it. He went again the 12 months after, and the 12 months 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 associates with Maupin and Ken Chlouber, the opposite co-director, and admired the way in which they used the race as a solution 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 primary 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 mentioned, ‘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 only some 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 working the Western States 100.

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 help station with Hardman’s spouse. As tends to occur when ready for runners at help stations, the 2 began to speak, and in line 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 carried out along with his Colorado Path run, they put collectively a crew 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, so that they advanced into the course administrators. Charlie Thorn was our historian. He was the man who type of saved all of the information 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 main points, together with eager 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 carried out earlier than.

Errors to Traditions: The Early Hardrock Years

After greater than a 12 months of planning, the group launched the primary version of the Hardrock 100 in 1992. David Horton gained, and Hardman, Thorn, and Cappis positioned third by way of 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 trustworthy.”

The assorted small particulars apart — like course markings — Garland had forgotten a key part of placing on a race, solely to appreciate it when somebody initially line requested what the precise end line was. Garland had fully 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 become a giant rock used through 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.

That very same first 12 months, on the second night time of the occasion, Garland and the remainder of the organizers have been huddled in a camper they’d arrange on the end line, exhausted from the trouble of placing on the occasion, once 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 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 grow to be a fixture of the occasion.

Fashionable-Day Hardrock

As Hardrock was launched in 1992, Garland’s personal working profession was coming to an finish. That 12 months, Garland needed to drop out of Leadville on account 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 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 may change working with climbing, Hardrock turned his solution to keep linked to the ultrarunning neighborhood 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 may focus the power 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 doubtlessly the explanation Hardrock has grown into what it’s right this moment.

It’s been a very long time since Garland and the unique Hardrock crew 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.

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, appears 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 largest and finest 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 a protracted and wholesome working 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 obsessed with one thing else, as a result of that’s simply who he’s. But it surely 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 neighborhood is healthier for it.

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