GRP heads to Chamonix for UTMB ‘26

Trail running's biggest week of the year kicks off Thursday, August 27 in Chamonix, France, and the Green Racing Project will have four athletes on four different start lines across the Alps. UTMB Mont-Blanc has grown into the sport's de facto World Championship - a 5 day festival of racing that draws the deepest fields in the world to circle the Mont-Blanc massif through France, Italy, and Switzerland. This year, GRP has a runner in nearly every headline race: Maddie Leopold in the OCC, Mead Binhammer and Director Dakota Jones in the CCC, and Canyon Woodward in the flagship UTMB itself.

Here's what to watch, and how to follow along.

OCC — Thursday, August 27

60K | ~11,500 ft (3,500m) of climbing | Starts 8:15am CEST / 2:15am EDT

The shortest of GRP's three Chamonix races is still no easy morning jog — 60 kilometers and 3,500 vertical meters from Orsières to Chamonix, with front-of-the-pack finishing times typically landing around 5 hours for the men and 5:30 for the women. Maddie Leopold (bib #6146) toes the line fresh off a big result at the Ragged 75 in New Hampshire, where she took the women's title (6th overall) in 5:14:20 on August 2 — and somehow managed to pass a set of board exams three days later. Not a bad month.

Follow OCC live tracking here.

CCC — Friday, August 28

101K | ~19,850 ft (6,050m) of climbing | Starts 9:00am CEST / 3:00am EDT

CCC — Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix — is the 100K test piece of UTMB week, and this year it's a two-for-one for GRP. Mead Binhammer (bib #3231) brings real 100K pedigree to Courmayeur: he won Grindstone 100K outright last September and has been a fixture near the front of major ultras ever since. Running alongside him is Dakota Jones (bib #3065), GRP's Running Program Director, back on a start line he knows well from years of racing in these mountains. Winning times at CCC typically fall around 10 hours for the men and 11:30 for the women — which means both GRP runners will be out on course well past sunrise Chamonix time.

Follow CCC live tracking here.

UTMB — Friday, August 28

174K | ~32,500 ft (9,900m) of climbing | Starts 5:45pm CEST / 11:45am EDT

The race that gives the whole week its name is the one everyone points to: 174 kilometers and nearly 10,000 meters of climbing, circling the entire Mont-Blanc massif through three countries over (for most competitors) a night, a day, and another night. Canyon Woodward (bib #45) lines up in Chamonix less than two months removed from an 8th-place finish at the 2026 Western States 100 — a historic edition of that race, run in unusually cool conditions that produced course records for both the men's and women's fields and the highest finisher rate in the event's history. Backing up a big Western States result with a UTMB start eight weeks later is a genuinely hard double, and it should make for a great watch as Woodward takes on the world's deepest 100-mile-class field.

Follow UTMB live tracking here.

How to follow

Live tracking for each race is linked above, or find the full UTMB week hub. Search any of the bib numbers below to pull up live splits and position:

•      Maddie #6146, OCC

•      Mead #3231, CCC

•      Dakota #3065, CCC

•      Canyon #45, UTMB

Given the time difference, OCC and CCC will mean an early alarm on the East Coast (2:15am and 3:00am EDT), while UTMB's 11:45am EDT start is a much friendlier watch.

Good luck to Maddie, Mead, Dakota, and Canyon this week! We'll be tracking every split from Vermont.