Photos that capture the sacrifice of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc

There are few ath­let­ic chal­lenges on the plan­et big­ger than the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc® (UTMB). Found­ed in 2003, the UTMB is the Cham­pi­ons League of trail run­ning – the pin­na­cle of a sport that’s on the rise.

Each year, the world’s very best endurance ath­letes come togeth­er in Cha­monix, France, to take on one of the most bru­tal races in sport. UTMB is a fes­ti­val of run­ning, with rac­ing of vary­ing dis­tances through­out the week. But it all comes to a cli­max with 171 kilo­me­tres and 10,000 meters of pos­i­tive ele­va­tion, as the race cir­cles the high­est peak in West­ern Europe: Mont Blanc.

An unri­valled chal­lenge that’s both phys­i­cal and men­tal, Huck went behind the scenes with Mer­rell at the UTMB to track Marc Pin­sach Rubiro­la, a Span­ish ultra­run­ner and Mer­rell Test Lab athlete.

Marc was born in Girona in Cat­alo­nia, Spain and start­ed his ath­let­ic career in ski moun­taineer­ing in 2000 before join­ing the Span­ish nation­al team in 2006. A life-long lover of the moun­tains, Marc has always run trails to train dur­ing the sum­mer months. When his ski moun­taineer­ing career end­ed in 2021, he shift­ed his focus 100% to trail run­ning and became a Mer­rell athelete.

Marc has a long list of trail run­ning vic­to­ries and records under his belt, includ­ing the best time on the Ane­to, a his­toric marathon course in moun­tain run­ning. But he’s most proud of his first place win in the OCC, a 50km race in the UTMB World Series. Seen as the ulti­mate chal­lenge for mid-dis­tance ultra-run­ners, the OCC takes place every year in the Fran­co-Swiss bor­der region, start­ing at Orsières in Switzer­land, cross­ing the Balme pass with its panoram­ic views of the Mont-Blanc mas­sif, before descend­ing to fin­ish in Cha­monix, France.

“I’m still incred­i­bly moti­vat­ed to keep pur­su­ing these beau­ti­ful adven­tures that train­ing and rac­ing in the moun­tains are for me,” Marc explains. ​“Moun­tain sports are for me the best bal­ance between effort, hard work and long train­ing ses­sions – and the sense of adven­ture of explor­ing nature.”

Marc’s 2023 sea­son has been full of sol­id results, with third and sec­ond places fin­ish­es in the 50km Trail 100 Andor­ra in June and the Chal­lenge du Mont­calm in August, respec­tive­ly – both UTMB World Series events, seen as state­ments of intent ahead of the main UTMB event in September.

For this pho­to-essay, we com­mis­sioned pho­tog­ra­ph­er and elite trail run­ner in his own right, Jamie Mourn, to uncov­er the bru­tal­i­ty, epic scale and the fringes of human endurance on dis­play at the UTMB. Jamie was shoot­ing through­out the day and night to cap­ture the essence of the race – its emo­tion, scale, ath­leti­cism, per­for­mance and drama.

In addi­tion to track­ing Marc, Jamie also shot three oth­er Mer­rell Test Lab ath­letes as they tack­led this year’s UTMB, Germany’s Thibaud Clipet and Swedish trail run­ning twins San­na & Lina El Kott Helander.

This year Marc com­pet­ed in the 100km cat­e­go­ry and Jamie fol­lowed him from the start line in Cour­mayeur, France. Race win­ner Jonathan Albon from the UK com­plet­ed the mam­moth course in 10 hours, 14 min­utes and 25 sec­onds. Marc put in a stel­lar effort but, sad­ly, this year wasn’t his year. Despite promis­ing prepa­ra­tions, he was unable to fin­ish the course – a tes­ta­ment to the immense chal­lenge of this event.

Although it wasn’t the result Marc hoped for, his attempt still made for a dra­mat­ic day’s rac­ing – cap­tured bril­liant­ly by Jamie. Jamie’s images reveal the sac­ri­fice and ded­i­ca­tion required to suc­ceed in this cult sport, as well as shin­ing a light on the per­for­mance cre­den­tials of Merrell’s Trail Run­ning Collection.

Fol­low pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jamie Mourn and ath­lete Marc Pin­sach Rubiro­la on Insta­gram.

Find out more about Merrell’s Trail Run­ning Col­lec­tion. [LINK]