Gardiner native Katie Schide crosses the finish line to win the women’s division of the Western States Endurance Run on June 30 in Auburn, California. Photo courtesy of Matt Shapiro

She’s been one of the world’s premier ultra runners for a few years now. The first half of 2024, though, has seen Katie Schide rise even further.

Schide, a 2010 Gardiner Area High School graduate, recently won the women’s division of the Western States Endurance Run, a prestigious 100-mile trail race through the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. 

“This year has for sure been a step up for me, which is nice because you can’t always count on improving every year,” she said.

Schide, 32, posted the second-fastest women’s time in the 52-year history of the event – 15 hours, 46 minutes, 57 seconds – in her victory on June 29-30. 

It’s been two years since Schide, who now lives in France, received a doctoral degree in geology from the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Since then, free from other obligations, she has focused on trail running. 

“I was a little bit more stressed then and I had less time to devote to racing,” said Schide, who previously won the Canyons Endurance Runs, also in California, on April 28-29.

An avid hiker who has played just about every sport she could, Schide worked at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s White Mountain huts in western Maine while in college. Running – or “fast hiking,” as she called it – on the technical mountain range provided a rewarding challenge that sparked a greater passion.

In 2015, Schide competed in her first trail race in Utah while finishing her master’s degree. She posted second-place finishes in a pair of prominent European races in 2018 (Courmayer-Champex-Chamonix) and 2019 (Madeira) before posting her best result yet in the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc, in 2022.

“I moved to Utah for my master’s, and all the trails there were really easy to run on,” Schide said. “I was so used to hiking and still wanted to go to the mountains, and then I realized, ‘Oh, you can actually run off the trail and do real running, just not hiking.’ It all built on itself, and I just kept working at it.”

After a win last year in the Grand Raid in Réunion and the Canyons victory two months ago came the 2024 Western States, the oldest race in ultra running. The race, which goes from Olympic Valley to Auburn, California, includes of 18,090 feet of elevation gain and 22,970 feet of descent.

Gardiner native Katie Schide smiles after winning the Western States Endurance Run on June 30 in Auburn, California. Photo courtesy of Matt Shapiro

A year earlier, Schide came in second in the race despite posting the second-best women’s time in event history. Winner Courtney Dauwalter of Leadville, Colorado, set the record. Knowing what she had done just a year earlier in just her first Western States, there was no question what Schide’s goal was this time.

“I wanted to win,” Schide said. “Obviously, I didn’t win last year, but I was still able to break the previous course record that had been around for a long time, and I only had the one girl who beat me. After that happened, I saw for the first time that I had a good chance of possibly winning the race this year.”

Doing so was not going to be easy. The race begins with a 2,500-foot elevation gain in the first 5 miles, after which runners reach their highest point at Watson’s Monument (8,713 feet). There are two more rapid inclines around the race’s halfway point and a descent of roughly 2,300 feet.

The hardest part, though, was the final 20 miles. Although the home stretch doesn’t have the steep inclines and descents found in the earlier parts of the race, the trail, Schide said, is disorienting – not to mention the condition competitors are in after having already run for 12-plus hours.

“(The stretch of trail) looks the same for a really long time, and that’s always mentally really hard because you don’t really know where you are and can’t know how far you have to go and what speed you’re going,” Schide said. “Of course, at that point, you’ve already ran 80 miles, so you’re tired and trying to manage your stomach.”

Schide is unsure of what comes next.

Western States has been her main focus for two years now, and after winning it by a full 55 minutes, she’s taking a bit of time to unwind with her partner, fellow ultra-runner Germain Grangier.

“I’m enjoying getting back into my normal routine,” Schide said. “I’ll take some time before deciding exactly what I’m going to do.”