Yesterday morning, the Trail 80K athletes left the start gate in Ordino's central plaza at dawn. Today, in the same plaza, the Ultra 105K field repeated the departure ritual — except the numbers beside the distance are different in every direction. Six thousand nine hundred metres of elevation gain. One hundred and five kilometres. A maximum allowed time of thirty hours.
The Ultra 105K is the Trail 100 Andorra's flagship distance and the race that earns meaningful UTMB World Series qualification points. Its elite field carries index numbers that describe athletes who have finished at the top of major mountain races across multiple seasons. What those numbers cannot capture is what the Comapedrosa feels like at 2,942 metres, at the race's midpoint, with the previous 50 kilometres of climbing and descending already accumulated in the legs.
The front runners know. They've been here before. The gap between that knowledge and the execution of racing across Andorra's three highest summits is where today's result will be produced.
The Scale of the Effort
To understand the 105K, it helps to put it against the 80K that ran yesterday. The Trail 80K covers 79 kilometres and 3,900 metres of elevation gain — a demanding mountain ultra by any standard. The 105K adds 26 kilometres and 3,000 more metres of vertical. It crosses the same three summits, but it does so on a longer route that extends the Comapedrosa section, adds terrain in Andorra's western parishes, and connects all four staffed mountain shelters on a course that navigates the principality end-to-end.
At 6,900 metres of positive elevation gain across 105 kilometres, the ratio is approximately 66 metres of climbing per kilometre — a figure that sits among the more demanding in the UTMB World Series programme below the 100-mile distances. The course does not have flat sections in any meaningful sense. The descents are the recovery between climbs. The climbing is the race.
The Men's Field
Rod Farvard leads the men's seedings at a UTMB Index of 918. The Iranian-French ultra-runner's index reflects multiple top-level finishes across the UTMB World Series and positions him as the field's most credentialled performer coming into Andorra. Farvard's climbing efficiency on steep technical terrain — the kind of terrain that defines every section of the 105K — has been his consistent competitive advantage across his career.
Thibaut Marguet (874) and Richard Lockwood (860) provide the competitive context behind him. Marguet is one of the most consistent French ultra-runners on the UTMB circuit and brings specific Pyrenean familiarity to this race. Lockwood, the British runner whose results over the past two seasons have pushed his index toward the top tier, is capable of running the podium if the field's front runners create the kind of explosive early pace that benefits a more metronomic execution style.
Philip Ausserhofer (858) rounds out the top-seeded men with an index that places him within range of the podium if the higher-seeded field has a difficult day on the Comapedrosa crossing.
The decisive section for the men's race — as it is for every distance at this event — will be the passage over the Comapedrosa in the race's middle third. The 2,942-metre summit arrives after approximately 50 kilometres of accumulated effort. It is the point where the gap between managed effort and exhausted effort becomes irreversible.
Connect with training partners, earn travel miles, and discover terrain worth crossing borders for.
Join ZealZagFollow us on InstagramThe Women's Field
Martina Valmassoi leads the women's seedings at 758. The Italian ultra-runner's career combines strong results across both the UTMB World Series and international Skyrunner events — a breadth of performance that makes her competitive on the technical high-altitude terrain that defines the 105K. The Comapedrosa section specifically suits her profile: Valmassoi's strength on sustained steep climbs at altitude has been consistently visible in her results at elevation.
Anastasia Davydenova (728) and Andrea Vlasakova (723) carry seedings close enough that a decisive move by either on the Comapedrosa or the technical descents toward Ordino could produce a different podium order. Davydenova's results in recent seasons have shown the kind of climbing endurance that sustains across long second halves of ultra-races — the 105K's final 30 kilometres, after the Comapedrosa and the Carroi sections, will test that endurance against the field's accumulated state.
The Cutoff That Decides
The 105K enforces intermediate cutoffs at each staffed mountain shelter. The Comapedrosa cutoff is the race's critical threshold — missing it removes an athlete from the course regardless of their overall pace elsewhere. It exists not as a race management tool but as a safety function: the descent from 2,942 metres in deteriorating light or weather is a situation the organisation does not allow to develop. Athletes who reach the Comapedrosa checkpoint ahead of cutoff have proven they can manage the race's most demanding section within a timeframe compatible with the summit conditions.
The 30-hour maximum allowed time means the slowest finishers will complete the course under Saturday night's conditions. The Andorra weather forecast, which the race organisation monitors continuously via radio contact with the mountain shelters, has been clear this morning. The Comapedrosa summit often generates its own weather independent of the valley forecast; that variable is always present in this race.
After the 80K
The Trail 80K's elite finishers crossed the Ordino finish area in the early morning hours today — the leading athletes completing the 79-kilometre course in the high single-digit hours. The 105K athletes passed the finish banners in the other direction a few hours later, heading outbound for a route that builds on the same infrastructure while adding the terrain that only the longest distance covers.
The back of the 80K field may still be on the course when the 105K's front runners return. Ordino's finish area in the late afternoon and evening will hold both stories simultaneously — the final 80K finishers completing their race as the 105K elite come home.
For a complete guide to the course, the altitude preparation, and how to plan a trip around the Trail 100 Andorra, see our Trail 100 Andorra by UTMB running guide. For yesterday's Trail 80K coverage, see our Trail 80K field report.
