On June 21, Makena Morley, Tabor Hemming, and Tayler Peavey will all stand on the beginning line of the aggressive and money-rich 2026 Damaged Arrow Skyrace 23k. A day prior, Zach Perrin, and probably Erin Clark, may have raced the Damaged Arrow Skyrace 46k. Every week later, Adam Peterman will line up for the Western States 100 — an occasion he received in 2022 — with Perrin as a pacer and Clark as a part of his crew. All six are elite path runners, and all six got here out of a magical time on the College of Colorado Boulder (CU) cross-country program within the mid-2010s.
Adam Peterman successful the 2022 Western States 100. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
Skilled path runners come from all completely different backgrounds — particularly as distances get longer — however this excessive focus of elites all rising from the identical CU Buffaloes program throughout the identical years is worthy of notice. Whereas the CU working program has lengthy been identified for producing profitable street and observe runners, together with Olympians Jenny Simpson, Emma Coburn, Dathan Ritzenhein, Adam Goucher, and others, and different CU runners preceded this group in transitioning to the paths, together with Andy Wacker and Allie Avatar (née McLaughlin), this looks like the primary massive wave of path specialists to emerge from this system.
So what got here first? Did CU make future path runners, or did the long run path runners all select CU?
CU Cross Nation within the Mid-2010s
One thing particular occurred on the 2018 NCAA Division I Cross Nation Nationwide Championships. “I noticed Dani [Jones] win after which appeared, and right here comes Makena. I appeared once more, and there’s Tabor, and Sage [Hurta-Klecker], after which Tayler. Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo. Each time I circled, it was one other Buffalo. I used to be overwhelmed.” Billy Nelson, the CU cross-country assistant coach from 2010 to 2022, beamed in his recollection of the race, held in Madison, Wisconsin. The CU ladies received the nationwide championships by 38 factors. They positioned six ladies inside the highest 30 within the six-kilometer race.
Tabor Hemming working a cross-country race in CU colours. Photograph courtesy of Tabor Hemming.
Nelson was part of a number of nationwide championships at CU, each as an athlete and as a coach, however referred to as the 2018 ladies’s group the very best. “We received the person title, received the group title, and had six ladies end as All-Individuals,” Nelson boasted, with a robust emphasis on the six. “I wasn’t shocked, wasn’t stunned. It was a dominant run. They did precisely what they wanted to do. They tucked in when they need to, confirmed grit once they wanted to, and pulled away within the final 800 [meters].” The CU ladies have been so good that they might’ve received the group title even with out particular person winner Jones.
And now three of these CU cross-country All-Individuals — Morley, Hemming (née Scholl), and Peavey (née Tuttle) — have all discovered their method onto trails. Morley, who has run a 2:30 marathon, received the 2026 Canyons 50k and the 2025 Kodiak 50k. Hemming was tenth on the 2023 Marathon du Mont-Blanc, has been within the prime 5 on the Damaged Arrow Skyrace 23k thrice, and was within the prime three on the Canyons 50k in 2025 and 2024. Peavey received each the USATF Half Marathon Path Nationwide Championships and the USATF 50k Path Nationwide Championships in 2025.
Tabor Hemming on her technique to taking third on the 2024 Damaged Arrow Skyrace 23k. Photograph: Jonathan Wyatt
It’s not simply these three, although. The CU cross-country groups of the late 2010s created a number of different profitable path runners.
Current 2026 Canyons 50k third-placer Ryan Forsyth was on the 2018 NCAA Division I Cross Nation Nationwide Championships for CU too, ending eleventh within the males’s race. In 2017, Forsyth was 57th, and Peterman and Perrin have been 89th and 107th. In 2015, Clark was eleventh within the ladies’s race, main the ladies to a second-place group end.
CU Boulder Geography
Boulder, Colorado, doesn’t lack mountains, trails, or entry to the outside, options that drew lots of the group to the college. Most got here from backgrounds that concerned many out of doors actions, not simply working.
Peterman, Perrin, and Morley all grew up in Montana. “I grew up in Missoula, simply such a candy place to develop up should you’re into working, biking, the river. After I was schools, I didn’t even take a look at colleges in locations that I didn’t wish to reside,” Peterman mentioned. “Rising up in Missoula spoiled me.”
Makena Morley races on the observe for CU. Photograph courtesy of Makena Morley.
Morley echoed the sentiment. “Anybody who goes to highschool at Colorado,” she paused, “It’s outdoors. You’re within the mountains.” Nelson, the previous assistant coach, excitedly remembered his runners: “Makena, Adam, they have been geared to lengthy distances, and so they’ve acquired that Montana perspective, grit.” He then famous of Hemming: “She grew up on a ranch doing farm chores. She was profitable at working. That’s fairly distinctive. She was excellent from a difficult place.” Hemming mentioned matter-of-factly: “You’ve acquired to take a look at the place everybody was from. I feel it’s the place all of us grew up. We didn’t all simply run metropolis streets rising up.”
Clark grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and shifting to Boulder for school meant buying and selling TrackTown USA for SingletrackTown USA. Nonetheless, her sentiment was the identical because the others. “The placement of the college makes a distinction. Being in Boulder mattered to me. These are the kinds of people who find themselves curious about mountain life and have a tendency to reside or keep in a spot that has good path entry,” Clark shared. “I grew up backpacking, favored snowboarding, did plenty of that with my household. My highschool would all the time do a cross-country camp every fall close to Bend with plenty of path working. I actually favored that and assume I gravitated to Boulder due to that.”
Makena Morley, the 2025 The Rut VK ladies’s winner. Photograph: The Rut/Anastasia Wilde
“All of them,” Nelson answered when requested who he recruited, after which defined what he appeared for. “Elevation, quick instances at elevation, down-to-earth guys.” He provides that Peterman and Perrin have been already good associates. “We needed expertise, however the place is the expertise, and the way does it match with our tradition?” Boulder’s geography attracted sure kinds of runners, and people runners created the tradition that embraced trails and the outside.
Path Working Influences
Every member of the group had a distinct preliminary introduction to path working and ultrarunning. “Doing ultras appeared not possible to me, however one in all my assistant coaches in highschool was Mike Foote [three-time Hardrock 100 runner-up], so I used to be uncovered to it early. Generally I’d do path runs with him,” Peterman mentioned of his pre-CU years.
Perrin famous the path affect of residing in Boulder: “There have been simply so many execs within the space, on trails, like Scott Jurek, Sage [Canaday].”
The path affect got here from inside the CU program as effectively, primarily from Wacker, who raced for the group from 2007 to 2011. Nelson recalled, “Andy Wacker first branched out to the paths,” and Hemming remembers Wacker recruiting others to affix him. “He contacted plenty of us post-collegiately, saying, ‘Hey, have you ever ever considered doing these things?’” Hemming underscored that Wacker contacted everybody, making an attempt to get them to think about path working.
Andy Wacker (proper) and Hayden Hawks working the 2019 Chuckanut 50k. Photograph: Tad Davis
Hemming was already a two-time member of the USATF U18 Mountain Working Workforce whereas in highschool. She recalled that the group’s preliminary response to path working was lukewarm. “I feel everybody thought it was a joke, if I’m being sincere,” she laughed. “Why would you run trails should you might run quick on the observe?”
Nelson additionally referred to as out Mandy Ortiz as one other early group inspiration. Ortiz was on the CU cross-country group between 2013 and 2016, simply after she’d received the junior race on the 2013 World Mountain Working Championship in Krynica-Zdrój, Poland. Oritz continues to race on the path to today.
And the runners of the mid-2010s weren’t the primary CU cross-country graduates to seek out their method onto the paths. Avatar completed fifth on the 2009 NCAA Division I Cross Nation Nationwide Championships as a freshman and later received the World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race in 2022. Two-time Pikes Peak Marathon winner Seth Demoor was on that 2009 CU group, too.
Allie Avatar on her technique to successful the 2022 World Mountain Working Championships Uphill race. Photograph: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Native Space Coaching
Everybody smiled on the reminiscence of the group’s Sunday lengthy runs. The 15 to twenty miles on Sundays have been the spotlight of the week.
“We have been a high-volume cardio program. We had 4 or 5 long term areas above 8,000 ft. That’s uncommon for a D1 program,” Nelson defined, after which listed out Magnolia Highway, Rollinsville, Gold Hill, Switzerland Path, and Sourdough Path as their common run choices.
Makena Morley leads Erin Clark whereas racing on the observe for CU. Photograph courtesy of Makena Morley.
“Gold Hill, Magnolia, that’s 8,000 ft, and also you’d achieve a pair thousand ft on a run,” Perrin mentioned of the routes that served as a precursor to his ultrarunning. “It’s probably not a path, however actually hilly. I by no means considered elevation achieve again then, however it was like ‘Wow, it is a laborious route.’”
“I feel it’s crucial to have velocity in path, velocity endurance. I did plenty of threshold coaching [in college], and I nonetheless hold that going and assume that’s been tremendous useful,” Hemming mentioned. “At CU, you discovered the way to run while you have been drained. We did so many laborious classes back-to-back, and I feel that lends itself effectively to trails. If you’re 50 kilometers into one thing, it’s like, ‘This looks like per week of coaching.’”
Peterman echoed the identical concept. “How you’re feeling in a path race jogs my memory of how I felt doing Magnolia Highway, that type of run,” he mentioned of the elevation and energy. “A staple at Colorado was doing lengthy runs and a mid-week medium-distance run, all the time at six-minute [per mile] tempo, or low six-minute tempo. It was 12 to fifteen [miles] for the lads and 12 to 13 for the ladies. I carried that over to path and located that to be actually, actually good. For years, the one exercise I’d do was a medium-distance run: 90 minutes at six-minute tempo. I’d change the terrain to make it tougher, however that was my exercise for 4 years.”
Tayler Peavey, the 2025 Twisted Fork Path Competition 15k ladies’s winner. Photograph: Emily Cameron
“The idea of that also holds true,” Clark agreed. “The thought was to run on the prime of Zone 2. That was the objective, however to be lifelike, we have been all the time ending up in Zone 3.” Clark noticed the exercise switch simply to trails: “The identical concept — whether or not working on the identical tempo and staying on the prime of Zone 2 or working that sort of effort however on trails for 45, 60, or 90 minutes — that’s the kind of effort you may find yourself with for a 50k or 100k race.”
Morley recollects the coaching plans put ahead by head coach Mark Wetmore and affiliate head coach Heather Burroughs with a smile: “Mark and Heather’s coaching was plenty of grit and power, a lot power. Not probably the most scientific, simply actually gritty coaching. I’m going again to a few of that now as a path runner.”
CU Working Tradition
There was extra to life in faculty than simply working. “Escape on Friday after raise, camp on Friday night time, have Saturday to only hand around in the mountains, be again in Boulder able to go on Sunday,” Hemming remembered of the group’s collective outside mindset.
She grew wistful at a better reminiscence of the group dynamics. “We made some extent as a ladies’s group, as soon as per week, to all get collectively and make dinner, speak about different stuff. We have been really associates, which was actually particular.” Pressed for the dinner particulars, Hemming answered straight away. “Hamburgers, that’s the ranch lady in me. An excellent do-it-yourself sourdough bun, black angus beef from a ranch, possibly some sauteed mushrooms.”
Tabor Hemming en path to successful the 2022 USATF Mountain Working Championships on the Whiteface Skyrace. Photograph: Michael Scott
Peterman camped usually, too, however recalled a freshman end-of-year misadventure alongside the 25-mile traverse of the peaks on the outskirts of Boulder as a spotlight of his time at CU. “I used to be simply wanting on the Boulder Skyline all yr, and I had a break day. It should’ve been finals week. I hiked that in sandals with one water bottle.” He admits that it went sideways. “Dude, it was so dangerous! I needed to get picked up.”
Lifelong Relationships
A decade later, the CU runners nonetheless speak concerning the group and one another with fondness. Generally, they solely see one another when lining up for races. Othertimes, as with the upcoming Western States 100, they crew and tempo one another. Within the case of Perrin and Morley, they’ve ended up as each companions and teammates, whereas Clark and Peterman are because of marry later this yr. And when the circumstances come collectively, generally a bunch of them may even prepare collectively.
Adam Peterman (proper) with Erin Clark after her seventh-place CCC end in 2022. Photograph: Collin Schultz
Clark, who lives in Missoula with Peterman, is joyful that the friendships have endured, and appreciates that Perrin and Morley ended up close by: “Zach and Makena have been in Bozeman for a couple of years, three-and-a-half hours away. Within the final month, they’ve moved to Missoula, and we see them a minimum of 4 instances per week. We’ve been coaching quite a bit collectively, and it’s been actually, actually cool to coach collectively once more. It feels full circle.”
Adam Peterman and Erin Clark collectively within the mountains. Photograph courtesy of Adam Peterman.
