My main goal was to get to the finish of the final race in one piece, but ideally to also break the Grand Slam record for the combined time from all 4 races (74h 54m). I haven’t run that many 100s before so the idea of 4 within 10 weeks was (and still is) intimidating, but ultrarunning is all about getting out of your comfort zone so this sounded appealing. Ian Sharman, runner journal: I’ve run Western States 100 the previous 3 years and it always dominates my summer so I wanted to do something different and find a new challenge. Read what he had to say and get snapshot of what it takes to be the ultrarunning Grand Slam winner.

We caught up with Ian to see what was going through his mind over the past months on the trail. In the final race at Wasatch, he took second place, rounding out the Grand Slam with a record-breaking time of 69 hours and 49 minutes. Ian placed fourth at the first two races and bumped it up for the win at Leadville. This year, Strava run Pro Ian Sharman secured the overall title with a mere 20-minute lead on competitor Nick Clark. To put this in perspective, between June 28th and September 7th, athletes race 400 miles with over 77,000 feet of climbing, with most of these being logged at elevations between 5,000 and 12,000 feet.

This includes four of the most classic 100-mile trail running races: The Western States Endurance Run, The Vermont 100, The Leadville Trail 100 Run and The Wasatch Front 100.

The Grand Slam is the ultimate test of strength and endurance for ultrarunners.

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