Behind Jazmine Lowther’s Start
WORDS → Francesca Robasto
Pics → @iampatrickpilz @mehdielmabrouk
DATE → 2026-09-09
Jazmine Lowther’s UTMB preparation through rituals, visualization, nutrition, climate, and above all the invisible work on the mind.
In Chamonix, in the days leading up to UTMB, the energy is hard to ignore. The valley fills with runners, friends, teams, race bibs, backpacks, and conversations that inevitably circle back to one thing: the race. Amid this electricity, Jazmine Lowther seems to be seeking the opposite. A bit of silence, a few hours to herself, an easy run, a walk without objectives.
“I’m trying to relax a lot,” she tells us when we meet. She arrived in Chamonix about three weeks before UTMB, early enough to have time to familiarize herself with parts of the course she hadn’t yet seen. The days immediately before the race are dedicated mostly to slowing down: a few easy outings, a bit of movement, and above all the attempt to find a balance between being inside the atmosphere and not letting herself get completely swept up. Because Chamonix, during UTMB week, is also this: a place where it’s easy to be distracted without really being able to switch off.
“You can go into town, see some people, see friends you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s a big reunion, really.” For Jazmine, it’s one of the things that makes being here special. But precisely because of this, carving out personal space becomes important. A quiet afternoon, a nap, reviewing the plan, visualizing the race, and maintaining balance in general. It’s a search for equilibrium that runs through her approach to running as well. Before a race, one of her rituals involves mentally retracing the course, drawing it by hand to recognize mountains and landmarks. Not so much as a performance strategy, but as a way to build familiarity with what awaits.
Then there are the small habits, seemingly simple, that end up becoming an important part of the race. Jazmine talks about her mashed potatoes, which she carries in a flask, the hot soup and broth during the night. Clothing preparation is thought through down to the last gram, to handle any weather situation. Preparing for an ultra means, ultimately, trying to imagine everything that could happen without pretending you can control it.
Climate is also part of the equation. Jazmine is Canadian, so the cold doesn’t particularly worry her. But she’s coming from a training period in Utah, where the climate is very hot and dry. In Chamonix she immediately notices the difference: “You sweat so much.” The humidity changes how the body loses water and salts and forces you to adapt the plan. It’s not necessarily something you can solve with specific training, but rather a matter of awareness: knowing that those conditions will require something different. Awareness is precisely one of the concepts that comes up most often when Jazmine talks about preparation. And not just physical preparation.
In her journey with Arc’teryx, in fact, she describes finding support that she considers particularly important on the mental side. Among the figures who work with the athletes is sports psychologist Dr. John Coleman, whom Jazmine describes as someone capable of helping to “unlock new levels” of mental state, but above all of bringing attention to that baggage we often carry without realizing it. Before a race, it doesn’t take much: a leg that feels tired during the shake-out, a minor discomfort, a less-than-ideal weather forecast. The risk is turning each of these sensations into proof that something isn’t going well. “We often find excuses for ourselves,” she explains. And those excuses can become an additional weight, something we put on our shoulders even before we start. Learning to recognize where the mind goes, instead, allows you to leave at least part of that weight on the ground.
UTMB had been on Jazmine’s to-do list for a long time. Qualification came through her UTMB Stones and, having just turned 34, she felt it was the right time to try. She had already run two CCCs and last year had tackled the OCC. The big loop was missing. “I think I’m finally ready to take on the big loop.” But being ready doesn’t mean feeling perfectly prepared. In an ultra of over 170 kilometers and roughly 10,000 meters of elevation gain, the idea that you could have done something more is practically inevitable. Another training session, a longer run, something that could have been improved.
Looking at the performances of the women who raced before her gave her a different perspective instead. Studying their times was almost surprising: seeing how fast they can move over a similar distance is, first and foremost, inspiring. But it also means concretely seeing what’s possible and, at the same time, understanding how much work it takes to get there. This is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the ultra: the distance between the idea of what’s possible and what the body can actually do.
And the result, whatever it may be, leaves something behind. Sometimes an enormous sense of satisfaction, other times a lesson that’s harder to absorb. Jazmine knows this well: in ultras it’s never guaranteed that things will go according to plan. It can rain for hours, physical problems can appear, or it can simply be one of those days when everything seems to turn in the wrong direction. In that case, it may be necessary to withdraw. And accepting that isn’t simple. “You almost have to experience it like a bereavement,” she says. Because behind a race there are months of work, expectations, and a moment that, at least on paper, should bring together everything that’s been done before. But when things work, the effect can be equally profound. You take home a sort of “belt” of confidence, courage, and awareness. An experience that remains and that changes the way you look at yourself. Perhaps this is exactly what Jazmine seeks in running: not just to arrive faster, but to come out the other side a little different.
And even before starting, she already knows which moment she’s looking forward to most. Not the chaos of the start, not the first kilometers, not the chance to run fast. The night. The start in Chamonix can be almost overwhelming. Thousands of people, noise, emotions, adrenaline. “It’s electric,” she says, but also a bit anxiety-inducing and overstimulating. Then the group begins to spread out. The sun goes down. The valley changes face and that space she seems to have been seeking for days arrives: the mountain at night, the silence, maybe the moon, maybe the stars. The possibility of having a bit more space around herself. “Once I get into that rhythm, into that space, that’s where I feel most comfortable.”
And that night, in the end, Jazmine truly found it. Her first UTMB closed with a fifth-place finish overall among women in 23h21’55”, at the end of 174 kilometers and 9,700 meters of positive elevation gain. But the result tells only part of the story. At Courmayeur, after 81 kilometers, she was fourteenth, more than half an hour behind fifth place. From there a long comeback began: eighth at Grand Col Ferret, seventh at Trient and still seventh at Vallorcine, before recovering everything in the final kilometers. At La Flégère, about 12 kilometers from the finish, she had already caught and passed Lucy Bartholomew and Katarzyna Dombrowska, entering the top five. It’s a finish that almost seems to give concrete form to what Jazmine was describing before the start: finding her own rhythm, waiting for the noise to give way to concentration, and continuing to move when the race becomes truly long.
