History
Where Valkyrie began
Valkyrie started on the Wasatch Back in Utah before moving to Durango, Colorado.
Results
Results for the 2024 Durango race were produced by Brooksee. Historical team rosters and results are being reviewed before republication.
Official Results
2024 Valkyrie Relay — Durango
Timing and results for the 2024 race were produced by Brooksee. Results open on the timer’s own site.
View 2024 results
All results
Hall of Fame
Teams on the podium
Every Valkyrie season adds to this. These are the published podium finishers — team names only.
2024 · Durango, Colorado
Full Course
1st
Team Life Law
2nd
Dahawahuraahango Daheyahavawahawaho
3rd
Hraegammakjot
Sprint Course
1st
CommonSpirit Primary
2nd
Dad Bod Brigade
3rd
The 7 Wonders
Published podium results from the 2024 Durango race. Earlier Wasatch Back results have not been located yet.
The idea
Seven sports. One course. One finish line.
Valkyrie started from a simple, stubborn belief: that athletes who are good at completely different things should be able to race together. A trail runner, a mountain biker, a road cyclist, a paddleboarder, an open-water swimmer, a kayaker and a road runner — seven specialists, one continuous course, one clock, one finish.
Dan Merkley and Shawn Snow co-founded the relay in Utah. The seven-sport format traces back to Merkley’s event work in Vancouver, where he encountered a multi-discipline event that stuck with him. What they built was not a triathlon with extra legs — it was a team adventure designed around difference, where a team is stronger for having a swimmer who cannot climb and a climber who cannot swim.
One continuous course
Mountains, roads, a lake and a river, linked into a single day.
Built around difference
Teams are assembled from specialists, not generalists.
A shared finish
Nobody finishes alone. The result belongs to the whole team.
The inaugural years
A hard time to start something complicated
The first completed Valkyrie Relay was held on June 19, 2021, in Heber City, Utah — officially timed. A first race had been planned for August 22, 2020, and was publicly cancelled ten days beforehand as COVID-19 conditions in Utah worsened. Valkyrie’s formative years sat squarely inside the COVID era — one of the most difficult stretches imaginable to introduce a brand-new endurance format that depends on trailheads, road closures, open water, a river and hundreds of people moving between them.
The idea held. Every one of those early years taught the team something about the course, the logistics, the hand-offs and the kind of race Valkyrie could be. The format got sharper. The people who showed up kept showing up.
The race has to have a native feel or it just doesn’t work. It’s a year-round promotional exercise and it’s supposed to be a hometown fixture.
Dan Merkley, co-founder — Durango Herald
2023 — the move
From the Wasatch to the San Juans
Durango is one of the few places where all seven Valkyrie disciplines fit together without compromise: mountain singletrack, hard road climbing, a lake big enough for open water and paddleboards, the Animas running through the middle of town, and an outdoor community that already lives this way. In 2023 the race moved there, and ran again in 2024 and 2025.
That move happened because of Erin Hughes. Dan’s sister, a Durango resident of two decades and an ICU nurse at Mercy Hospital, she became the local force who turned a Utah race concept into a Durango event, and serves as co-race director. Moving to Durango did not erase the Utah years — it built on them.
Teams and families at the finish, Durango, Colorado.
Milestones
How it happened
The concept
A seven-discipline relay built so specialists could race as one team.
19 June 2021
Verified
The earliest Valkyrie race result we can confirm — Heber City, Utah.
The formative years
The Wasatch Back years, run through the COVID era. The format sharpened.
2023
Verified
The race moves to Durango, Colorado.
2024
Verified
Durango’s second consecutive year. Podium results published.
2025
Verified
Durango’s third year. Results published by the timer.
2026 — a planning year
Verified
An expansion and planning year. No race was held while the team worked on the 2027 Durango return and the wider series.
18 September 2027
Provisional
Planned return to Durango.
What comes next
Vision
A wider series of destination races. Nothing is confirmed.
The first race was planned for August 22, 2020 and cancelled before it ran; the first completed Valkyrie Relay was held June 19, 2021.
The people
Valkyrie’s history is not only its organisers
A race like this does not happen because two people had an idea. It happens because a lot of people decided it was worth their Saturday.
The athletes who went first
Teams who entered a format nobody had raced before, with no idea what it would ask of them.
The teams who came back
The clearest verdict on a race is the people who return the following year.
The Ultra Heptathletes
Athletes who took on all seven disciplines alone, back to back, in one day.
The volunteers
A seven-discipline course spread across a county needs people at every exchange and aid station.
Wingmates and families
The registered crew and the people who drove, carried, waited and cheered.
Communities and partners
Local businesses, public agencies, safety personnel and host communities.
The next chapter
A bigger map
Our long-term vision is bigger than a single race. We are working toward a wider Valkyrie series — destination events in remarkable outdoor communities where mountains, roads, lakes and rivers can come together in one course. Each race would reflect its host community while keeping what has defined Valkyrie from the start: seven disciplines, shared adventure, and a finish line you cross together.
Races closer to home
More chances to race a Valkyrie without crossing the country to do it.
The same standards everywhere
One set of Valkyrie traditions and operating standards, wherever the race is held.
Full, Sprint and Ultra pathways
Offered where each is operationally appropriate for that course.
A wider community
The same team returning year after year, or new teams assembled from a bigger pool.
Where this stands
This is a plan, not a schedule. Valkyrie envisions Durango as the culminating destination event of a future season, and is exploring other markets — but no additional race has a confirmed date, venue, permit or course, and there is no qualification, points or ranking system.
The next chapter will be written by the people who race it.
Durango returns 18 September 2027. Come back for it, help run it, or tell us where you would race a Valkyrie next.
Thinking about racing Valkyrie?
Registration for Durango 2027 is not open yet. See how it works, what a team entry involves, and how to hear the moment it opens.