At Palisades Tahoe, CA, the 51st Western States Endurance Run kicks off vibrant and early at 5 a.m. on Saturday, June twenty ninth.
Western States was first held in 1974, and now, the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run has a 369-runner subject from all through the US and greater than 30 international locations. Watch a recap of the 2022 Western States 100-Mile Run, beneath.
It’s greater than only a race: its mission, apart from staging a high quality, world-class occasion for competing runners, is to carry out path stewardship and conduct medical analysis research for the development of working.
The 100.2-mile occasion travels via the Sierra excessive nation and the canyons of the American River on the ancestral lands of the Washoe and Nisenan tribes, earlier than ending at Placer Excessive College in Auburn, California.
Excitingly, Jim Walmsley, the lads’s Western States Endurance Run report holder, will make his first run since successful the race for his third time in 2021.
The organizers of the race are enthusiastic about Walmsley’s return as WSER Race Director Craig Thornley stated, “Jim’s runs at Western States have left an indelible mark on our historical past.”
Photograph by JEFF PACHOUD/AFP through Getty Pictures
Walmsley, who’s 34, and lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, received the lads’s race with a report ending time of 14 hours and 9 minutes in 2019.
Since then, Jim has reportedly spent the vast majority of his time residing and coaching in France, the place he has been getting ready for the Extremely Path du Mont Blanc. His work paid off and he received that race final September.
In keeping with a press launch despatched to POWDER, “when Walmsley makes his approach to the beginning line in Olympic Valley on June 29, it’ll mark his first race begin in the US since his win at Western States in 2021. Walmsley’s different victory at Western States got here in 2018.”
For ladies, there may be additionally an thrilling athlete making an look. Katie Schide, the 2023 ladies’s runner-up, may also be competing once more. Katie Schide ran the second-fastest ladies’s endurance race in historical past final yr (16 hours and 43 minutes).
“It’s value noting that our ladies’s races over the previous a number of years have confirmed to be deep and extremely aggressive. The 2023 ladies’s race noticed a brand new ladies’s course report, in addition to the second-fastest, fourth-fastest, sixth-fastest and ninth-fastest ladies’s occasions in our historical past. This yr’s race is shaping as much as be no exception.”
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The opposite high 10 runners from final yr who’re returning embody: Tyler Inexperienced, 40, of Portland, Oregon; Jiasheng Shen, 29, of Kunming, China; Daniel Jones, 33, of Wellington, New Zealand; non-binary runner Ryan Montgomery, 30, of Wanship, Utah; Jeffrey Colt, 33, of Carbondale, Colorado; and Cole Watson, 32, of Rancho Cordova, California.
Schide, 32, from Gardiner, Maine, additionally lives in Europe, within the village of Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage in France’s Mercantour Nationwide Park. Schide completed second to Dauwalter at Western States final yr.
Along with Schide, Prime 10 runners from final yr who’re returning embody: Hungary’s Eszter Csillag, 39, who lives in Hong Kong, third; Emily Hawgood, 29, of Beatrice, Zimbabwe, fifth; Ida Nilsson, 43, of Kalmar, Sweden, seventh; Priscilla Forgie, 33, of Edmonton, Alberta, eighth; and Leah Yingling, 33, of Salt Lake Metropolis, ninth.
Jesse Ellis
Each the lads’s and ladies’s fields may also characteristic a number of “HOKA Golden Ticket” entrants. HOKA Golden Tickets are awarded to the highest males’s and ladies’s extremely runners who positioned extremely in aggressive ultras held each in the US and internationally.
This yr’s 375-runner subject can also be extraordinarily numerous, with runners from all backgrounds, skills, and walks of life throughout the globe.
For instance, amongst this yr’s entrants is William “Will” Barkan, a 40-year-old runner from Mill Valley, California with progressive imaginative and prescient loss. Nonetheless, this has been a problem he has confronted head-on. Over the previous seven years, Barkan has completed difficult mountain 100-milers together with Run Rabbit Run in Colorado and Tahoe Rim Path at Lake Tahoe.
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This race gives the grand prize of a sterling silver belt buckle for a sub-24-hour end, or a bronze belt buckle for any end underneath the run’s 30-hour absolute cutoff.
In keeping with the press launch, “the buckles have been hand-crafted by the silversmiths of Comstock Heritage for greater than three a long time now and are thought of essentially the most coveted finisher’s award in all of extremely working.”
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This yr’s occasion shall be streamed stay on YouTube beginning at 4:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 29. The published will conclude at 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 30. To comply with alongside, watch right here: https://www.youtube.com/@WSER100
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