Goodness, what a week to be an American woman. We won’t get into it but fuck Republicans.
Moving on.
The Western States 100 took place this past weekend in California’s Sierra Nevadas, and live streaming it on YouTube like the running nerd I am was the perfect form of escapism. I’m going to guess that less than 2% of my subscribers know what Western States is, so real quick: it’s a 100-mile trail running race that goes from Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe to Auburn, California. It’s very hard to get into—you have to run a qualifying race to even enter the lottery for admission—and very hard to run because in addition to being excruciatingly long, it usually takes place in 100-degree heat. It attracts the top elite trail runners and is basically the Tour de France of American trail running.
There’s a large contingency of armchair ultra-trail runners who are obsessed with Western States because some time in the last five years they stumbled upon this YouTube video called Life in a Day. I am firmly in this camp. (The longest trail race I’ve ever done was 17 miles.) Lucky for us, there was a 30-hour plus live stream of Western States this weekend.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first 100-mile running race I’ve live-streamed on YouTube, but it was definitely the most emo. One of the top males who everyone thought would win, Tim Tollefson, suffered from dehydration and finished 21st. A female fan favorite, Lucy Bartholomew, tripped on a rock and got a concussion. Another female favorite sprained her ankle. The thing that’s so sadly entertaining, which I guess is what makes it good TV, is that these runners have dedicated years of their lives to qualifying and training for this race and then something so small goes wrong and bam, their dreams of winning or even finishing are crushed. Oh gosh, and the first “non-official finisher” has INCURABLE CANCER (story here). (The race has a 30-hour time limit, if you finish over that, you don’t get the finisher prize, which is…a belt buckle.)
I’ll leave you with a few links to Instagram posts that recap runners’ Western States journey. Hopefully you’ll be inspired to go on a run, or just become a fan of the sport:
Camille Herron, who I’ve written about before for breaking the 100-mile road running record, ran this year’s Western States almost 9 hours faster than she ran last year’s and got her period in the middle.
I once went to a group run in Prospect Park organized by Elise Mordos and some other New York City-based trail runners. It was very cool to see that she ran and finished the race.
Katie Asmuth, a mother of two, had a lot of stomach issues but still finished 9th.
Now go for a run, or something!
Elaheh