On Saturday morning at 5 a.m. Pacific time, 370 ultrarunners will stand under a banner in Olympic Valley, California, and start running toward Auburn. They will not stop, in most cases, for somewhere between 14 and 30 hours. They will climb 18,000 feet, descend nearly 23,000, and cross the snow-fed American River on foot near mile 78. The 53rd Western States Endurance Run is shaping up as the most competitive edition of the race in its 50-year history, on both the women’s and men’s sides.
The course runs point-to-point along an old gold rush and Washoe trail through the Sierra Nevada, finishing on the track at Placer High School in Auburn. It has been won by some of the most accomplished mountain runners in the world. This year’s field includes three former champions, an Olympic medalist, a Black Canyon 100K course-record holder making her 100-mile debut, and at least a dozen runners with realistic shots at a podium spot.
The weather forecast may be the kindest part of race week. Auburn is expected to top out in the mid-70s on Saturday, well below the triple-digit heat that has historically broken runners in the canyons between Robinson Flat and Foresthill. Conditions like that tend to produce fast times.
The women’s race: a defending champion and a heavy favorite who has never run 100 miles
Abby Hall, 35, of Flagstaff, Arizona, returns to defend the title she won last year in 16:37:16, the fourth-fastest women’s finish in race history. Hall ran a near-perfect race in 2025, sitting near the front through the first half and then running alone in the lead for the final 50 miles. She has stayed sharp in the months since, breaking the course record at the McDowell Mountain 50 Mile in December and finishing fifth at the Black Canyon 100K in February, 23 minutes faster than her time at the same race a year earlier.
The runner most likely to push her is someone who has never run this distance. Jenn Lichter, a 29-year-old from Missoula, Montana, won the Black Canyon 100K in February in under eight hours, a new course record, and she beat Hall, Molly Seidel, and several other Western States contenders in the process. She added a win at the Gorge Waterfalls 50K in April. Lichter has barely finished outside the podium in the past two years, and the way she has been racing makes it hard to call anyone but her the favorite.
Then there is Fu-Zhao Xiang. The 34-year-old Chinese runner has finished second at Western States in each of the last two years, including a 16:20 in 2024 that ranks as the third-fastest women’s time ever recorded on the course. Xiang has spent a chunk of the spring training on the Western States trail itself, alongside Marianne Hogan and Vietnam’s Hậu Hà. Hogan, the Canadian who finished third last year and has stood on the podium at both Western States and UTMB without ever winning either, completed a Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim training run with Xiang in the build-up.
Beyond the returning podium, the women’s field is unusually international. Seven of last year’s top 10 came from outside the United States. This year’s class adds Poland’s Martyna Młynarczyk, who led much of last year’s race before dropping and is back with a 2025 CCC win to her name, and Norway’s Yngvild Kaspersen, returning from a year away after finishing fifth in 2024.
The American challenge runs deep, too. Molly Seidel, who won bronze in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, is making her 100-mile debut after a steady move from the roads to the trails over the past year. She has run three ultras in 2026, winning the Bandera 50K, taking fourth at Black Canyon to grab her Golden Ticket, and finishing third at the Canyons 50K. At Black Canyon, she crossed the line two minutes ahead of Hall.
Tara Dower, the 32-year-old from Durango, Colorado, comes in with two notable storylines. A cold derailed her race last year and she dropped out. She responded by setting a 13:31 course record at the Javelina 100 Mile in October. She is also no stranger to ambitious challenges, having set the fastest known time on the Appalachian Trail in 2024. And she is attempting one of the more punishing back-to-backs in the sport this summer: Western States this weekend, Hardrock 100 less than two weeks later.
Other Americans to watch include Emily Hawgood, the Zimbabwean-born runner who has finished in the top 10 at Western States five years running; Lotti Brinks, who lives in the United States but races for Germany and won Gorge Waterfalls 100K in a course record in April; non-binary athlete Riley Brady, the reigning Canyons 100K champion who competes in the women’s division; Hannah Allgood, who has hinted she is chasing a sub-17-hour finish; and Addie Bracy, returning to the race after a five-year absence.
Sweden’s Ida Nilsson, fourth last year, withdrew in May with a hamstring injury.
The men’s race: Walmsley, Jornet, and a wide-open chase
The two men who finished first and second last year, Americans Caleb Olson and Chris Myers, are not on the start list. Olson ran 14:11:29 in 2025, the second-fastest men’s finish in race history and only about two minutes off Jim Walmsley’s course record of 14:09:28 from 2019. With both gone, the men’s race opens up in a way it has not in years.
Jim Walmsley is back. The 36-year-old Flagstaff resident won Western States in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2024, and he holds three of the nine fastest men’s times ever run on the course. He missed last year’s race with an injury and returns this weekend on a sponsor entry from Hoka after a persistent knee problem kept him from racing his way in through the Golden Ticket series. Walmsley has not raced in 2026 at all. If his knee holds together for the full 100.2 miles, almost no one in trail running would bet against him.
Kilian Jornet, the Spanish runner now based in Norway, won this race in 2011 and returned 14 years later to finish third in 2025, less than eight minutes behind the winner. His 14:19:22 ranks as the fifth-fastest men’s time ever on the course. The story heading into Saturday is less encouraging. Jornet finished 44th at Spain’s Zegama-Aizkorri marathon in May, a race he has won 11 times. He has openly detailed a knee injury that interrupted his spring, and by his own account will start Western States having logged only about two weeks of running since Zegama. Even diminished, he is one of the most accomplished mountain runners alive.
The clearest threat to both may be Adam Peterman. The 30-year-old from Missoula won Western States in his 100-mile debut in 2022, lost most of 2023 to injury, and walked much of last year’s race to a 49th-place finish. He hired a coach, regrouped, and in April won the Canyons 100K, the most competitive Golden Ticket race on the calendar. He beat Hayden Hawks and Zach Miller in the process, both of whom will line up next to him on Saturday.
Hawks is back for his fifth Western States. The Cedar City, Utah runner finished second in 2022 and third in 2024 in 14:24:31, the seventh-fastest men’s time in race history. “I am ready to have a lot of fun out on those trails, fight, and hurt a good amount too,” Hawks wrote on social media ahead of the race.
Hans Troyer, who turned 26 this year and recently moved from Georgia to Boulder, Colorado, is the youngest serious contender in the men’s race. He finished eighth in his 100-mile debut last year and has done little since then but win, taking the 2025 JFK 50 Mile and breaking the course record at the 2026 Black Canyon 100K.
Italy’s Francesco Puppi is the wild card. He set a course record at the 2025 Canyons 100K and dominated the 2025 CCC, but his run-up to Western States has included a fall that ended his Black Canyon race in February and a broken wrist sustained in a separate training fall. He did win the Chianti Marathon in March between injuries. Western States will be his first 100-mile race.
Zach Miller, the 37-year-old who broke into ultrarunning with a stunning win at the 2013 JFK 50 Mile, is also a Western States first-timer. He earned a Golden Ticket by finishing second at the Canyons 100K behind Peterman in April. Other men with realistic top-10 chances include returning fourth-place finisher Jeff Mogavero, New Zealand’s Daniel Jones (fifth, fourth, and fifth in his three Western States runs), and France’s Vincent Bouillard, the 2024 UTMB champion who dropped out of Western States last year and is hoping for redemption.
David Sinclair, who had been considered a podium contender after smashing the course record at Transvulcania in May, withdrew from the entrants list on June 19. Sixth-place finisher Seth Ruhling pulled out earlier in June with a hip injury.
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