Who Is Jenn Lichter? The Quiet Favorite Who Just Won Western States in Her First 100-Miler

Most first-time 100-milers want to finish. Jenn Lichter set a course record. On Saturday she won the 2026 Western States 100 in 15:28:05, taking 88 seconds off Courtney Dauwalter‘s 2023 mark, finishing 11th overall, and beating one of the deepest women’s fields the race has ever assembled. She’d never raced 100 miles before in her life.

It was the headline result of the weekend, and to anyone outside the trail-running bubble it probably looked like she came from nowhere. Inside the bubble, the result was the logical next step in a streak that’s been building for two years.

From Bogotá to La Crosse

Lichter was born in Bogotá, Colombia. By her own account on multiple podcasts and interviews, her early childhood was unstable — she has spoken about time spent in an orphanage before being adopted at age nine by Nicholas and Margaret Lichter, who brought her and her siblings to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Runner’s World writer Taylor Dutch covered the full story in a 2025 profile that Lichter has pointed readers toward when asked about her background.

She still holds dual U.S. and Colombian citizenship.

A late, quiet introduction to running

Lichter didn’t start running until high school. Basketball came first. When she joined cross country in Wisconsin, she didn’t love it at first — she just kept showing up. By her freshman year she was on varsity. By the end of high school she had recruiters from Division 1 programs paying attention.

She picked the University of Toledo, where she ran the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Her 5K personal best at Toledo was 16:48, and her 10K time landed on Toledo’s all-time top 10 list. She graduated with a degree in art therapy, not a pro contract.

How she ended up in Montana

After college, Lichter took a road trip out west and fell in love with Montana. She moved to Missoula. To pay the bills she took a job as a hiking guide in Glacier National Park, and on her days off she started running the mountains around her. That’s how the trail running started. There was no plan to turn pro.

The transition from track to mountain ultras is unusual for someone with her road-distance background. Most American women coming off Division 1 5K/10K careers either chase the marathon or leave the sport. Lichter went straight to peaks and ridgelines and discovered she was, by some distance, very good at them.

The winning streak that no one was talking about loudly enough

Lichter signed her first sponsorship deal with The North Face in 2022. She kept her head down for a few years and put together one of the quietest dominant runs in the sport.

A short version of the last two seasons:

• 2023: 4th at the Short Trail World Championships
• 2025: Won Broken Arrow 46K (course record). Won Speedgoat 50K (course record), becoming the first woman to break six hours on a course that’s been called the toughest 50K in the United States; she also broke Anita Ortiz’s record from 2008
• February 2026: Won Black Canyon 100K in 7:57:05 — first woman ever to go sub-8 on the course, and a roughly 20-minute course record over Riley Brady’s 2025 mark. She finished ninth overall.
• April 2026: Won Gorge Waterfalls 50K (course record)
• June 2026: Won Western States 100 in 15:28:05 (course record, 100-mile debut)

She has now won her last four races and set a course record at every one.

A move to Nike ACG

This year Lichter joined the Nike ACG (All Conditions Gear) trail roster. Nike’s trail program has been on a sharp climb — Caleb Olson won the 2025 Western States in a Nike ACG prototype, and on Saturday Lichter and runner-up Riley Brady both wore unreleased Nike ACG builds. That’s two straight women’s course records and back-to-back men’s-and-women’s wins for a program that, a few years ago, barely existed at the elite level.

Her other partners include Tailwind Nutrition, Suunto, and Spring Energy.

Why the Western States result wasn’t actually a surprise

In the lead-up to Saturday, the conversation around the women’s race centered on more familiar names — defending champion Abby Hall, Marianne Hogan, Fuzhao Xiang. Lichter sat just under the headlines, in the “deep threat in her debut” tier. Her Black Canyon time was the loudest signal. The way she had been racing in 2025 was the next one.

In her pre-race interview with iRunFar, Lichter said she planned to run her own race, settle into an effort she felt she could carry all day, and not chase whoever was in front of her. That is exactly what she did at Western States. She let Brady lead through the canyons, kept the gap close at Rucky Chucky, and ran her plan home.

What’s next

Lichter, by her own admission, is still figuring out her racing calendar at the longer distances. UTMB in late August is the obvious next question — she has not confirmed whether she’ll race it. But she has now won every mountain race she has entered for two seasons running, broken two of the most prized women’s course records in the sport in the span of four months, and joined the very short list of athletes who can credibly be called the present and future of women’s trail ultrarunning.

For a 30-year-old who didn’t start running ultras until her late twenties, that’s a steep ascent. For her, based on how she races, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly emotional one. She runs her own pace. The rest of the field is starting to figure out that they have to chase it.