Western States
After waiting a decade, I got to run America's most prestigious ultramarathon
I’m Tim Gorichanaz, and this is Ports, a newsletter about design and ethics. This week, something different. Not only is it late, but it’s not about design or ethics. Back to our regularly scheduled programming this Friday.
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.―Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings
You spend 10 years waiting for something, anticipating it, working toward it, and you can’t help but picture it. You picture something for 10 years, and you want it to be perfect. You can see it in your mind: perfect.
When it finally comes, of course it’s not perfect.
The Western States Endurance Run is the crown jewel of American ultrarunning. The 100-mile race starts in the high country near Lake Tahoe and ends 100 miles to the southwest in Auburn, Calif., on the high school track. It’s the de facto championship for elite trail ultrarunners, and it also attracts the everyman ultrarunner, like your humble author.
I first qualified1 for Western States when I ran my first 100-mile race in 2015. Every year since, I have watched the lottery live on the first Saturday of December. Afterwards I always searched the list of entrants just in case I somehow missed my name. But my name was never on the list. Until this year.
In December 2024, I knew that with 256 tickets I was virtually certain to get drawn in the lottery, unless God was truly cruel.
Still, I was a little uneasy. By that time my ankle had been injured for a month after my last race, making me unable to run more than a few miles, with no sign of things getting better—which had me thinking that God was truly cruel.
My name came up—relief and hope. Time to train, except first I had to wait for my ankle to heal.
But things got worse. 2025 turned out to be the year of sickness and death. In January, a relative was diagnosed with stage-four tongue cancer. In April, a friend died after enduring eighteen months of brain cancer. In May, my grandmother went into hospice. That same week I met up with a dear old friend from college, and the first thing he told me was that his business partner died suddenly of a heart attack two days before. He wasn’t much older than us. A week later the mother of another friend died.
I had never experienced anything like this before. It wasn’t me who was sick or dying, and I couldn’t do anything about all these people, but it weighed on me all the same.
Meanwhile, my ankle healed gradually. But then one Saturday I set out for a 10-mile run, and three miles into it my other ankle locked up and I couldn’t run a single step without excruciating pain. I had to call for a ride home.
It was an ankle impingement; and like many injuries, it came out of nowhere and happened in an instant, but would take weeks to heal.
I couldn’t run, so I spent my running time in the pool and on the elliptical as Western States approached.
Long story short, by the first week of April I could run again. Tentatively I increased my mileage. By May I started going to the trails for practice. I was able to get in 50+ miles a week plus stairclimber and decline training on the treadmill. But no speedwork, and no runs over 20 miles.
Then—because of course—I got covid in early June. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to make me bail 20 minutes into what was supposed to be a four-hour training run in my peak week before tapering. I backed off and took a rest day instead.
It was not going to be anywhere close to perfect, but it had to be enough. Because if I DNF’d at Western, I might have to wait another decade to try again. Jesus take the wheel.
Before the Race
In the months before the race, I asked my friend Carter if he’d pace me (yes!) and assembled my crew: my husband, mom and sister and two family runner friends, as well as Carter’s wife. We had a veritable squad, and we booked a lodge near Lake Tahoe, close to the start.
In the weeks before the race, the people from Gorewear reached out to see if I’d be interested in a small sponsorship opportunity. They would send me gear to wear during the race in exchange for some media. I agreed, which gave me the chance to share my journey to Western with a wider audience.
In the days before the race, I planned out my drop bag strategy. I had drop bags at miles 30 (after the high country), 62 (before nightfall) and 78 (after the river crossing).
I also decided to take part in a doctoral research study out of Loughborough University looking at the effects of heat on endurance athletes. That involved a pre-race questionnaire, short mid-race questionnaires, and urine samples both before and after the race. And the most fun part: at the start of the race I would swallow a temperature sensor pill that would record my internal temperature roughly every minute, and the researchers would read that data with a bluetooth device after the race.
The Race
Western States begins at 5 a.m. in the high country with a four-mile uphill march to an escarpment, peaking at an elevation of 8,750 feet. Some years there’s snow, but this year thankfully there wasn’t.
I had never run at altitude before, despite the race’s guidance that “participants should make a reasonable effort to run as much of the trail as possible before Run Day.” (In my perfect visions of Western States over the years, I always thought I would go out for the training camp at the end of May. But when push came to shove, the travel was too expensive and I didn’t want to risk getting injured again by putting in so much mileage.)
If I had run at altitude before, I would have known the feeling. I learned it soon enough: heavy legs, never quite enough breath, quick fatigue. I ran as if wading through sludge, enjoying the beauty as much as I could while looking forward to mile 40, the official end of the high country.
My A-goal for Western was to finish in under 24 hours, as I had with my last two 100-mile races. Despite my lack of training, I thought I could do it. The race was a net downhill, I kept telling myself. No big climbs after the halfway point. I was running as hard as I dared so early into such a long event, one eye always on my ankles praying they would let me keep going as long as I needed to. So far so good.
Soon I came to the mile 10 aid station. I looked at the clock and—to my shock—I was nowhere near the 24-hour pace. I was actually only a few minutes ahead of the 30-hour pace. And the race had a 30-hour cutoff. If I slipped, eventually I would risk getting cut from the race. (It had happened before—twice.)
This pattern continued for the next few aid stations, and I realized a sub-24-hour finish was not going to be within reach. So just finishing was my new goal.
But my legs were heavy, always moving slower than I tried to make them go—and so early into the race—and I didn’t have the margin to slow down much.
That said, the aid stations at Western States were wonderful and lived up to the lore. At every aid station I was greeted by a volunteer who was my personal concierge for the aid station, helping me and bringing whatever I needed. For the most part, that was just a water refill and a quick graze of the food table.
I am a strong climber, and on the long ascents I passed some people. But then on the downhills, many more people passed me. I was the slow salmon in the river, I was the fish who gets caught by the bear.
Back on the flight to California, I read a book about the sociology of endurance running, and I learned about a visualization technique used by the Rarámuri, the indigenous running people of northern Mexico: picture the ground running beneath you, rather than your feet pushing down on the ground. “If they could imagine that it was the world’s energies that were being used rather than their own, they could get to a point where ‘the running is just happening; whether the world is doing it or you are doing it is of no importance.’” I pictured that—the running was just happening, it was actually the ground moving, not my legs. It was similar to one of my favorite visualizations for going uphill (I don’t know if I got it from somewhere or just made it up): imagining I’m riding an escalator. Easy!
I’ll share another one of my learnings, which has become a mantra for me: no conclusions climbing. Climbing is often miserable, and it’s easy to jump to conclusions. I will fail, I should drop out at the next aid station, there’s no way I can make it to the end, it’s too hot, I’m going to get hurt, why am I doing this anyway? But I’ve learned over the years that, without fail, once the climbing lets up, even a little, those thoughts go away. It gets better. So never draw conclusions when you’re climbing. (I think this translates to other realms of life: for instance, don’t trust your antipathies when you’re in the middle of an argument.)
My crew was waiting for me at Robinson Flat, the mile 30 aid station, and as always it was uplifting to see everyone.
I changed out of my high-country gear to get ready for the next phase of the race: the hot canyons. I put on my desert cap and new t-shirt. I had arm sleeves and a bandana to fill with ice. I changed socks. Let’s go.
For the rest of the day I executed my heat management strategy: wear as much ice as possible and stay wet. I kept ice in my bandana, sleeves and cap, and I filled my flasks with ice water as often as possible. Fortunately the aid stations in this stretch were pretty close together, about every five miles. Though the temperature reached 99 degrees, I never felt hot. The ice always lasted nearly till the next aid station.
There were problems, though. For example, my right ear got blocked up at some point in the afternoon, and when I got annoyed with it enough to try to clear it (plug your nose and blow hard), I blocked up the other one. I could still sort of hear, but it was like listening through a tin wall, but I could hear myself breathing and swallowing really loud. It quickly grated on me—and worried me a little.
I moved as fast as I could, running the flats and downhills and hiking the uphills. There was a lot of uphill. Devil’s Thumb especially—a section where you climb over 1,500 feet in about a mile, hit the mile 48 aid station and then descend 2,500 feet.
After Devil’s Thumb, my legs were shot and I had to mostly walk. I know from experience that when the ability to run goes, it may come back later, so I didn’t get into my head about it. I figured I’d go as fast as I could, whatever that meant for any given stretch.
It was getting dark, the dust now lightly obscuring the trail. Originally I had planned to pick up my lights at mile 62, which should have been comfortable enough if I was going my goal pace. For some reason, I had made a last-second decision the day before to bring a headlamp to the start and hang onto it all day. It turned out I didn’t actually need it in the morning, but I was glad to have it now. I didn’t reach mile 62 till well after dark.
At mile 56, Michigan Bluff, I got a pleasant surprise: Carter, my friend and pacer. I had planned to pick him up at mile 62, when pacers are allowed to start. But there’s a proviso for slowpokes: After 8 p.m., pacers can start at Michigan Bluff. And it was after 8 now. My crew had the flexibility and foresight to realize I could probably use his help, and they met me at Michigan Bluff.
I wasn’t doing great. At that point I hadn’t peed in 3–4 hours despite drinking plenty. My belly sloshed with water. These are some of the early warning signs of serious problems. I imagined myself getting pulled from the race because of rhabdo. I didn’t want that to happen. But I also didn’t want to not give it my all. I was nervous.
Besides that, my ears were still blocked up. This made talking annoying, but still it was good to have the company. It’s always amazing in ultrarunning how a small thing—a new shirt, a friend—can lift your spirits so much. We set out into the night, carefully, slowly for now.
Finally I had to pee, and I was grateful to see it wasn’t dark brown.
When we got to mile 62, Foresthill, I dropped off my hat and arm sleeves and changed socks again, and then we carried on. We were mostly out of the canyons now, and the rest of the race had no more long climbs but lots of little ones.
By a little after 3 in the morning we made it to the river crossing at mile 78—a fork of the American River—which took three-and-a-half minutes to cross by hanging onto a rope and following the volunteers’ stepping instructions (my river crossing was captured on the race’s livestream). At the deepest point the water came up to my ribcage.
Having learned my lesson at Eastern States—chafing, chafing, chafing—I decided to change not only shoes but also shorts after the river crossing. I also dropped my pack and switched to a belt and handheld water bottle. It took a lot of time—somehow nearly half an hour. I had hoped the refresh from the change would help me go faster, but in retrospect not so much. Next time, I probably wouldn’t bother changing anything.
As we went, I dreamt of taking a nap. Just a quick one. Anywhere, even in the dirt. But no—there wasn’t time, and it was too risky.
The short climbs felt longer and longer as the night went on. Carter and I talked about everything—life and death, marriage and religion, running and work. And of course there were long stretches of comfortable silence.
One of my ears eventually unblocked, but the other stayed blocked for the rest of the race. And the heat stayed, despite my hopes that it would let up overnight. Side stitches came and went, as did the nausea. At one of the aid stations a volunteer gave me papaya extract and Tums, which helped a lot, but only for a few hours.
I was looking forward to the sunrise because I had experienced in previous races a deep renewal in the dawnlight—somehow feeling like I had just set out, not that I’d been running all night.
But today dawn came and I only felt more tired. I was feeling disoriented, too. At some points my vision started to wobble. And of course there was still the side stitches and nausea. I knew what I had to do: I kept eating, even though I didn’t want to, and I kept taking electrolyte tablets and caffeine pills and drinking as much as I could.
Meanwhile Carter and I were worrying about hitting the cutoffs at each aid station. I was slowing down, and Carter helped me keep as quick a pace as possible using his GPS watch. We learned that brisk walking was actually faster than my trying to run—and not to mention more economical.
When a race is going poorly, I always look forward to the point where my trail math shows I could do 25-minute miles and still finish within the cutoffs—that gives me a sense of peace amidst the disappointment—but in this race that point didn’t come. The specter of the course sweeper was always on my tail.
I moved as quickly as I could—which wasn’t very fast—taking as little time at the aid stations as possible: refill my water, slam a Coke, eat a handful of anything and grab a gel for the road.
The two wristbands I was wearing—one my ID, and the other a note not to give me an MRI because of the temperature pill I’d swallowed—which were annoying from the start (I hate wearing things on my wrist), were now a thorn in my side.
The downhills became more and more painful. I kept waiting for my ability to run to come back, but it never did.
The climbs weren’t any easier. I had done myself a disservice by thinking of the climb up to Michigan Bluff as the “last climb” of the course, because there were many subsequent climbs, including what felt like an interminable climb for the final few miles. Somewhere around mile 97, my family found me and Carter on the trail—a nice between-aid interlude and pick-me-up.
Relief came when we reached Robie Point, the mile 99 aid station. This was the end of the trail and the beginning of the road—though not quite the end of the last hill. But I was relieved all the same because we reached Robie Point at 10 a.m., meaning we had a full hour to make the last mile. That came out of nowhere. Apparently we had made up enough time over the previous two manic, disorienting aid stations.
I had imagined that once I hit the final mile, my legs would loosen up and I’d be able to run till the end. That kind of thing does happen. But not today. My legs were shot, and I was basically hobbling. The streets of Auburn were full of good cheer and several sprinklers, and though my body was broken my spirits were high. Several people congratulated me.
“Not yet,” Carter said. “Don’t let that get to your head.” Tears were starting to come.
The long last climb continued. When would it end? “Wouldn’t it be funny if the high school is called Hilltop High and we just never noticed?” Carter said.
Then finally: a little triangle of red between the green of the trees ahead—the high school track which marked the end of the race.
The rest is a blur. I came onto the track, had trouble figuring out which way to go, then followed lane two. The track was lined by cheering crowds. I gave many high-fives. And then there was the finish line, the clock showing 29:20-something, and then I crossed it and finally could stop.
I got all my finisher’s stuff—medal, two shirts, towel—and then was swept into the area set up for the heat research study. Time to pee in a cup.
But first my family and crew came to me, and we hugged and talked for a bit. Then I went to the research tent, peed and filled out the questionnaire and got my temperature data read from the pill that was working its way through my intestines.
And then I found a shady spot to lie down.
Coda
You spend 10 years waiting for something, anticipating it, working toward it, and you can’t help but picture it. You picture something for 10 years, and you want it to be perfect. And when it finally comes, it may not be how you pictured it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not perfect.
Things had not gone according to plan at all.
But I fought hard, I got to spend the night running with a friend, I learned a lot about my body, and I got to experience the fabled Golden Hour of Western States firsthand.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get to run Western States again, but I got to do it once. And in retrospect, I wouldn’t change a thing. That, I think, is the definition of perfect.
The race is able to accommodate 369 runners total, including elite and sponsored athletes. 250 runners (or a few more if others drop out) come from the lottery. To enter the lottery, you must first run a qualifying race in the previous year. Each year you qualify but don’t get picked in the lottery, you have double the lottery tickets next time you enter. You used to have to do this in consecutive years for your count to increase, but they recently changed it to allow for breaks. For the 2025 race, I had 256 tickets, representing 9 years of entries (in my case consecutive).