Pacing Western States Endurance Run
Some of our favorite races aren't even ours. This is one of those. If you don't follow ultrarunning, here's what you need to know about Western States: it's the oldest 100-mile trail race in the country, and depending on who you ask, the most famous. The whole thing traces back to 1974, when a guy named Gordy Ainsleigh decided that if his horse couldn't finish the Tevis Cup, a 100-mile horse race through the Sierra Nevada, he'd just do the course himself, on foot, in under 24 hours. He did it. A few years later Western States became its own official footrace, same route, same punishing climbs and canyons, minus the horse. It's been breaking people in the best way ever since. These days it's also, famously, almost impossible to get into. Western States runs on a lottery, and the lottery is its own small ecosystem of hope and math. You have to requalify every single year just to throw your name in, one qualifying race, one qualifying time, no exceptions. A...