Quest for WS

     The crowd at placer high school was abuzz on December 7th, 2019. The auditorium was filled with hundreds of semi-locals, many of whom hoped their name would be on one of 269 tickets pulled from a drum containing more than 25,000. For most people, odds were stiff, but for some, being selected to run the Western States 100 was a near certainty. When the first of nine 8-year applicants was called, the crowd exploded with excitement. Anytime someone in the audience was called, the crowd lit up, but we all had empathy for the 8-year applicants. To be an 8-year applicant, runners have to run a hard 100k or 100 miler to qualify, enter the lottery, be rejected from the lottery, and then repeat the process for seven more years. For first-year applicants, odds are horrendous (this year about 1.2%), but every year runners enter and aren’t selected, their odds double. If at any point, however, they fail to run a qualifier on some calendar year, or forget to enter the lott...

     The Sean O’Brien 100k is really freaking tough. There’s 13,000 feet of elevation gain, and you only have 16 hours to complete it—that’s no joke. But the thing is, ultra marathon runners are tough people. They know what they’re getting themselves into, and most of Sean O’Brien’s competitors have run longer and harder races before. Due to a variety of unseen factors, however, the race is a DNF machine, sending dozens of experienced ultrarunners back to the start/finish area without a finisher’s medal to take home. It’s not the course or the time cutoff that makes this race so challenging, however, but the unusual ease of quitting that doesn’t exist at the majority of ultra marathons. It possesses a remarkable ability to get in your head, and every year dozens of runners allow it to do just that.        For starters, the race dangles the finish line and your accompanying car (and hence food, shower, hotel) in front of your face at a variety of...

     There’s something special about the Western States 100. It’s hard to describe, but the best simplification I can come up with is that it’s humanity at its finest. Sure, it’s just an arbitrary competition, but in the big picture it’s more than that. It’s 369 people attempting to do something incredibly hard and thousands of surrounding people offering them help doing it. It’s a welcome summer day of excitement, positivity and a massive amount of human kindness, and for the past four years it’s been my favorite day of the year.   The first time I went to the race was in 2016. That year, I talked my mom into driving out to the small town of Foresthill for the afternoon—62 miles into the race. We watched Jim Walmsley fly by at a pace that was unprecedented for a person trying to run 100 miles in the mountains. We followed him to the river (mile 78) and watched with panic as it swept him 20 meters away from the crossing before he safely reached the othe...

Kia Ora friends and family! This weekend marked a relatively special day for me. When April 23rd rolled around, I turned 21 years old. Legally, it’s not a particularly important birthday here in New Zealand, where the drinking age is 18, but it is heavily celebrated (probably due to that pesky American influence). On the day, I was in the middle of a bit of vacation up on the North Island with some friends, and frankly I’m not into raging as much as some of my other peers, so the night consisted primarily of a few casual drinks and good chat.   I was also reminded that I first arrived in New Zealand on January 22nd, meaning that I’d just surpassed three months in this incredible country. During that time, I’ve visited almost all of the major cities in New Zealand, traveled to and completed some epic tramps, and explored the heck out of every trail I could get to from my front door. It’s all been amazing.   Still, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows all the time (...

     It was several months ago that I applied to spend a year studying in New Zealand. I knew I wanted to study abroad and eventually chose New Zealand due to its beautiful scenery, adventurous spirit, and small population of humans. I had initially intended to apply for a trip back to China (feeling like I should make use of my rusty Mandarin skills), before finally deciding that I wasn't keen to spend a year in a major metropolitan area. So, after many google searches and youtube videos watched, I knew whole heartedly that New Zealand was the place I wanted to spend my next year. Specifically, I settled on the South Island city of Dunedin—a moderately sized city featuring beaches and mountains, and cooler weather than I'm used to.    When I finally was accepted into the program about five months prior to my departure, I was always reluctant to share the details of the trip with friends and family. Even though I committed, there were many things I was uncertai...

           44 years ago a young man named Gordy Ainsleigh showed up to a horse race without a horse. It wasn’t the sort of horse race you might see on TV, though. It was an endurance ride called the Tevis cup. It spanned 100 miles in distance from the alpine location of Squaw Valley to the small city of Auburn. Gordy wanted to participate, but his horse was lame, and after a few calculations he decided he could do what had never been done before—he ran 100 miles from Squaw Valley to Auburn.   44 years later, Gordy’s accomplishment has blossomed into a spectacle. Every year, 369 people are granted entry to run the Western States 100, following a similar route to the one Gordy ran back in 1974. Of those 369, a few are given to sponsors of the race, some are given to elite runners who qualify in a more technical manner, some are given to folks with special considerations and one spot is reserved for number 0, Gordy Ainsleigh, who continues to atte...

     As soon as my alarm went off at 4:30 AM on Saturday I knew I was going to run 63 miles that day. The longest run I'd done in the past 6 months was 20 miles—just over 3 hours—but I was healthy. No fever, no chills, no overuse injuries clawing at my legs. The first few steps I was going to run would be filled with nothing but excitement.    After a long stretch of injuries herself, the famed kiwi mountain runner Anna Frost once said she believed getting to the start line healthy was half the battle. For months, this was my goal. Back in February I attempted to qualify for the Western States 100 at the Sean  O'Brien 100k. Training had gone perfectly for months. I ran a 50k PR leading up to the race and hit my all time mileage high of 90 miles in one week, but with 4 weeks before the race I started to develop a creaky pain in my Achilles tendon. On top of that, with just 5 days before the start I got the flu. The night before the race my Achilles tendon h...