Fire and Ice at Western States

I’m back home from an absolute epic trip to the Alps where I ran my longtime dream race, Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120K in the Italian Dolomites. It was my Valhalla and will deserve its own post – forthcoming! In past years I followed Western States from afar – due to the media hype around it – but was dreaming of running Lavaredo. I, and I’m not alone in this, often wondered how this craziest of all trail running weekends creates these competing storylines that end up drowning each other out. But that too is a story for another time. What I am trying to say though is this: Sitting in Cortina, Italy with 6,000 other runners no one talked about Western States, or Marathon du Mont Blanc for that matter. One of these races generates enough gravitational pull that it’s enough to keep on entertained and focused. But of course, I am part of several online chat groups, follow along on social media, listen to podcasts and two of my favorite runners, Hannes Namberger and Rosanna Buchauer were running Western States that of course was aware of what was going down several thousand kilometers away in the Canyons along the American River outside of Auburn California. So here are a couple of my hot takes coming from this most important weekend of trail running (for Americans).

Heat and Ice

Success at Western States seems to be all about heat management. And forced by climate change heat will become even more of an issue in the coming years. I have not looked at historical graphs to see how the temperatures on race stay have changed, but for runners gunning for a podium it’s seems to be all about this one issue. Heat training leading up to the race, specialized clothing that’s breathable and can hold ice to cool your body, and a huge crew that can manage the ice baths and bottle exchanges at every aid station pit stop style as if it’s a Formula One race.

The media likes to talk about historical performances every year but I wonder how much we can keep pushing the needle with just these advances in gear and endless bags of ice. Will our sport find itself in a place that the heat in the Canyons become too unbearable and the remedy might be moving the start time of the event to a time of day allowing runners to traverse the hottest part of the course during cooler temps of the day? Will there be a consideration for moving the event to a part of the year when cooler temps would allow for more reasonable temperatures on race day? (Is that even possible with the snow in the high country often lingering until late into June each year?) When will we see an attempt by a professional runner to traverse the 100 miles from Olympic Valley to Auburn outside of competition, but fully supported by their sponsor and crew, to “break an important threshold” – like the magical sub 2hrs or sub 4 min stunts we’ve been seeing in track and field? And if so, what is that magical number that would reset the clock and actually be an historical achievement?

Smack Talking and Media Hype

No individual athlete can be held responsible for the hype that’s created around them by the media. But these days the story lines we talk about in the media are often created by the athletes themselves via their own social media accounts. And people love these bold claims, the tall tales, and the smack talking ahead of a race. For many it seems more important and interesting than the actual race itself. But what’s the actual track record here from athletes being about to follow through on their own claims. Is this pressure the runners put on themselves actually good for their performance? Or are they buckling under the claims and expectations they’re created for themselves? Our sport isn’t boxing (where the results are often fixed). In order to really have a stand out day in ultra trail running one needs to manage countless variables, and even the most professional and best prepared can be easily sidelined by a single simple misstep. In other sports I don’t often see athletes speak with such hubris. The best of them approach the realities of what is ahead of them with respect. These are the athletes I want to follow and admire. These are the athletes that I think best represent our sport. Be confident – yes. But keep the hubris to yourself, it’s not a good look.

That Shirt

Winner of this year’s Western States was Caleb Olson. Sponsored by Nike’s ‘All Conditions Gear’ outdoor sub-brand Caleb wore such a crazy shirt that even Satisfy couldn’t claim copyright on. But it wasn’t the first unveiling of this special garment. Drew Holmen, also sponsored by Nike, wore the same shirt winning the Lavaredo Ultra Trail 80k on the same day.

Nutrition

No one has figured it out yet. Countless marketing dollars have been put into gels, drink mixes, and other magical elixirs promising performance enhancements and everlasting life. And still, the best runners with the most experience, and all the professional support have days on course where their stomachs are their achilles heel and their race ends in a fat disappointing DNF. Nutrition, something that seems to be within grasp to manage and control and get right. Maybe?

On a side note: Kilian Jornet has been seen jugging olive oil during his trip to the US. I haven’t been able to dive into the reasoning behind it, but I thought it’s worth pointing out that the last time we talked about olive oil was when Spring Energy re-released their Awesome Sauce of shame. Their new formula included olive oil and it was widely panned as a crude attempt by Spring to get their claimed numbers on their packaging in line with what was actually in their gel. Is Kilian inadvertently coming to Spring’s rescue here redeeming their decision to use this out-of-left-field ingredient in performance sports nutrition?

The Competition

Maybe it’s not out of the ordinary – I’ve not run the numbers – and maybe this too is driven by the increased media hype around Western States, but it sure ‘felt’ like this year a larger than usual percentage of elite runners didn’t make it to the starting line. One one side this is great news for folks on the waiting list and this year WS almost moved the entire waiting list, but on the other side it poses a challenge for the media to tell the right stories. We’ve went from an unprecedented and historic lineup to a pretty average one. Maybe that’s a bit unfair to the folks who actually ran the race and I am not passing judgement on them or their performance at all, I just wish we’d find richer vocabulary in our media to discuss these big event each year.

The Future

This year we saw for the first time the full vision that is meant to become (and most likely already is) “America’s biggest week in trail running. The 10 days between Broken Arrow and Western States with the new TrailCon sandwiched in between gave folks a glimpse of what the future of American trail running^(TM) is supposed to look like. I wasn’t there and am still gathering reports from others but it’s important to acknowledge that after years of feeling like America ran behind Europe, and probably even the rest of the world when it came to the commercialization and maybe even professionalization of the sport this week the BATCWS (Broken Arrow – TrailCon – Western States) partnership showed us a glimpse of what our current power players envision when they talk ‘trail running 2.0”. I am saying this all without any snark or sub text. American trail running might’ve been started at the end of a dirt road and defined itself to be “grassroots’ for a long time but that week American trail running’s new north star showed us something else.