Last week, I saw a post that I knew I had to write about. For elite ultrarunners, being faster, better, breaking their Personal Best records are always the first things in their minds. For these speed demons, running top races like UTMB, Hard Rock and Western States are dreams. These runners eat and sleep getting into these races.
This particular elite runner stated something along the lines of: every ultrarunner wants to run Western States.
But is this true?
I don’t think it is. There are those of us who know we’ll never, ever qualify. And even if by sheer luck we do, would we even make the extremely strict cutoffs? Will we Back of the Packers, ever be able to keep up with the Speedsters? Will we make time on those steep inclines, or along the heat-drenched trails heading into Auburn? And is this something that keeps us up at night? Do we think about at all?
I personally don’t spend time thinking about getting into Western States. And, weirdly enough, I’ve never had the desire to run it. It’s fun to hear about other runners getting in and running it though, as it’s their dream. I always get excited about hearing of friends who are able to achieve such a difficult feat.
Every runner has different goals and dream races. If your ultimate goal is to get in, run AND finish Western States, I hope you achieve that wonderful accomplishment. Don’t feel bad if it isn’t though. Some of us are just trying to keep running no matter what race we’ve entered.