Hot weather and the snow, mud, and water remnants of a 100-year winter event in California’s Sierra Nevada worked together to create difficult racing conditions for the 2017 Western States 100.
It was in those conditions that South Africa’s Ryan Sandes and the USA’s Cat Bradley won. This was Sandes’s fifth shot at the race, and it improves upon his previous second place, fifth place, DNS, and DNF. And Bradley’s win represents a breakout performance among a super-competitive field in her first go at the event.
Top finishers in both the men’s and women’s fields are the runners who seemed to tolerate the conditions and race with a self-preservational style. Alex Nichols and Mark Hammond represented the rest of the men’s podium, while Magdalena Boulet and Sabrina Stanley made up the balance of the women’s.
A special thanks to Drymax for making our coverage of the Western States 100 possible!
Thanks also to Altra and GU Energy for their support of our Western States coverage.
As usual, we’ll be updating this article with additional results as well as links to race-related articles, photo galleries, and race reports. Check back.
2017 Western States 100 Men’s Race
Just 3.5 miles into the 2017 Western States 100, over the race’s high point at 8,713 feet, Jim Walmsley (pre-race interview) led the entire men’s field by seven minutes, making a straightaway statement that he, indeed, would try to carry out his pre-race plans of racing these 100 miles aggressively. The next time that the iRunFar team saw Walmsley, atop Red Star Ridge 15 miles into the race, he’d grown his lead to 18.5 minutes. By all descriptions these 15 miles of trail contained the remnants of the region’s 100-year winter of snow, mud, running water, downed trees, and obliterated trail surfaces. It was conditions which slowed the rest of the field considerably—from the front to the back of the pack—but conditions which Walmsley most certainly pushed through.
From here to mile 56, at Michigan Bluff, Walmsley significantly increased his gap on the rest of the field. Here it is in numbers: at mile 24 he was 30 minutes up on the field, 37 minutes at mile 30, 40 minutes at mile 38, 38 minutes at mile 43, 47.5 minutes at 48 miles, and 56 minutes at mile 55. Each time that we saw him during this stretch, he looked pretty darn solid to us. That said, looking back on how Walmsley’s day would ultimately play out, perhaps there was at least one clue that things weren’t quite perfect. At mile 38 in the Dusty Corners aid station, Walmsley spent a full 4.5 minutes. A couple of those minutes went similarly to the other lead men—where he spent time dousing himself with water and ice and hydrating—but he also spent a couple minutes stretching, talking about “resetting,” and kind of just standing there.
At mile 62 in Foresthill, Walmsley’s gap over the rest of the field began to decrease. Even worse, his crew would later report that he vomited there. Mile 71, about halfway between Foresthill and the river crossing along the infamous Cal Street, Walmsley reported stomach issues again. The heat of the day was at this point on, with temperature reports of 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Michigan Bluff and the mid-90s in Foresthill, what amounts to just a bit above normal for this region. Between there and the river, Walmsley’s race fully fell apart and he ended up laying on the ground and in the shade. He’d eventually make it to the river crossing at mile 78 and drop, citing that he hadn’t been able to eat in hours. It was thusly gastrointestinal distress—a common ultrarunning ailment especially in long races with hot temperatures when the stomach fails to digest at normal rates due to blood shunting from the stomach to the extremities to help cool the body—that appears to have ended Walmsley’s day.
Read more: 2017 Westerns States 100 Results | irunfar.com
2017 Western States 100 Women’s Race
It is safe to say that the 2017 Western States 100 women’s race was highly anticipated. Three previous champions, some more world-class talent, and a boat-load of up-and-comers among the entrants list made all of us talk about the potential of a race for the ages. Add in heavy doses of high-country madness via reportedly soul-and-shoe sucking snow, mud, and water as well as the usual heat ingredient and, when all was said and done and the ladies connected the dots between #seeyouinquaw and #seeyouinauburn, actuality equaled hype. I realize I’m a woman and probably biased in my interest of women’s races, but holy hell the women’s race!
Amidst the insanity of Jim Walmsley’s early gap on the men’s field, I failed to notice the significant early stamp that Switzerland’s Andrea Huser was making on the women’s race, after initial leader Camille Herron (pre-race interview) quickly succumbed to the high-country’s snow and mud. When we first saw Huser at mile 15 along Red Star Ridge, she was a full seven minutes in front of all the other women, what amounts to an effort at nearly 30 seconds per mile faster than the rest of the field. Whoa. Some 15 miles later, at the mile 30 Robinson Flat aid station, Huser remained seven minutes ahead, holding steady. Everything changed, though, at mile 38, when YiOu Wang (pre-race interview) cruised in, leading the women’s field, having sliced through all of Huser’s lead and gapped her by more than 1.5 minutes. At this point, Huser began to continuously slip back in the women’s field.
Let us thus move on to phase two of the women’s race for the win, where Wang led and was closely chased by several other women. Each time we saw the women at miles 43, 48, 56, and 62, Wang was ahead, but it was close—a few minutes here and there separated her from her chasers. At Foresthill, mile 62, Cat Bradley (finish-line and post-race interviews) was second just seconds behind. Nonetheless, Wang looked rock solid as she headed down Cal Street after Foresthill. All of this would change in just a few short miles as she would—like men’s leader Jim Walmsley—come to a full stop on the ground. Wang experienced some serious health issues that she would describe later on social media as numbness and hyperventilation. A lot of time passed (during, as we understand it, she was observed by the race’s medical team) before she’d get up, walk to the Peachstone aid station at mile 71, and withdraw from the race.
Phase three of the race for the women’s lead began on the trail before Peachstone, as Bradley—who had been closely lurking at mile 62—took over leadership of the race. Simply said, she ran from there untouched by any other woman for the race’s final 30 miles. That’s not to say that she didn’t feel pressure from behind, as she said after the race that she definitely ran faster because she knew strong women were running swiftly behind her. Though some women may have been trying to hunt her down, she only increased her lead over them. When Bradley passed a soon-to-DNF Wang between miles 66 and 70, the former was 13 minutes ahead of the next woman still chasing her. After that, she led by nine minutes as mile 78, 12 minutes at mile 80, 13 minutes at mile 85, 12 minutes at mile 94, 15 minutes at mile 97, and 18 minutes at the finish. Bradley closed out phase three in the race for the win as the women’s champion in, undoubtedly, a huge breakout performance.