Greater than 2,500 runners, together with a deep elite subject, are gearing up for an exciting weekend at Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB in Auburn, Calif. Racers within the 100K occasion will traverse over elements of the Western States 100 (WSER) course in what can be the ultimate Golden Ticket race of the spring, with the highest two finishers within the males’s and girls’s classes incomes automated entry into the 2024 version of WSER, to be held on June 29. Right here’s what you’ll want to know to tune in and who (and the way) to comply with.
Steep climbs and large stakes
The 100K 2024 Canyons course is a brand new route (after heavy snowfall in 2023 and fires in 2022 brought about harm to the earlier course) and will probably be run within the reverse path (the race alternates instructions yearly, much like Hardrock 100). The course has runners climbing 3,962 metres over the 100K distance, however is a web downhill (much like WSER).
Canyons hosts a 25K, 50K and 100-miler together with the 100K marquee occasion and can be the UTMB World Collection Americas Main. The highest 10 finishers for women and men in all occasions obtain automated entry into the UTMB World Collection Finals race (100-mile UTMB, 100K CCC, or 50K OCC) in August in Chamonix, France. All race finishers will earn double factors, or “operating stones,” heading into the 2025 UTMB lottery. With prime age groupers additionally incomes entry, there’s a grand whole of 210 automated entries to be captured over this weekend’s occasions.
Ladies’s 100K race
American runner Katie Schide, who lives and trains in France, is the race favorite after taking second at WSER in 2023, and following that with a win on the Diagonale des Fous 100-miler. (Schide received UTMB in 2022.) Whereas her prime 10 end in 2023 has already earned her a spot in WSER this yr, she’ll nonetheless be gunning for that podium. Schide will probably be lining up in opposition to Riley Brady, who took second on the 2022 Javelina Jundred 100-miler. Fellow American Addie Bracy (fifth at 2023 Canyons 100K) joins them, together with Canada’s Arden Younger, who took second on the San Tan Scramble 50K in Arizona in January, and was eleventh within the 50K race at Black Canyon Ultras in February.
Males’s 100K race
The 2022 winner of WSER (in his 100-mile debut), Adam Peterman, is making a return to racing after coping with a pelvic stress fracture all through a lot of 2023, and can see some fierce competitors in Sweden’s Petter Engdahl, who received CCC (100K) by UTMB in 2022 and Eiger Extremely-Path by UTMB in 2023. U.S. runners Matt Daniels (fourth at WSER in 2019 and ninth, in a tricky race at Canyons 100K in 2023) and Drew Holmen (fifth at CCC in 2023) will even be prime contenders.
You’ll be able to try the Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB 100K livestream, beginning on Saturday, April 27, 8:00 a.m. ET, by clicking right here.
