My routine hasn’t varied much over the past few years. Once another Western States has been put to bed and those who have worked so hard in putting on the race have all hugged one last time, I take one final look over my...
Articles by John Trent
On the climb out of Robinson Flat, a little after 30 miles into the Western States Endurance Run, you can usually spot those who will finish and those who will not.What usually matters is the look in their eyes. Some loo...
He was just like any other first-time, 100-mile runner. The adventure of soaring into the unknown and testing one’s limits had come crashing down a little past the halfway point. Fifty-five miles into the Mountain Lakes...
There was only one thing left for Maggie Guterl to do, and that was to run.She was wrapped up in the middle of a strange gathering of runners in someone’s backyard. To call it a competition several months later, now that...
2019 will always be remembered as one of the watershed years in our sport. New records and standards of performance were established at some of our most enduring events (Jim Walmsley’s course record at Western States) by...
When you get old, you lose things. From your dreams of youth to the passing of friends you haven’t seen in decades, each day you grow older can be a gentle or a stark reminder of what you once were. As I stood on the sta...
Prior to the start of the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run, before the headlamps of 300 starters quietly snaked their way up the mountainside at East Mountain Wilderness Park in Kaysville, Utah, I left our group stan...
He lived in Leadville during that long-ago summer of 2009, out of the back of his white Chevy S-10 pickup, which he affectionately called, “The Roost.”Anton Krupicka was focused on a simple task: run faster than anyone h...
The alignment seems almost uncanny, now that Andrea Abel has finished the Western States Endurance Run.Her late husband, Jeff, ran Western States in 2005 and finished in 29:24. Andrea finished this year in 29:27.Jeff fin...
Even if it was cool by Western States standards, the compelling severity of what lay before him was on the mind of Jim Walmsley as he walked slowly to the start of his fourth Western States Endurance Run.Talk in the days...
We all face crucial decisions throughout our lives. The one facing Nikki Kimball last fall was the most important she would ever make regarding her running.A left tibia injury from a snowshoe race in 2016 had escalated d...
In the summer of 2018 near his home in Mammoth Lakes, California, Tim Tollefson had been preparing with uncommon focus for the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) in Chamonix, France.After finishing third in both of his pre...
It was close to 100 degrees as we neared the bottom of the Tongue River Canyon. Tongue River Road led us toward Scott Park and the finish line in Dayton, Wyoming. It was a long, flat stretch of dirt road surrounded by fi...
Devon Yanko was racing for victory at the Leadville 100 on Aug. 19, 2017. Each mile that day was about stepping outside her competitive cocoon. She would later write in her blog, “I savored the moment. I ran this race in...
Diana Fitzpatrick has run many races, including qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials three times, finishing among the top 10 women twice at the Western States Endurance Run, and outright winning the le...
Beginning with my DNF at mile 85 of the Wasatch Front 100-miler in September 2017, the Wasatch Front has inhabited my mind in the most obsessive of ways. I was haunted by my experience because I loved so much about it...
Coree Woltering is the first one to admit that his journey in becoming a professional ultrarunner has been unlikely. “I guess as a kid you do on occasion think about being a professional athlete,” says the 28-year-old...
The small wood table of broken dreams sits not far from the 78-mile checkpoint on the course of the Western States Endurance Run. There is a step-over for horses at a pole gate nearby, and as you pass by the quiet of...
Every ultra community has its leader, and ours was Roland Martin. If you look up Roland’s name on Ultrasignup, you will see results that reach back to the early 1980s. You will see a Western States Endurance Run finis...
I was bruised, battered and beyond help as my pacer and I stumbled into the Pot Hollow aid station at mile 84.7 of September’s Wasatch 100-miler in Utah. For several hours, I’d been tilting far to my left, like a buil...