Western States Endurance Run

The 2014 Western States Lottery was held on Saturday December 7, 2013 at the Placer High School Auditorium. Around 250-300 people braved the snow and ice to attend.

This year we had 127 automatic spots that were either designated pre-lottery or are reserved from the 400 total we will accept into the race.

• Top Ten 18 of the top ten men and women are returning
• Raffle 14 from previous two raffle drawings
• Race Admin 29 aid stations and other race administration roles
• Special Consideration 2
• Foreign Consideration 12 – We accepted 12 foreign entrants pre-lottery for global representation
• MUC 23 (out of 30) – There are five races where top three men and women can qualify. We are estimating that not all will be taken.
• UTWT 6 – Ultra-Trail World Tour spots for elite athletes
• Gordy 1 – The founder of the race from 1974
• Board of Trustees 3
• Tenth Finishes 4 – Andy Jones-Wilkins, Erik Skaden, John Nichols, Tom Green are all going for their 10th finish
• Sponsors 15

4307 Tickets Loaded into Barrel

We pulled 270 names from the barrel of 4307 tickets and 2704 unique names in front of the live audience. This is how many were chosen from each ticket group.

• 101 one ticket holders selected
• 78  two ticket holders
• 45 three ticket holders
• 27 four tickets holders
• 19 five ticket holders

We then did a special drawing from members in the audience for an additional 3 spots. These went to Deno Dean, Dawn Hitchcock, and Tina Frizner.

Here is the video of the Lottery from start to finish.

Here are the results of the Lottery in order drawn.

Congratulations to all accepted runners.

Next year’s lottery will be held on December 6, 2014 at Placer High School in Auburn.

Updated December 4, 2013 1:30 p.m. PST

The rapid growth in number of applicants for the WS lottery, continues. We currently have 2705 applicants entered in the December 7 lottery for the 41st running of the Western States Endurance Run on June 28-29, 2014.

As described on our lottery page, each runner who enters the lottery and fails to gain entry into the Run (and otherwise doesn’t gain an entry via other means such as an aid station, sponsor, or MUC spot) will have one additional name in the hat (for a total of two) when entering the lottery the following year, thus improving the probability of being selected. Every lottery applicant will receive an additional name in the hat for each consecutive failure to gain entry.

Here is the final list of applicants and their corresponding ticket counts and also the file of tickets that will get printed and placed in the barrel. Finally, here is the current list of accepted applicants in the race with a column denoting how they got it outside of the lottery.

Based on Monte Carlo Simulations, and a draw of 270 names, we have calculated the probabilities of being selected as follows:

The lottery will take place at the Placer HS auditorium. We will begin introductions a little before 9am and start drawing names right at 9 a.m. We expect to be done by 11 a.m. Note that there is no food or drink allowed in the auditorium (water ok).

As names are pulled from the hat, they will be posted at lottery.ultralive.net as close to real-time as possible. There will also be a live video feed.

The Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run was very pleased with the initial impact and excitement created by the formation of the Ultra-Trail World Tour in August. Today’s announcement in New York City further reinforces this point. The Tour has profound potential to generate collective interest and participation in the world’s finest trail runs.

Given this important juncture in the evolution of our sport, Western States feels that the Ultra-Trail World Tour provides the best and most sustainable framework for the sport’s future. With 10 international and North American events scheduled to begin in January, the Ultra-Trail World Tour will provide runners of all abilities an exciting vehicle to experience the world’s finest trail events, and will bring widespread attention to core values that all of these races have come to represent. These core values are in direct alignment with Western States’ mission pillars of staging a quality and memorable event; cutting-edge medical research that works for the betterment of the sport; trail stewardship that ensures public access and careful tending of the precious trails of the natural world. Western States also believes that the Ultra-Trail World Tour provides our sport with the best competitive framework for the world’s finest trail events to determine men’s and women’s champions through a fair drug-free format that will test their abilities on a variety of terrain and course design. The “best practices” of race management and race technology will also be gathered through the Tour for the benefit of all runners. The breadth and excitement of our sport will be channeled to diverse audiences through the potential of strong and positive media exposure.

As the Ultra-Trail World Tour goes forward, it is important to note that Western States remains firmly committed to a field size that will not exceed our historic and federally determined number of approximately 369 starters. There will be no net loss of lottery spots due to our relationship with the Ultra-Trail World Tour, and our presenting sponsorship relationship with Montrail is illustrative of this commitment. Due to the re-structuring of the Montrail Ultra Cup’s (MUC’s) schedule for 2014, Western States will have six slots reserved for elite athletes competing in the UTWT. This is how the process will work: Western States will provide 30 spots (five races for top three men and top three women) to 2014 MUC qualifiers. In years past, Western States has provided 36 spots to MUC qualifiers. Thus, there is no net loss in lottery spots for the masses. It is important to note, too, that Western States will continue to serve its local constituency through 30 race “admin” spots that are awarded each year to volunteers at aid stations, trail crews, sweeps and other key contributors to Western States.

The Tour has a very big agenda to accomplish in the coming months, including formalizing plans for communication, marketing and promotion, awards structure and governance. These are important steps as the UTWT prepares for its debut in 2014. The UTWT’s formation represents a significant change in the history of the sport of ultramarathoning. Western States welcomes this start of a new era of growth, excitement and cooperation among the world’s finest trail races.

Keep it fair. Keep it Simple. Raise the Bar.

The goal of having qualifying standards is to ensure that the runner knows what he/she is buying into, and to ensure that he/she has a reasonable chance to finish Western States within the time limit of 30 hours. Historically, the minimum standard has been the completion of a 50 mile run under 11 hours. WS has seen a dramatic increase in the number of applicants in its annual lottery, especially since the cancellation of the race due to fires in 2008. With a 369 starter limit imposed on the race by federal legislation, we accept about 400 runners each year. We reserve about 130 entries for race administration (aid stations, trail crew, sweeps, etc.), Montrail Ultra Cup winners, sponsors, raffle winners, overseas runners, members of the Western States Endurance Run Board of Trustees, etc., thus we draw about 270 names at the lottery each December. Here’s the history of the growth of lottery applicants since 2000:

• 2000 – 583 applicants.
• 2005 – 791 applicants.
• 2008 – 1,350 applicants (fire cancellation).
• 2010 – 1,693 applicants (last year for two-time losers).
• 2011 – 1,786 applicants (first year for multiple tickets in the hat).
• 2012 – 1,940 applicants.
• 2013 – 2,295 applicants.

The chances of being one of the lucky 270 drawn last year, with only a single ticket in the bucket, was a scant 7.9%. With the likelihood of continued increase in demand – which parallels the growth of the sport worldwide – if we continue with our current standards and races, the chances of getting selected in the lottery will soon be below 5%. We don’t believe that is good for the race or the runners who get a qualifying time, enter the lottery, and then get rejected in the lottery, some year after year after year.

The WSER Board of Trustees believes that the run should be open to anybody and is hesitant to make the standard faster or to require a 100 mile qualifying run. In 1974, Gordy Ainsleigh ran 100 miles with the horses but had never run 100 miles before that day. Many people who ran the race in the following years had also never run 100 miles before they ran from Squaw Valley to Auburn. The Board respects that history and still wants to provide the opportunity for a runner to stand at the start of the race, stare up at the steep mountains of Squaw, and have little idea of what lies ahead.

But, the Board also realizes that something needs to change to alleviate the increasing pressure on our lottery. Thus, the qualifying standards for entering the WS lottery beginning with the 2015 race are:

• 100K finish in under 16 hours or;
• 100M finish in time allowed by race.

We have limited the number of qualifying races to the largest trail 100 milers domestically, and the largest 100Ks that are also of significant difficulty. The 100K distance aligns better internationally. Worldwide, we’ve included the largest races but also have the goal of geographic diversity so runners from anywhere in the world have an opportunity to run a qualifying race. There are 63 races on the 2015 qualifying races list.

The 2015 qualifying run must be run from Monday, November 11, 2013 through Sunday, November 9, 2014.