Ultramarathon Lotteries Suck, But They're a Lot of Fun



     The crowd at placer high school was abuzz on December 7th, 2019. The auditorium was filled with hundreds of semi-locals, many of whom hoped their name would be on one of 269 tickets pulled from a drum containing more than 25,000. For most people, odds were stiff, but for some, being selected to run the Western States 100 was a near certainty. When the first of nine 8-year applicants was called, the crowd exploded with excitement. Anytime someone in the audience was called, the crowd lit up, but we all had empathy for the 8-year applicants. To be an 8-year applicant, runners have to run a hard 100k or 100 miler to qualify, enter the lottery, be rejected from the lottery, and then repeat the process for seven more years. For first-year applicants, odds are horrendous (this year about 1.2%), but every year runners enter and aren’t selected, their odds double. If at any point, however, they fail to run a qualifier on some calendar year, or forget to enter the lottery during the one week that registration is open, they fall back to the bottom of the totem pole as a first-year applicant. Hence, getting in requires that runners dedicate a significant chunk of their lives to getting in, so when the audience saw the first 8-year applicant running giddily toward the stage when his ticket was pulled, everyone knew he’d earned it.  
     With lottery odds as bad as they are, it’s easy to feel frustrated. The thought of potentially waiting eight years to get into the race of your dreams can be unbearable, and for some of the older members of the ultrarunning community, qualifying for 8 straight years may be, in itself, impossible. For this reason, there is an annual barrage of tweets, as well as Facebook and blog posts casting doubts about the system. Some suggest that the lottery is rigged, or that we’d be better off without the weighted system (Which, with the current number of applicants would mean every runner would carry a 1/25 chance of selection every year... not great odds), but here’s the real problem the Western States board faces: there are thousands of people who want to run the race, and only a few hundred people who are allowed to. There simply aren’t many valid solutions to the problem, so what can we do as runners? Well, not much.
     But there’s some good news too. There aren’t just four 100 mile races in the US like there were in the early days of ultra running. There are literally hundreds of options, and some of them are quite competitive and prestigious. Even with lotteries occurring for nearly all of the classic races in the US, odds of being selected in at least one aren’t too bad. Rest assured, people can find something to dedicated their summer training to no matter what. 
     And even with the abysmal odds at the Western States lottery, seeing others get selected is exciting as hell. At the lottery this year, the vast majority of us had very little expectations of being selected, but almost everybody left the auditorium with a smile on their face. Lottery season is an electric time, and even though most of us had no expectation of getting to run Western States, we’re still having a hell of a good time. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mount Taylor 50K Race Report — A New Mexico Classic

Image
      The Mount Taylor 50k is a fixture of New Mexico trail running. The race is capped at 170 runners and typically sells out in the spring, with a sizeable waitlist. I missed the race in previous years as I was too slow to register, but this time I got in quickly. Having run the Philmont Ranch 50 Miler 7 weeks ago, and with Deadman Peaks 50 mile my next major goal, I decided to use Mount Taylor as a tune-up. I took the day-before the race off, but ran 11 miles on the prior two days, with Thursday being a challenging session with hill reps and a 15 minute tempo run.                    In general, I’ve had much more structure in my training than in previous years. I’ve put in decent miles, getting up to 70-75 miles/week for most of my training blocks, but I’ve also alternated my intensity quite a bit. Some runs have been exceptionally easy (for me, 9-10 minute miles), while others have been quite tough and involved speedwo...
Read more

How to (mentally) Cope with a Running Injury

Image
I came through mile 22 of my fourth 50k Ultramarathon ahead of pace, but I knew it wouldn't last very long. Not only was I hot and tired, the seemingly unimportant pain in my thigh which I chose to ignore was now forcing me to limp. Still, I wasn't going to let myself DNF. Sure, my thigh will probably hurt for a few days, but I was planning on taking a week off anyway. I gutted it out, mostly walking, and eventually finished 5th in 5:13. The next day, I wasn't walking very well. The day after: equally bad. One week went by and I was still limping. It was clear that whatever was going on in my thigh was getting better on a week-by-week basis. This was going to take a while. Running can sometimes be very painful. There are a number of nasty things that can happen during a multi-hour race, including nausea, vomiting, blisters, muscle cramps, dehydration, and pretty much any other complication of exerting oneself for hours on end. For me, however, not running has alw...
Read more

Deadman Peaks 53 Mile—Some Days Just Don’t Go as Planned

Image
                It’s quite possible I was as fit as I’ve ever been going into Deadman Peaks. I’d only been doing 60-70 miles per week, but those included speedwork, hill repeats, and some tough long-runs, including a solid 14 th place performance at the Mount Taylor 50k. To cap off training, my friend Michael and I did a solid long run consisting of 14 mountainous miles with 4000’ of climbing and descent, followed by 9 miles hard on the road with the first half downhill and the second half uphill (~150 feet of elevation change per mile). I averaged around 6:30 min/mile for the downhill portion and 8:15 for the uphill portion.             But at the start line of Deadman peaks, I stepped aside to fix my shoes with 10 seconds to go until the start, and that was the beginning of what felt like a long and difficult day. Once the race started, I began behind by ab...
Read more