The women’s field of this year’s Western States 100 is one of the deepest in history with 12 women entered in the race with previous top-10 finishes to their credit. That includes nine of last year’s top 10 finishers, including defending champion Abby Hall, 35, of Flagstaff, Arizona, and Fuzhao Xiang, 34, of China, who finished as runner-up for the second straight year.
The Western States 100 sends runners on a 100.2-mile journey from the base of the Palisades Tahoe ski area in Olympic Valley, California, to the track at Placer High School in Auburn, California. Held officially since 1978, it’s the most prestigious and most competitive 100-mile race in the U.S. and ranks among the most esteemed ultra-distance trail races in the world, and women have been pushing the envelope of what’s possible since it inception. Aside from the distance, the climbs and descents, and the extreme heat, this year’s top women runners will also battle perhaps one of the most competitive fields ever assembled for an ultra-distance race.
The rest of the top returnees in this year’s race include 2025 top-10 finishers Marianne Hogan (36, Canada), Fiona Pascall (36, Great Britain), Hau Ha (37, Vietnam), Hannah Allgood (34, Colorado Springs), Caitlin Fielder (33, Andorra), Keely Henninger (34, Portland, Oregon), and Emily Hawgood (31, Zimbabwe). (Ida Nilsson of Sweden, a three-time Western States top-seven finisher and last year’s fourth-place finisher, dropped out of this year’s race in late May because of ongoing hamstring issues.)
We’re been at the dawn of a new era in women’s ultrarunning for several years, and this year’s Western States should be one for the ages. On paper, Hall, Xiang, and Hogan are probably the top contenders, but with so much depth among top returnees and fast newcomers like Jen Lichter, Anne Flower, and Molly Seidel in the field, this year’s race is entirely up for grabs. Plus, there are great runners that few people are talking about (but should be) like Martyna Mlynarczyk, Lotti Brinks, Anna Tarasova.
Even with hot weather, it’s likely that several women could run sub-16 hours and perhaps challenge Courtney Dauwalter’s 2023 course record of 15:29:33. No matter how it plays out, it’s going to be wild.
This is a good place to recommend seeing the forthcoming “Raise the Bar” film from Hilary Ann Yang and Carrie Highman about the rise of women’s ultrarunning through the lens of the Western States 100. It debuted during the Western States Training Camp weekend in late May to rousing reviews and will be show again during the week of Western States in the Palisades Tahoe village before being released on a larger basis later this year.
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Top Returnees in the Women’s Field
Hall, who previously earned three top 10 finishes at the CCC 100K in Chamonix, came back to win Western States last year after devastating knee and leg injuries in 2023. After her win in Auburn last year, she tried to race UTMB just eight weeks later but wound up dropping out. She ran as strong as she needed to at the very competitive Black Canyon 100K in February (fifth) and has been training up a storm in Flagstaff ever since.
Xiang and Hogan have also been together training in Flagstaff for the past few months and recently completed a stout rim-to-rim-to-rim run in the Grand Canyon. Xiang finished second in the Western States 100s the past two years and, like Hogan, recently attended the Western States Training Camp. She raced well at some smaller international races last fall, but hasn’t raced since November.
Hogan has been right on the cusp at Western States with two third-place finishes (2022, 2025) despite not having her best days there. (Her puke and rally effort last year was epic!) Her only race since last summer’s Western States was a 45K win at the EcoTrail de Paris in March, but she ran fast and with intent at the Western States Training Camp in late May. Like Xiang, she’s eager to nail a great race that she knows she’s truly capable of.
“I’m not sure why I’m so drawn to this race, but I think it’s because of the hype around it in the sense that it’s always an honor to be able to be on this start line,” Hogan says. “And it’s not something that I take lightly. So I always want to give it my best shot. I like the trails out on the course. They’re very runnable and the landscape is amazing. But I also really like the combination of all the different things that can go wrong in this race, and I have had a lot of things go wrong for me at this race, so I’m hoping that I can give it another shot and hope for a better race.”
Hawgood is from Zimbabwe but she went to college in Idaho and lives most of the year in nearby Roseville, California, so she spends a lot of time running the canyon trails out of Auburn. She’s the most experienced of this year’s Western States 100 returnees, having recorded top 10 finishes in each of the past five years. (She had her best race two years ago, when she was fourth.) She tuned up this spring with a runner-up showing at the Lake Sonoma 100K in April and the three-day Western States Training Camp.
Ha was sixth last year in her first attempt at Western States and could be a dark horse contender for the podium this year. After placing 16th at the CCC 100K last August in Chamonix, she’s been on a tear, winning five straight races from 60K to 105K in Asia, including tying for the win in the Hong Kong 100K in January and winning the Wenling Golden Coast 80K in China in March. She arrived in the U.S. with her family in May and participated in the Western States Training Camp.
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The runners who earned a Hoka Golden Ticket for this year’s race include Riley Brady (30, Boulder, Colorado), Martyna Mlynarczyk (36, Poland), Anna Tarasova (42, Spain), Lotti Brinks (30, Boise, Idaho), Tara Dower (32, Durango, Colorado), Addie Bracy (39, Buena Vista, Colorado), Jennifer Lichter (29, Missoula, Montana), Anne Flower (36, Colorado Springs), Molly Seidel (31, Flagstaff, Arizona), Honoka Akiyama (32, Japan), Holly Ranson (37, Australia), Yngvild Kaspersen (31, Norway), Lauren Puretz (43, Colorado Springs), Sarah Humble (26, Salt Lake City, Utah), and Ellaney Matarese (23, La Canada, California).
Brady has been one of the top U.S. ultrarunners for the past several years, but she’s yet to have a great Western States. She struggled in the heat in 2023 and wound up 14th and then dropped out of last year’s race. She rebounded to win the Run Rabbit Run 100-miler last September, but then turned in some good (but not exceptional results) over the winter and spring (including 9th in the Black Canyon 100K). But then she ripped a dominant effort in the Canyons 100K in April (winning by 15 minutes over Careth Arnold) to earn a Golden Ticket back into States.
Lichter and Flower, both Western States first-timers, finished 1-2 at the fast Black Canyon 100K in February, and both coming off big years in 2025. Lichter finished fourth for the U.S. at the 2023 world championships in Austria, but she’s spent the past several months ramping up to longer distances. Her coming out party was her stunning win at the Black Canyon 100K in a course-record time (7:57:05), and then followed it up with a win at the Gorge Waterfalls 50K in April. Flower, meanwhile, famously broke Ann Trason’s 31-year Leadville 100 record and then set a world record for 50 miles at Tunnel Hill. She ran strong at Black Canyon, but then dropped out of the Canyons 100K in April after being off the pace from the start. Still, she’s optimistic she’ll be in contention in her first trip to Tahoe.
Seidel is another Western States first-timer who was dominant in her 50K debut in January and ran strong in her first 100K at Black Canyon (fourth). She took a bit of a conservative approach at the Canyons 50K in April, finishing third (4:07) as Makena Morley (1st, 3:47) and Lauren Gregory (3:51) absolutely hammered off the front. Seidel was the bronze medalist in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and her speed could be a factor if she has her fueling and hydration dialed.
Realistically, we thought that it would take probably a year of trail running to get that Golden Ticket,” Seidel says. So I definitely am going into it with the cautious optimism of remembering that this is a learning year and the point of this is to kinda learn the ropes of Western States, but I’m also not selling myself short. It’s definitely intimidating to finish a 62-mile race (at Black Canyon) and be like, ‘OK, only 38 more of those!’ So I think I’m going to just train as best I can. I’m not going try to like pull out all the stops. I have to remember, I am a rookie at this and the point is a smart progression so that I can keep doing this for a long time.”
Kaspersen was fifth at Western States 100 in 2024 and second behind Courtney Dauwalter in the Chianti 120K race in Italy in March, while Bracy was ninth in 2019. (Bracy crushed a 55-mile race in Colorado Springs in May, winning outright in 8:02.) Dower was third at the Black Canyon 100K and the winner of last fall’s Javelina Jundred, and Akiyama was ninth in the 78K race at the 2023 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships.
Mlynarczyk went out hard in the lead at the start of last year’s Western States but faded before the midway point and wound up dropping out. However, she rebounded to win the CCC 100K in Chamonix and won the 29-mile Trail Alsace in France in mid-May, so she could be a contender. Meanwhile, Allgood was third at the competitive JFK 50 last fall and tuned up with wins at the Moab Red Hot 55K and Lake Sonoma 50K earlier this year. And don’t sleep on Brinks, who was sixth at last summer’s CCC 100K and has won three races in 2026, including a course-record win in the Gorge Waterfalls 100K in April.
Another top runner to watch in the women’s field is Sarah Ostaszewski (34, Durango, Colorado), who won the 2024 Moab 240, is a two-time winner of the Ouray 100, and a three-time finisher and 2023 winner of the Cocodona 250. She had 256 tickets in last winter’s lottery and, after 10 years, finally made it in.
“It feels surreal to finally be out on the trail with some other people in the race,” Ostazewski said during Western States Training Camp weekend in late May. “It feels good to finally get the chance to race it. I can’t wait.”
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Authors
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UltraSignup Director of Media Brian Metzler was the founding editor of Trail Runner magazine, has written for Runner's World, Outside, and Sports Illustrated, and is the author “Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture and Cool of Running Shoes” (2019) and “Trail Running Illustrated” (2021). He has raced just about every distance from 100 meters to 100 miles, but he’s most eager to share stories about his experiences burro racing in Colorado and riding trains to trail runs in Chamonix.
