Western States Lottery, An Emotional Rollercoaster

Dec 2009
The first time I heard of Western States I was training for my first ultra, Cle Elum Ridge Run, a 50k. I was carpooling to a training run for White River, a 50m run. It was a 24 mile run on the first half of the course. Talking running in the car, one of the people noted he ran WS the year before. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me about the run. I thought he was crazy for wanting to do something like that. Little did I know I was on the same path. That was in 2004. I completed Cle Elum Ridge Run and learned some hard lessons. I completed White River the next year. I learned some more hard lessons. WS was still not in my list of runs I wanted to do, even though by now I was hearing lots of talk about it. I still thought those people were crazy. Well the next year I thought if I was to give WS a try I should see if I could run a tough 100k in the 14 hour time limit. Little did I know that Where’s Waldo, listed as a 100k, was measured that year and found to be 66.5 miles! I completed Where’s Waldo in just under 14 hours. So I put my name in the hat for the WS lottery. It is Dec 2006 now. I did not make the lottery cut. No 2007 WS run for me. During this time I was still running ultras knowing some day I would get the opportunity to run this race. Again I did not make the Dec 2007 lottery cut. According to the two time loser rule I would get to run it in 2009. It’s now 2008 and I signed up for and completed Cascade Crest, a 100m run. Well, 2008 brought forest fires and the cancellation of the WS run. Would 2009 be the year for me? That year they had a special lottery for the few remaining places in the 2009 run. I was not one of them. They changed the rules and I was picked out of the remaining TTL for the 2011 run. But I put my name in anyway for the 2010 run. This past Saturday I was sitting at my computer at 9:00 am pushing refresh every few minutes hoping to see my name appear. There has to be better things to do with my time, but I thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, I would get selected and see my name appear on the screen. Ten o’clock rolls around and my name does not appear. Then I was off to yoga and lunch. The first thing I did when I got home was to check for my name on that list. Again I did not get selected for the fourth time! I will run Stormy, a 100m run in Squamish BC in 2010 to get myself ready for the 2011 running of the WS run. One thing for sure, I have learned patience over these years waiting for my chance to run the WS. Only a little over 18 months to go and I will see the rest of you crazy people on that Saturday in the last weekend in June in Squaw Valley.