Among the many 100-mile trail races across the world these days – and let’s face it, there seems to be one a week – one reigns supreme as the most prestigious, and that’s California’s Western States Endurance Run.
Western States isn’t the biggest trail race in terms of competitors – it sees just a few hundred runners compared to the thousands who compete in the UTMB finals in Chamonix. It’s tough, but perhaps not as tough as the Tors de Geants or the Marathon des Sables, just to name a couple of gruelling ultras. It doesn’t offer a prize purse to the winner, and while that’s not unique in the world of trail running, if you wanted to make bank, you’d be better off angling for the Run Rabbit Run 100, which awards the first-place finisher $15,000.
