11 Keys to Success at Western States Endurance Run

By Jason Koop,
Head Coach of CTS Ultrarunning,
Author of “Training Essentials for Ultrarunning”

The Western States Endurance Run is one of the most prestigious ultramarathons on the calendar, and entries are so coveted it can take years to earn a place on the start line. As a result, runners who get into the race through the lottery or a Golden Ticket feel a lot of pressure to succeed. And success at Western States is not easy to accomplish, whether your goal is to finish, perform well in your age group, or contend for an overall championship. CTS has coached athletes to all those levels of success, including an unprecedented sweep of the women’s podium in 2024 with Katie Schide, Fuzhao Xiang, and Eszter Csillag. From our experience, here are 11 keys to preparing for the Western States Endurance Run.

(L-R) 2024 Western States Champion Katie Schide, Coach Jason Koop, Fuzhao Xiang (F2), Eszter Csillag (F3).

CTS Presence at Western States

Several CTS Coaches and I have extensive experience with Western States, including 10-time finisher Andy Jones-Wilkins. Each year, the crew of CTS Athletes at Western States includes previous winners, first timers, aspiring silver bucklers and those seeking any finish possible. In addition to the women on the women’s podium, CTS coached and supported more than 20 Western States competitors in 2024. Among them, Jia-Sheng Shen and Jon Rea finished 8^th and 9^th overall, Kaci Lickteig earned her 1000-mile buckle, Mike Fakler was the last finisher to earn a sub-24-hour buckle, and several fought to impressive Golden Hour finishes.

Finishing Western States on Placer High School track

For the 2024 Western States Endurance Run, we mounted the largest race support mission in the company’s 25-year history. You can read more about the lessons we learned here. And if you got into the race for 2025, now is the time to become a CTS Athlete to take advantage of personal coaching and race-day support.

Supporting athletes at races makes a big impact on performance, far beyond stuffing calories into a sweaty hydration vest. Coaches can provide guidance out of a dark place, advice on how to keep a great performance going, or just reassurance that you’re on track for your goal.

Professional support translates to results on race day. CTS Athlete consistently finish at a higher rate than the overall finisher rate for Western States (and many other ultras). For the athletes, each result is priceless, and they don’t happen by accident. Here are 11 key elements we use to prepare such varied athletes, from many backgrounds and with different goals to have such a high success rate.

Get to the starting line

Every year, dozens of people initially selected to run Western States choose not to start. This is a testament to the fact that simply getting to the starting line is a challenge. Training is hard and runners succumb to injuries every year. Some studies suggest up to 79% of runners will suffer an injury while training for their event.

CTS Athletes before the start of the Western States Endurance Run

Put fitness first

It goes without saying that you need to train for these events. One hundred mile races such as Western States require runners to be prepared for everything. Nutrition, fitness, gear, the ability to cope with extreme heat, and the mind all need to be honed during months of preparation. Fitness is the key, and when you have greater fitness you have more bandwidth to deal with unforeseen challenges on race day. You see this ‘fitness first’ strategy play out in all of the strategies below. For example, our heat acclimatization/acclimation strategy is positioned in an athlete’s list of priorities to maximize fitness and minimize the impact on day-to-day training.

Understand there are no magic workouts

There’s no magic workout. The athletes CTS prepared for Western States completed all manner of workouts. High-intensity VO2 max running intervals, lactate threshold focused Tempo runs, and endurance based Steady State Runs and Endurance Runs. While there is much debate in the coaching world about polarized training vs. threshold training vs. base training vs. pyramidal training vs. any other scheme you can come up with, we start our athletes from one simple principle: Do the most specific things last and the least specific things first.

Eszter Csillag approaching Pointed Rocks Aid Station

Train less-specific to more-specific

Fast, high-intensity workouts with less volume are typically positioned early in the year and less intense workouts with more volume are integrated as the race approaches. Simple as that. The goal is to improve overall fitness generally through the year and improving race-specific fitness closer to the race. In other cases, depending on the athlete and the race, building volume come first. Katie Schide’s progression from 2023 to 2024 was a great example of this. You can read about how she won Western States and then Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc in the same year, but the synopsis is that she dramatically increased training volume in 2023 to increase her capacity for sustaining a high training load. Then, the race-specific training for her was speed, strength, and nutrition related because she was sharpening up for race-winning performances.

Complete a Training Camp

A training camp is an effective and beneficial training activity before any 100-mile ultramarathon. The camp can be a great opportunity to build some miles and vertical, test out nutrition strategies and, in some cases, get feet on the course itself. Our athletes used a combination of camps they arranged near their own training grounds, the official Western States 100 training camp, and camps organized with coaches. In 2025, CTS is hosting an altitude running camp in Colorado Springs on Memorial Day Weekend (May 23-26). Although it’s not on the Western States course, the elevations in Colorado Springs are similar to what runners will experience for the first 35 miles of WSER (6200-8750 feet above sea level).

Athletes heading out for a run during training camp.

Train for the heat, but do it reasonably

Parts of the Western States course can be very hot. Temperatures in some areas of the course may exceed 100 degrees. Even without knowing exactly how hot it will be, we know heat will be a factor. To prepare, our coaches have athletes go through a variety of different heat acclimatization/acclimation protocols. While there are many out there, we focus on tried and true heat training methods described here. For more information on the recommended timing and duration of heat training protocols, read this. In any case, all forms of heat training are an additional stress. Therefore, overall workload needs to be reduced during this timeframe.

CTS used more than 400 pounds of ice crewing athletes at WSER 2024.

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Create flexible nutrition strategies

Another strategy we use across the board is a nutrition strategy that includes flexible fluid targets and sources of calories. Flexibility is always a good thing, but is particularly necessary when the race is long, calorie needs are high, taste preferences will change and, most importantly, fluid requirements vary throughout the day.

At some points, fluid requirements can vary as much as three to four-fold, depending on the athlete and the strategy. As a result, we have athletes experiment in training with everything. From the most scientifically engineered products to gas station Little Debbie snacks, very few things are off the table. Through this training process of trial and error, athletes should develop a plan that is relatively static in calories per hour (200-300 cal/hour, every hour) but dynamic in fluid requirements (16-48 oz per hour, which varied throughout the day). The most important thing is to develop this in training. In the days before the race, there should be little to add or subtract from the plan because so much attention was paid to developing the plan in the first place.

We use the “Bull’s Eye Nutrition Strategy” for planning and testing athletes’ race-day food and fluid choices. You can also read more about preparing for the unique demands of WSER from CTS Coach Andy Jones-Wilkins.

Fuzhao Xiang eating noodles while her crew attends to other aid station tasks.

Downhill work: a little goes a long way

Western States is a net downhill course, meaning the vertical feet of descending are greater than the vertical feet of ascending. Because of this, there is a lot of muscular damage and quads get trashed. CTS Coaches have athletes do specific downhill sessions, but surprisingly very little of it. We hear a lot of training stories and strategies focused on long, hard, fast and repeated downhill efforts. The combination of “long, hard, fast and repeated” in regard to downhill sessions is misguided at best and reckless at worst. To prepare for descending, a little goes a long way.

Read more about downhill training, how much to do, and when to do it.

Fuzhao Xiang finishing 2nd at the 2024 Western States Endurance Run

If you have a time goal, maximize efficiency in the aid stations

Mike Fakler finished the 2024 Western States Endurance Run in 23 hours 58 minutes and 56 seconds. After 100 miles, he reached the finish line with just 64 seconds to spare and was final athlete to earn a coveted sub-24-hour buckle. How easy would it have been to fritter away 65 seconds across 20 aid stations? Just a few seconds here, a few seconds there, and the 24-hour finish would have been out of reach.

Mike’s experience is not unique. Several years ago, CTS Athlete Patrick Meskell finished in 23:44:50, barely 15 min faster than his 24-hour time goal. Speaking to him after the race, one quote stuck out: “If I spent just one minute extra at each aid station, I would have a smaller belt buckle.” During the race, his brother was assigned the singular task of keeping track of the time he spent in each aid station, making sure he remained in the aid no longer than 5 minutes.

Like clockwork, he would punch his stopwatch and the countdown would start: “3 minutes left… 2 minutes left… you have to be out of here in 60 seconds.” The rest of the crew was responsible for taking care of the other tasks, refilling bottles, changing gear, etc. This ensured his aid station time was efficient and effective. He used the time he needed to get the food, fluids and gear he needed while minimizing any wasted time. If you have a tight time goal, it’s worth your time to maximize efficiency in the aid stations.

Nothing beats the joy of finishing Western States!

Be determined

CTS Coach Andy Jones-Wilkins is our “Golden Hour Guru”. His very specific Western States knowledge is essential for athletes who are likely to finish within minutes of the final cutoff. One such athlete was Jennifer Raby. She finished in 29 hours and 11 minutes. AJW coached her for the event and was there for race-day support. As the day wore on, Jennifer battled the heat and a sour stomach. She inched closer and closer to the time cutoffs. That’s when her training came to the fore as she switched her focus on running aid station to aid station, and at one point just outright proclaiming: “I am NOT leaving this race without a buckle.”

This type of determination is not magic. It is not pulled out of a hat on race day. It is intentionally cultivated during training, including through Andy’s strategy of spending two minutes training your mind for every one minute spent running.

Kaci Lickteig with her 1000-mile Western States buckle, signifying 10 finishes!

Treat everyone as an individual

As a coaching group, we utilize similar training strategies and discuss our individual athletes’ training ad nauseam. Nevertheless, I can say with 100% confidence that no two training schedules are ever alike. Absolutely nothing is ever copied and pasted from athlete to athlete. No pre-built plans are lazily regurgitated into athletes’ training schedules. Our athletes put too much time and effort into their training to use cookie cutter plans. The takeaway for all athletes is that, regardless of whether you have a coach or not, educate yourself and craft your own path. Blindly copying what your friend does, or what the elites do, is recipe for disaster.