Walmsley Drops out of WSER 100

His body maybe be closer to 47, though. He has been racing on the top end for going on almost 20 years now.

Those view numbers on YT are not surprising to me. The format of ultra trail lends itself well to medium and long form documentary content and there is a sizable audience for that content on YT. The quality of that content is why I started to follow the ultra scene.

It is very sad that Jim has pulled out as it seriously diminishes the value of winning this years race that was set to be the greatest ultra in history. His Chianti win got an amazing 972 UTMB points which might be the highest on record. If he had a good day he would have been unbeatable.

I am now hoping that David Roche wins just to stick it to all the haters. Killian at 37 is at the peak age for ultra runners and could win on any course over 100 miles. Dan Jones is my dark horse pick. Seth Ruhling and Adam Peterman to make up the top 5.

The women's race is a bit more open and missing past champions. I think Toni McCann and Caitlin Fiedler will fight it out.

Haven't followed the Woman's field but is Toni doing the full ?

Remember after the 100 last year she was adamant she wouldn't and haven't heard anything since ..

no khamis, I am not feelin you

I have no idea what Toni is doing at UTMB, but the poster you are replying to mistakenly thought she was running WSER. She won a Golden Ticket at CCC last year, but declined it.

Yes that's what I thought. Meant that she didn't seem keen on doing a 100 miler anytime soon (if ever)

It's strange Jim, Western States or Hoka all haven't made any comment at all on why he dropped out. He's also still signed up for a race the week before, so maybe it's not an injury? Maybe a contract / money dispute or something?

Hopefully Sage chimes in and lets us all know what's actually going on...

I agree it's strange. Give us something. And before anyone gets all up on arms about privacy, part of the professionalism of our sport is disclosing the reason for missing an event. Every other sport does it; why not running?

Part of me genuinely wonders if Jim may be ducking Kilian. As weird as it is for me to type that out, I stand by it until something else comes out. I mean think about it, WSER is Jim's baby. He's either won the thing or DNF'd every year except for the year he went off course, which we all know was going to be a win. In the words of the immortal Sensei Kreese, "second place is no place," and maybe Jim figures a shot at a second UTMB win suits him better than going to the limit against Kilian and possibly coming up a bit short.

You see how bad he destroyed an injured Kilian at Chianti? Is Kilian even completely healthy yet?

1. Riley Brady

2. Emily Hawgood

3. Marianne Hogan

That was his first and only ever head to head win against Kilian, who was jogging on one leg and only using the race to get his WS qualification. Jim may well be afraid of getting smashed on his home turf by a fit and healthy Kilian

Insane training... 3 x 25 mile mountain runs per week?

Big fan of Jim. But I have no reason why you wouldn’t disclose the reason for your drop out and allow speculation to run wild. It sucks but yeah man in endurance sports immediately the mind goes to was there a drug bust or something.

If he's doing UTMB and wants to win, he's learned in the past that it's better not to do both races and go into UTMB half cooked.

It is hard to believe for me that Jim is ducking Kilian. While I wouldn't necessarily say that Jim could be completely sure of winning this, he would definitely be a clear favourite, at least assuming that his prepartion was good. And I am saying that as a big fan of Kilian (although I also like Jim). The course and conditions suits him a lot more and he knows everything about racing Western States. Kilian is probably the only person that achieved more in mountains ultra, so I am pretty sure he wouldn't like to miss the ocassion of such confrontation. Injury I guess.

Also it has to be said, that while Western is not the best course for Kilian, he really did a lot to prepare best possible and he took it seriously. Regular training runs of 40+km/~1200 m with 4:15-4:30/km pace, even 3 times a week and one long rung of 80+km/2400 m with 4:30/km pace. I think that there are really not too many people in the world, who would be able to complete that training run in the race. He was also very determined and regular with his heat training, doing as much as running 3 hours on treadmill in 40+ degrees.

In my opinion, the biggest question mark is his TFL. I remember that he had this issue already more than 10+ years ago and it is generally caused by running too much on flat. The fact that Chianti was significantly shorter but clearly more mountainous than Western causes some doubts if his TFL can really last for the full distance.

According to D-Bo, Jim sent a letter to Craig Thornley about why he was dropping and will be making a public announcement soon. All these conspiracy theories are quite entertaining though, keep it up guys!

Jim has the mental fortitude of an underweight squirrel.

It's pretty obvious he's ducking Killian, who is the GOAT that Jim will never be.

I expect a convenient "injury" announcement to pop up in the next few days.