In Her First 100-Miler, Jennifer Lichter Wins Western States and Takes Down Courtney Dauwalter’s Course Record
Jennifer Lichter ran the first 100-mile race of her career and announced her presence with authority on the world stage.
The 30-year-old runner from Missoula, Montana, turned in one of the greatest performances in the sport’s history by winning the Western States 100, covering the rugged course from Palisades Tahoe ski area in Olympic Valley, California, to the Placer High School track in the foothills town of Auburn 100.2 miles away in a new course-record time of 15 hours, 28 minutes 5 seconds.
To do so, she had to outrun a talented cast of runners that included last year’s winner Abby Hall, several runners with previous top-10 finishes, and Molly Seidel, the 2020 Olympic bronze medalist who was also running her debut 100-miler.
Lichter broke the seemingly untouchable 2023 course record set by Courtney Dauwalter (15:29:33).
Lichter has been a strong trail runner for several years at relatively shorter distances with an aggressive front-running style that helped her earn a fourth-place finish in the 45K race at the 2023 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Innsbruck, Austria. After winning several races in the 50K (31-mile range), she began moving up in distance later that year, winning the JFK 50-miler near Washington, D.C. and several other races last year. However, she missed the opportunity to run in the world championships in Spain after a hard fall during training.
Her big breakthrough came this year after she signed on to be a part of Nike ACG’s new trail running squad. Working with Montana-based coach John Fitzgerald, she continued to expand her long runs and weekly mileage while also building strength and durability for more rigorous ultra races.
It all paid off at the Black Canyon Ultras 100K on February 14 in Arizona, where she broke the course record (7:57:05) and earned a golden ticket into this year’s Western States 100. She followed that up with a record-setting performance at the Gorge Waterfalls 50K in Cascade Locks, Oregon.
But knowing she’d be making her 100-mile debut in the country’s most competitive and prestigious trail race, she ditched her typical front-running style and ran more conservatively. She was one of the first to reach the top of the massive 4-mile climb at the start of the race from the Palisades Tahoe ski area.
Although she was among the first women to crest 8,750-foot Emigrant Pass amid windy and cold conditions, she backed off the pace and let other runners dictate the speed for the next several hours and was instead content to settle in and let the miles go by.
“Once we went over the top, I just put the brake pedals on essentially,” Lichter said. “I knew it was going to be a very long day. I knew it was my 100-mile debut, and I just kept telling myself ‘all day pace, all day pace.’ I wanted to start at a pace I could finish at, and so I just kept checking in within myself and asking, ‘Is this sustainable?’ And that required me to let go of girls who were passing me or running a little faster. I just kept telling myself to ‘trust the process and to trust yourself, you're really fit, and if for some reason you don't end up getting the win or the podium, then it was just not your day. But I knew I wanted to give it my all and I did. But that required also being really smart.”
As a child, Lichter and her sister and brother were found homeless on the streets of Bogotá in her native Colombia. They were placed in an orphanage and, when Lichter was 9 years old, the siblings were adopted by a couple in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where they learned English and gained family structure. In middle school, Lichter discovered a much-needed outlet on the track, but she also hit several low points in a years-long struggle with disordered eating.
Lichter went back and forth in the lead on Saturday with several other top runners throughout late morning hours and early afternoon before passing her ACG teammate Riley Brady, 31, of Boulder, Colorado, and taking the lead for good near mile 48 at the Devil’s Thumb aid station. Brady, a runner who identifies as nonbinary, remained close, but Lichter pulled away after wading across the American River at mile 79 and picked up the pace considerably over the final 21 miles.
With a fast final mile, Lichter edged Dauwalter’s seemingly untouchable course record by 88 seconds and finished in 11th place overall.
“I kept saying ‘steady all day, steady all day,’ but for the final 20 miles I turned my 50K racing brain on and just said, ‘I’ve got to send it now,’ and that's what I did,” she said. “I changed shoes for the most runnable part and then just took off, and I felt amazing. It didn’t really start to hit until the Pointed Rocks aid station (mile 94.3), where I was like, ‘Oh, I am feeling this really bad,’ and I did cry a little bit, but that's what running Western States is all about.”
The third time proved to be the charm for Brady, who charged to a runner-up finish in 15:42:14—the third-fastest women’s time in Western States history—after placing 14th in 2023 and dropping out of last year’s race. Brady spent much of the day trading the lead, overcoming a remarkable series of setbacks that included temporarily losing vision in one eye due to an electrolyte imbalance and enduring repeated bouts of vomiting over the final third of the course.
Canadian runner Marianne Hogan took third in 15:51:44, adding another podium finish to her strong Western States résumé. After finishing third in both 2022 and 2025, Hogan once again demonstrated why she has become one of the race’s most consistently outstanding performers, delivering another composed and resilient effort on the trails from Olympic Valley to Auburn.
Andorra’s Caitlin Fielder was fourth (15:57:09), followed by German-born American Lotti Brinks (16:04:38) in fifth.
Seidel, meanwhile, had intended to run conservatively in her first 100-mile run. She was in 10th place among women for much of the first half of the race, but she arrived at the 55.7-mile Michigan Bluff aid station suffering from sore feet, fatigue, and other elements.
She took her time to change shoes, rehydrate and refuel at that aid station, but lost several places in the process. Seidel ran much slower the rest of the way, but she still managed to finish the race in 28th place among women (142nd place overall) in 24:29:27 at 5:29 a.m., just before the sun rose for the second time during the race but well ahead of the 30-hour cutoff.
Hall, last year’s champion in 16:37:16, which was at the time the fourth-fastest women’s time in the race’s history, was in 10th place early in the race. But the 35-year-old runner from Flagstaff, Arizona, struggled as temperatures rose into the upper 70s and eventually dropped out at the 80-mile mark just after crossing the river.
In the men’s race, Vincent Bouillard, 32, of Annecy, France, broke the overall course record in 13:46:15, leading four men under Jim Walmsley’s previous mark of 14:09:28. Bouillard became the first French runner to win the race and only the seventh runner to have won Western States and the 107-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race in France, Italy, and Switzerland.
Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, The Chicago Tribune, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.