2026 Western States 100 Men's Race Preview

We've got two of the greatest to ever do it in the trail running scene, none other than Jim Walmsley and Killian Jornet.

We've got the last year on the original Western States course before it gets rerouted.

And it's just a stacked field.

So, I mean, it's, it's gotta be, yeah, it's something that we've all been waiting for and it's exciting and nerve wracking.

We have a maybe less than perfectly healthy Killian, a question mark around Jim who hasn't raced all year and hopefully is coming in perfectly healthy.

If he has towing line and so many other characters to talk about, uh, of the top 10 from last year that all get invited back to like every Western states, we have got seven of them racing.

no six three missing yeah so seven seven total uh racing the only ones that aren't racing this year peter frano chris myers and caleb olsen so one two and nine from last year which is crazy crazy exciting um Yeah, so I've been, let's see, I've been prepping my notes all day.

I've been pretty excited.

I've listened to some podcasts, but not any men's prediction ones.

I did the same with yesterday before I got up my woman's prediction or basically I didn't listen to anything before because I didn't want to taint my picks or change anything.

I've listened to some storylines, but I haven't listened to anyone else's picks because I want my picks to be my own.

because this is the show where we're going to try to help you guys make your fantasy free trail picks, tell you potential options that you could also put in the top 10.

This is one of the few times of the year that fantasy free trail goes 10 deep.

We don't see it a lot, only for the most competitive and dense races in the world.

And this is definitely going to be one of those races, probably going to be the most dense 100 miler, maybe only behind UTMB this year, depending on how that field shapes up.