There's a track in Auburn, California. One hundred miles from where you start. You don't see it until the very end — and by then, your legs have already given everything they have to give to the Sierra Nevada. The finishing straight at Placer High School is the last thing standing between you and the belt buckle you've been dreaming about since before sunrise.
Hayden Hawks has crossed that track twice on the podium. He's also had years when injury kept him from crossing it at all. And yet every January, every February, when the lottery opens and the Golden Ticket races fill up and the ultra world starts tilting toward California — his mind is already there.
Western States isn't just a race on Hayden's calendar. It's the race.
In ultrarunning, there are two races that define a career. UTMB. And Western States. Everything else — the Golden Tickets, the course records, the podiums at the majors — is context. Those two names are the ones that follow you around.
"It's one of the most significant races in history," Hayden says. "One of the first hundred-milers ever organised. And anybody who's anybody in our sport has won or podiumed there." He pauses. "That's what makes it so significant — you have people who keep coming back every single year."
He's one of them. And he always will be.
Hayden grew up in St. George, Utah — red rock country, desert trails, big skies. He didn't start as a runner. He started as a baseball player, the kind of kid who made every all-star team and could see a future in the sport. Then a high school coach decided he was too small, too skinny, and cut him from the roster.
It's the kind of rejection that either breaks you or redirects you. For Hayden, it redirected.
He found cross-country. Won state championships in the 1600m and 3200m. Got a Division I scholarship to Southern Utah University. By his junior year he was running a 13:51 5K. By 2016 he'd transitioned to trails — not because the roads weren't fast enough, but because the trails felt like home. The mountains of Utah, the canyon systems, the long silence between one ridge and the next.
He burst onto the ultra scene that same year: win at Speedgoat 50K, podium at The North Face 50 Mile, fourth at the US Mountain Running Championships. In 2017 he won the CCC at UTMB. The trajectory was steep, obvious, almost inevitable.
But Western States was always the one that pulled hardest.
The numbers are staggering on paper. A hundred miles. Over 5,500 metres of climbing. More than 7,000 metres of descent. Start at altitude in Olympic Valley, finish on a high school running track in Auburn. The course drops through canyons where the temperature hits triple digits Fahrenheit in the afternoon, then rises again through cool forest before spitting you out the other side.
For Hayden, the heat isn't a problem. It's a weapon.
"I love the heat. I love training and racing in it."
"I grew up in the very hot desert in Southern Utah," he says. "I love the heat. I love training and racing in it. It usually doesn't bother me too much." A course that breaks other athletes at mile 60 is the one where he runs away from his competitors. It suits him — the vert in the early miles, the long runnable sections in the canyons, and that final stretch from the river to the finish where he consistently does his most damage.
As an American, there's something else at play too. "It's pretty much our US Open. Our final. Our championship," he says. "It brings out some of the biggest names internationally as well — but for me, as an American runner, it's the most important race there is."
He's raced it four times: 8th on debut in 2021, 2nd in 2022, a DNF in 2023 after knee surgery, and 3rd in 2024 with a time of 14:24:31. Each one a different story. Each one pulling him back.
The 2023 edition was meant to be the year. Hayden had built toward it meticulously. Then his knee gave way — surgery in August that threatened to unravel everything. He focused on physio, on rehab, on getting movement back. The kind of uncertainty that consumes most athletes barely registered. He could see through it.
He came back. He always comes back.
In February 2024, he won the Black Canyon 100K in a course record 7:30:18. Four months later, on the canyons and ridges above the American River, he ran one of the finest races of his career — 83 minutes faster than his 2022 performance, posting the quickest final 22 miles in the race's 50-year history. His closing pace was so fast he ran away from his pacers.
He finished third. By 16 seconds.
"I ran 14:24, which on most years would win," he said afterwards. "I finished third, which I'm happy with — but I'm not completely content."
Not bitterness. Not grievance. Just the particular hunger that defines the best athletes in any sport — the kind that doesn't switch off when you cross the line.
The finish at Auburn isn't just a line on the road. Ask Hayden what he loves most about the race and he doesn't talk about split times or elevation profiles. He talks about Robinson Flat. Michigan Bluff. Foresthill — mile 62, where the crowds materialise like a hallucination out of the pines and the noise hits you like a wall.
"The energy around those aid stations is just amazing," he says. "My crew, my family — seeing everybody come out and cheer. That's what makes it."
This year, his son will be crewing for the first time. And from the river crossing to the finish line, his brother will be running alongside him — the last stretch of a hundred miles shared with family. "I'm really excited to share those moments with him," Hayden says. "Hopefully we can finish strong. Together."
Even in 2023, when injury kept him from the start line, he still made the trip. Drove out to the aid stations. Stood at the finish. Took it all in. "I still went out there," he says. "Because it's just such a cool environment. Such a cool part of our sport."
The sport is getting faster. Hayden is certain of it. Records are falling every year — new shoes, better nutrition science, a younger generation pushing the pace. "Maybe even this year we'll see a sub-14-hour performance at Western States," he says. "The field is arguably the deepest it's ever been."
But speed only takes you so far. What separates the finishers from the podium, and the podium from the win, is something harder to train: the ability to stay level when everything around you is changing.
"That's the thing about ultras — you have to deal with weather, with heat, with cold, with all the elements. The trail completely changes. The way you race changes. Your nutrition changes." He calls it a puzzle. A hundred-mile game that has to be solved in real time, in the dark, with your legs failing and your pacer a few steps behind you. "You have to always stay calm and under control. Not too up, not too down. Not too dramatic when things change — because things are always going to change."
The best ultra runners in the world tend to do that. Hayden feels like he's one of them.
Going into this year's race, he's as prepared as he's ever been. A full build from last autumn, designed with his coach, executed without shortcuts. Heat training. Nutrition work. Hydration protocols dialled in specifically for the canyons.
"I've had really balanced training. Smart training. A good proper build," he says. "My health is good, my fitness is really strong, and I'm in a really good spot. I feel like I'm lining up with enough fitness — but also enough energy. I haven't overdone it, which I think a lot of people tend to do for this race."
The fitness is there. The energy is there. And so is the belief — the quiet, earned kind that comes not from wanting something badly enough, but from having done the work.
"It all comes down to executing. Staying calm. Being good under pressure." He's done both before on this course. He'll do them again. "I feel like that's where I'm at right now."
Hayden wears SunGod through all of it. Eyes protected, vision sharp — from the pre-dawn chill at the Escarpment to the canyon heat that bakes the trail at noon. When every mile matters, when the margin between third and first is 16 seconds over a hundred miles, you don't compromise on what you can see.
He'll be back on that start line. The Sierra Nevada will be waiting. And somewhere out there, a hundred miles away, a high school running track is sitting in the afternoon sun in Auburn, California — patient as it's always been.
The win is coming. He can feel it.
