After finishing 14th in 2023, Riley Brady is back at the 2025 Western States 100 hoping to improve on their performance. In the following interview, our first with Riley, they talk about their early entrance to ultrarunning, what went wrong at this race last time, how they’ve changed up their training and nutrition for this year, and how they’re excited for the heat!
To learn more about who’s racing, check out our women’s and men’s previews before following our live race coverage on race day.
[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to access it.]
Riley Brady Pre-2025 Western States 100 Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Meghan Hicks of iRunFar. I’m with Riley Brady. It’s a couple days before the 2025 Western States 100. Good morning, Riley. How are you?
Riley Brady: I’m great. How about you?
iRunFar: Awesome. This is my first on-camera interview with you. I’m pretty stoked to interview you. You’re back at Western States after your debut here two editions ago.
Brady: Yes. That is correct.
iRunFar: And at least from the outside looking in, it feels like it’s a totally different Riley Brady in 2025 than 2023. I think you’re ready to roll this time.
Brady: Yeah. I mean, I felt like I was ready to roll the first time, but I was also a couple years younger and still trying to figure out my stomach issues, which really reared their head last time. And I definitely feel more sort of confidence and hype going into the race this year.
iRunFar: To zoom out a little bit on your running career, iRunFar did a profile piece on you a couple months ago. It was really great to learn about your like, beginning history with running. One of the most interesting things for me was that you uptook ultrarunning before you were of a legal drinking age.
Brady: Yeah. I started when I was 18. So got to college. I had gone to a very competitive, or not competitive, but I took academics very seriously in high school. Had a lot of time when I got to college, because if you manage your time right, like, you have more time. And just filled it with running and found out it was a sport that people did. And so now I’m 30 and yeah, I’ve been doing this for 12 years.
iRunFar: Yeah. You started your ultrarunning sort of in the American ultrarunning glory days of the mid-2000s. You saw the birth of what ultrarunning is now.
Brady: Yeah. And it has been cool to be in the sport this long and just kind of see how much it’s changed and, like, the people I was looking up to in the sport at that time. And, you know, I’m watching like, Kilian [Jornet] run off into the mountains with two Snickers bars and like, half a bottle of water. And it’s cool to see that he’s still, you know, top of the sport. But everyone has kind of changed how they’re doing things out there. So, it’s been fun to be part of it as it’s evolved so much.
iRunFar: He’s here. You’re here. Everybody’s here.
Brady: Yeah. I mean, Western States, every year everyone’s saying this is the most competitive field yet, like, and it’s just going to keep being like that, I think, at least for the foreseeable future.
iRunFar: To talk a little bit about your career trajectory, if we were to plot your performances on a graph, I imagine the mean line would be some steady upward projection to maybe two years ago, maybe between two or three years ago, and then I would guess the median line would just shoot straight up in the air.
Brady: I think it would actually be difficult to plot on a graph. I mean, just because when I started, you know, I was young and didn’t really have any money. So, you have to race closer to home. Like, you can’t travel to the more competitive events. I was on the East Coast. So, I was actually doing quite well at local East Coast events when I was very young. Like, my first race, I came in second at.
But then a couple years ago, I was able to start stepping up to the bigger races. Obviously, got my first Golden Ticket and then had a little setback with trying to figure out stomach issues, as all this information about nutrition was changing. So, I think, I don’t know that it would have been a linear progression. Like, a little step forward, step back.
iRunFar: Well, I guess you always have those outlier performances that are higher or lower than the median, right?
Brady: Yeah. It’s been an upward trajectory for sure.
iRunFar: Yeah. Also, what’s interesting to me is like you seem to have maybe gotten in your head kind of a while ago that this is a race that you really want to be at, and your Golden Ticket chase is like a commitment.
Brady: Yeah.
iRunFar: You have a relationship with it.
Brady: Yeah. I mean, just that when I was getting into the sport, this race has always been so iconic. And when I was getting into the sport, I was watching people like Clare Gallagher, who like, didn’t seem that different from me, like, wasn’t that much older. And so, it just felt like, I’m going to get there one day.
iRunFar: Yeah.
Brady: And then getting to come out here to crew a friend, and then getting to be out here. And even though I didn’t have the day I wanted last time, the energy of this race is so amazing. Like, it still feels kind of grassroots even though it’s this big race now. So, yeah. I mean, people are drawn to this race. Like, look at Kaci Lickteig. She came back year after year, and it’s easy to understand why she’d want to do that.
iRunFar: There’s a strange geomagnetic force pulling us in.
Brady: Yes. Totally.
iRunFar: Okay. And then to zoom in on Western States for you, your debut here was two years ago and you’ve talked a couple times about nutrition issues. So, the story of that day for you in a nutshell is you came fit, healthy, strong, but struggled to keep your stomach together.
Brady: Yeah. It was actually the first really bad stomach day I’d had. Like, I’d always kind of had a puke-and-rally sort of situation in races. And, my first year at Western States was the first year that I just was like, collapsed on the ground, couldn’t hold my body up, vomiting. Like, it was so violent. And like, all day did not feel good, from very early on. And I think partially that was due to the fact that I had tried to get my nutrition really dialed ahead of time. I was like, I should pay attention to salt. And like, up until that point, I’d never really eaten that much at races, and so it’s easy to kind of get away with that. So, I think trying to revamp right before Western was not a good call. [laughs]
iRunFar: And you experienced the wrath of that on race day?
Brady: Yes. But I feel like I’ve really learned a lot since then. I think it kicked off my realization that I need to get help from people who really know what they’re doing in that field.
iRunFar: Yeah. So, I’m guessing everything about your nutrition for Saturday is going to be different from 2023?
Brady: Yes. Completely different. But basically, the same as what I’ve been doing for my last three or four races.
iRunFar: And things seem to be working out just fine for you of late.
Brady: Yes. I feel like I don’t have it solved. Like, you can never totally predict everything in a 100-mile race, but I feel like I have a much better framework for at least thinking about, Okay, if something goes wrong, like, how do I address this? And being able to right that ship a little bit better.
iRunFar: So, let’s talk a little bit about your prep and training blocks leading up to this race. I guess looking back, I don’t know, eight months into history, we have your win at Javelina [100 Mile], what was that? Late October, start of November. And then early February was Black Canyon [100k]. You know, you really had to be an overachiever and get two Golden Tickets. And then also a 50-miler practice at Quad Rock [50 Mie] in May. Were those sort of bookends to different training blocks along the way? Or how’s your prep been?
Brady: Prep has been good. I mean, the Javelina was a goal in and of itself, because I needed to get my ticket back. So that was the A goal at Javelina was to get a ticket. I wanted to break the course record there and just didn’t quite do it.
iRunFar: I think it was near record hot day that day, though. Wasn’t it?
Brady: Yes. I think it was 99 degrees at the heat of the day, which I love. Very, very happy.
iRunFar: Well, you’ve already answered my next question then.
Brady: And then Black Canyon, I was looking at as a prep race for Western, really. It’s like a baby Western States. It’s shorter, but it’s still net downhill. It can be kind of warm, and it’s just a really competitive field. So, I think practicing lining up with a competitive field is always a good thing, and I really just like that event. And Quad Rock was my attempt to get something a little bit more verty. Stay close to home. Have it be low stress. But, yeah, just get experience with something that’s less, like, purely runnable, like something like Javelina or Black Canyon is.
iRunFar: And then sort of like from a zoomed-out perspective, what does training on a block or cycle level look like for you?
Brady: It’s honestly pretty similar, I would say. Like, I’m not ever making drastic changes, but just maintaining relatively high volume, I would say, and sticking to one or two workouts a week. Yeah. I just feel like for me, it’s about consistently stacking the bricks. It doesn’t vary that much based on what the race is going to be like.
iRunFar: Not knocking any week or workout out of the park, but just doing everything the best you can that day.
Brady: Yeah. And, like, sometimes you do have a great workout, and then sometimes you don’t, and that’s fine. It’s just part of training.
iRunFar: The thing everybody loves to talk about here at Western States is the heat. You’ve already said that you love the heat. Like, I think every day as we open up our weather apps and check in on this, the temperature goes up by a degree or two. So, it’s looking like it’s going to be steamy out there on Saturday.
Brady: Every degree it goes up, the happier I get. I am a lizard. I don’t like being cold. Yeah. So really excited to just be warm all day and not have to worry about getting cold.
iRunFar: So much has been talked about, with heat training and, you know, training for heat stress during training blocks leading up to it this year. Folks have been heat training for Western States for a long time, but seems like something a lot of people are quite focused on it this year. How about you?
Brady: I don’t know that I’ve been as focused on it as other people. I think because I kind of naturally do well in it, and I enjoy it. Like, even if I am hot, it doesn’t bother me the way it seems to bother other people. So, I’m definitely heat training. I’m in the sauna, but I am not too worried about it taking over my entire life. Yeah. I think I do a normal amount.
iRunFar: There are no photos of you running down some street in Boulder in some amazingly thick puffy jacket?
Brady: No. I can’t do that much laundry. That’s just like, yeah.
iRunFar: That’s the main issue there.
Brady: Yes. It is 100% the main issue. I just like, I can’t do it. I hang my laundry out to dry, and it’s just like, it takes too long.
iRunFar: Yeah. Well, Riley Brady, best of luck on your second Western States. We look forward to chasing you from here in Olympic Valley all the way to Auburn.
Brady: Thank you so much, Meghan.
