How fast do you need to run to reach your 100-mile goal?
Average Paces for Popular 100 milers
When you first decide to run a 100 miler, your goal is likely just to finish. However, as you being to train more seriously you may make some more ambitious goals, like finishing in top the 50%, top 25%, or even top 10%. We’ve crunched the numbers for some top 100 mile races over the last 10 years and figured out how fast you’ll need to run to reach your goals.
Western States
The Western States course is 100.2 miles at an average elevation of 3,959ft. It has a net downhill with 18,080 ft of gain and 22,970 ft of loss.
| Percentile | Finish Time | Pace (min/mile) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 19:50:29 | 11:54 |
| 25% | 22:55:35 | 13:45 |
| 50% | 26:26:40 | 15:52 |
| 75% | 28:37:08 | 17:10 |
Wasatch 100
The Wasatch course is 100.2 miles at an average elevation of 7,839. It has 25,763 ft of gain and 25,252 ft of loss.
| Percentile | Finish Time | Pace (min/mile) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 25:47:09 | 15:28 |
| 25% | 28:36:21 | 17:10 |
| 50% | 31:39:22 | 19:00 |
| 75% | 34:09:13 | 20:30 |
Hardrock 100
The Hardrock course is 100 miles at an average elevation of 11,000 ft. It boasts 33,050 ft of gain and 33,050 ft of loss.
| Percentile | Finish Time | Pace (min/mile) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 30:45:07 | 18:27 |
| 25% | 35:46:49 | 21:28 |
| 50% | 40:09:08 | 24:05 |
| 75% | 44:20:22 | 26:36 |
I think these numbers show how hard the Hardrock is. First, a top 10% Hardrock pace is almost a middle of the pack Wasatch pace. Second, of the races we’ve looked at, most have a spread of about 5 minutes/mile between 10% pace and 75% pace. Hardrock has a spread of over 8 minutes/mile. But I guess you can expect that in a race with 33k of climbing and an average elevation of 11,000 ft!
HURT 100
The HURT course is 100 miles at an average elevation of 1,112 ft. While the lowest elevation of the races we are looking at, it still packs 24,500 ft of gain and 24,500 ft of loss.
| Percentile | Finish Time | Pace (min/mile) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | 25:51:17 | 15:31 |
| 25% | 29:28:15 | 17:41 |
| 50% | 33:08:09 | 19:53 |
| 75% | 34:43:49 | 20:50 |
It’s interesting how similar the HURT and Wasatch finish times are. Both races have around 25k of elevation gain, but the HURT is at a significantly lower elevation (1,112ft vs 7,839ft). I think this shows how crazy technical the trails are at the HURT.
Time to Train
If you're training for your next 100 miler, I hope this can provide some motiviation or some goal setting guidance. If you haven't already, check out our training plan generator to build a training plan that is tailored to your fitness, goals, and follows the best guidelines for preventing injury.
Interesting side note - We are getting slower
You’ve probably noticed that across every race, across every percentile, finish times have gotten slower over the last decade. (This is only not true for the very top & elite finishers). This is likely because of the massive growth of ultra running over the past decade, with the sport becoming more accessible and more people running ultras, times have slowed.