good morning and welcome to the 2024 Western States 100 broadcasting live from the track here at pler High School in beautiful Auburn California my name is Dylan Bowman joined for the fourth year in a row by my good friend and colleague Karen Malcolm best job in the world no place I would rather be a wonderful and we are off folks the 2024 Western States 100 is officially started Walmsley will have that center of gravity in the elite men's race and everybody will be marking him for the next 100 miles K sh race leader returning second place finisher the second fastest woman ever on the course I think this is Heather Jackson here on screen I am looking to see a number of Chinese athletes make their way to Auburn in the top 10 Jim's fastest split ever through Duncan is actually 323 from 2016 that is blistering brod favard from Mammoth Lakes California one of our Dark Horses the heat is definitely starting to hit people pretty hard the women's top 10 all coming into Michigan Bluff basically together simultaneously we have Katie shy almost into Forest Hill on course record Pace while the top five men are within 5 minutes of each other at calan this is the most exciting Western States 100 broadcast that we have ever had potentially the most exciting Western States 100 that we've ever had