Many of us at Freetrail had Utah-based runner, Caleb Olson, as our “rookie of the year” in 2023. We would be remiss if we did not mention that his trail racing dates back to 2018 on UltraSignup, but the past 18 months has seen the 28-year-old step into his potential. His backstory might sound eerily familiar to many other successful runners. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest Olson got into backpacking and mountaineering thanks to his dad and like so many high school athletes Olson ran cross country to help his soccer fitness. It turned out that he was not only better at cross country but also had more fun doing so.
“I started combining mountaineering adventures with trying to cover more ground with a lighter backpack and found trail running. I moved out to Utah at the end of 2017 and loved the easy access to the mountains, and quickly signed up for and did my first 50k a few months later. From there I was hooked.”
Fast forward to this June. Western States is an opportunity for any runner to make an impression on the professional ranks – and Caleb Olson did just that, blowing us away and landing the M5 bib for 2025. His 14:40:12 finish was the fastest time of any WSER debutant historically and would have won every edition of the race except 2019 and 2024. As hard as it is to believe, Olson had not planned to compete at WSER quite yet but fell into the opportunity when he grabbed the win and a Golden Ticket at the 2023 Grindstone by UTMB 100km last fall.
“The original motivation was that I wanted to go back to CCC this year and see what I could do there, and I picked Grindstone because I had a group of friends going out to race it and I love traveling out for races with them. Once I realized how well the race was going for me I started thinking about the Golden Ticket and felt like if I got it, it was rare enough that I had to take the opportunity even though it would mean running a hundred miles sooner than I thought I wanted to.”
2023 was an overall good year for Olson, one of those years that just keeps giving, turning up good result after good result. After earning a Golden Ticket in September he notched a win at the Javelina 31km before finishing an outstanding second-place finish at Ultra Trail Cape Town 100km. 2024 has been off to a similarly impressive start with podium after podium finish at local 50km races, plus a win in the 85km distance at the Madeira Island Ultra Trail (MIUT).
“The Javelina Jackass run was sort of a last-second decision when the runner I was at Javelina Jundred to pace ended up DNFing with an injury, and I still wanted to get in a good run for the day. I don’t race seriously very often, maybe 2-3 times per year, but sometimes I like hopping in low-key races (often local community events) as harder effort long runs, but I generally don’t really have to taper or recover much from them. The Utah desert is a great place to run in the winter when trails around my house are really snowy so I did about one 50k a month through the winter to stay motivated to get in longer runs at higher efforts, but without putting much pressure on myself about the results of them. I had recently started working with both Nike and Precision and it gave me a good chance to get used to dialing in how I used their products in a race situation.”
Over the winter Olson ran roughly 60-80 miles a week, plus added in cross-training in the forms of backcountry skiing and cycling, before flexing that into a more vert-heavy training block leading into MIUT in late April. With solid training under his belt and some clear indicators of fitness, Olson said he felt confident that he could finish WSER, and that was his number one goal. Like anyone making their 100-mile running debut, he was worried about what might happen in the heat or what would come after mile 70.
“I’ve been trying to believe in myself more and told myself I could be close to 15 hours [at WSER], and that if I shot for that and blew up a bit it would still probably land me in a pretty good spot. It kind of played out how I’d visualized a perfect day might go, but I guess I was surprised that it happened. I was definitely surprised by how good I felt and I remember thinking at mile 50 that I was on pace for about 14:45 and could totally do what I had just done again as long as nothing significantly changed. The whole race I was waiting for things to get really hard and I was braced to go to a dark place mentally and even sort of wanted to have to do that, but I think I played it safe enough that I never ended up in that position. I gained a lot of confidence during the race and went from being surprised how well things were going, to surprised that I wasn’t catching more people because I felt like I was moving really well, but so were many other people ahead of me.”
While Olson is not sure if a return to Western States or any other 100-miler is in the cards yet, he did gain a lot of confidence from finding success between Olympic Valley and the Placer High School track at the end of June. Could he go even faster at the distance? We’d sure like to see him do it again.
“I don’t love the type of training or the post-race recovery that WSER requires and I would love to not do it again quite yet… but I did love the race and definitely want to do it again eventually. It’s a pain to have to get back in if I don’t go back as M5 – so I think that’s a decision I’ll make after the rest of my races this year are over.”
When asked if there were any trail runners he admired he was pretty quick to share the love with what has become a hotspot for US trail and ultrarunning and the athletes that call Salt Lake City, Utah home.
“I consider Jimmy Elam my first real mentor in the sport. He inspired me with his dedication to training, ability to fine-tune gear and research the perfect route to keep training exciting and simulate race terrain (or harder). He also gave me the confidence that it’s possible to both work a full-time job outside of running and compete at a very high level. I’m also proud to say that Finn Melanson was my friend even before he started the Singletrack Podcast and he’s been another very influential trail runner in my life. I met him at one of my first races in Utah and he immediately brought me into his circle. Most of my training partners/friends now can be traced back to meeting him. He showed me the power of community and self-belief. I could go on and on but one more inspirational runner I look up to is Blaine Benitez. He has an ability to follow his passion and resist social pressure that I admire. He reminds me that there’s an important balance between doing what you truly love and doing what people want you to do or what’s normalized, which has been really helpful for me to keep the spirit of why I got into trail running in the first place even as I’ve moved more into the world of competition and professionalized racing.”
Caleb Olson is currently back to what he loves, playing in the mountains, scrambling and peak bagging, and not running a bunch. He is registered for CCC and plans to go to Chamonix this summer but is not yet certain if he will be actually starting the race. Much of that will depend on how he feels when his training is picking up again.