Before Jim Walmsley set the record for running across the Grand Canyon and back, before he set records at the Lake Sonoma 50 and the Bandera 100K, then tried to shatter the Western States Endurance Run course mark, he would have been difficult to pick out on a starting line of ultrarunners.
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Walmsley, a 26-year-old originally from Phoenix and a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, was once in charge of manning intercontinental ballistic missiles. Now he’s the talk of the ultrarunning community—not just for his unique style on the circuit, but for his seemingly sudden rise to the top of the sport.
“My body has been gradually adapting to more and more volume, where before when I first got into ultrarunning, that 50-mile effort was such a big effort and such a different experience than it is now,” he said during a recent interview with Runner’s World. “It was a much bigger shock to my system.”
Flagstaff, Arizona, where he lives and trains, makes for a natural base. Its elevation at 6,900 feet allows him to train higher or lower—it’s a 45-minute car ride to Sedona at 4,300 feet—while sleeping at altitude. He is only 90 minutes by car from the south rim of the Grand Canyon, where he ventures about twice a week to build fitness, running down the landscape’s steep and unforgiving trails.
Walmsley’s breakout year started in January with the Bandera 100K in Texas, where he lowered the course record by 16 minutes to 7:46:37. Then in April, he followed with the Lake Sonoma 50 mile, which he finished in 6:00:52, another course record by nine minutes.
In the lead-up to the Western States Endurance Run in June, his first 100-mile race, he hit three consecutive weeks of 140 miles per week of training. It appeared to pay dividends. At Western States, he was almost 40 minutes ahead of the course record of 14:46:44 set in 2012 by Timothy Olsen, but let go of the safety rope during the crossing of the American River and drifted off course. He quickly regained his composure, but then a wrong turn at mile 93 cost him the win and the mark. He slogged his way to finish 20th in 18:45:36. Still, the bold performance put him on the radars of athletes, fans, and—perhaps most notably—sponsors.
To truly understand the roots of Walmsley’s interest in ultrarunning, you have to step back to high school. He joined his school’s cross country team in Phoenix as a freshman and was teammates with James Bonnett, who, right after graduating, finished Western States, becoming the youngest competitor at the time to do so at 18 years old.
They reconnected in the summer of 2014 at Speedgoat 50K. Bonnett beat Walmsley handily that day and recognizing Walmsley’s potential—he was just starting out—offered to be his informal coach. That relationship continues today.
“Right before Western States, everyone was telling him to back off his miles, warning he would burn out,” said Bonnett, who now coaches ultrarunners for McMillan Running. “I said, ‘We have to roll the dice on this.’ It’s up to (others) how much they want to push themselves. Jim is not afraid. He doesn’t mind pushing his limits and seeing if he’ll go over the line.”
While many ultrarunners enter a handful of races per year, Walmsley has spent 2016 averaging a race or equally hard effort per month. When he lines up on a starting line, he said it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s competing—he calls some of these “filler races.” He uses them as workouts, to test approaches and build strength, he said.
In October, Walmsley put in another eye-popping performance, beating the fastest-known time running from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other and back, a 42-mile odyssey that includes more than 10,000 feet of vertical gain. He completed it in 5:55:20, which beat the previous record by 26 minutes, held by Rob Krar, fellow Flagstaff ultrarunner and two-time Western States champion.
The second half can be a lot faster, Bonnett said.
“He and I go through these discussions: ‘Do this, or don’t do this,’” Bonnett said. “Most of the time, he listens. But he called me when he was done and said, ‘Okay, I took your advice and got the rim-to-rim record, but then just decided to go back.’”
Already, Walmsley’s thrown himself into another hard training block, running about 120 miles a week to prepare for theAre Average Runners Getting Faster? It Depends on November 19 in Maryland, where he wants to secure another course record, 5:34:59 set in 2012 by Max King. Two weeks later, he said he plans to run the North Face Endurance Challenge 50 mile championships in San Francisco. It’s an attempt he admits is “crazy.”
What allows Walmsley to continue training and competing at such a scorching pace? To him, it’s running without fear of whether he can sustain it. For Walmsley, it’s not how long his career is, but what he accomplishes while he’s competing—whether that ends up being for two years or 10.
“At some point everybody's got to walk away, and say, ‘Look, I put out my best effort for the time, and maybe I could have done things better or differently and they would have played out differently. But I put a good foot forward and I'm happy with what I did,’” Walmsley says. “A little moment on the top is better than no moment at the top.”
His training approach invites reasonable skepticism. Ultrarunning is littered with the remnants of shooting-star athletes who raced at the highest level for a brief period before fading away.
This prospect doesn’t appear to worry Walmsley. He considers Ryan Hall, the fastest marathoner in American history, an inspiration. While critics might view Hall as a talented runner who never fully realized his potential over 26.2 miles, Walmsley sees an athlete who accomplished much before deciding in January, at 33, that he was finished.
Bonnett expects that Walmsley’s training ahead of 2017 Western States will be even more intense, with the goal of setting a course record. First, he will need to run a qualifying race, but then Bonnett is confident that barring the mishaps of 2016, Walmsley could eclipse the course record by 30 minutes.
“The second half can be a lot faster,” Bonnett said.
One secret to Walmsley’s success is almost certainly his speed. While competing at the U.S. Air Force Academy he clocked a 4:03 mile and a 4:01 split during a distance medley relay, grinding away 80-90 mile weeks under coach Juli Benson. He competed in the steeplechase his senior year and was All-American, a harbinger of the kind of talent he would eventually display in trail running.
After the Academy, he moved to California to train for his new job in the Air Force that a year later took him to Great Falls, Montana, where he was responsible for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
It was there that he discovered Montana’s wilderness and fell in love with its trails.
“What makes Jim special is what people don’t see,” Bonnett said. “He’s someone who is genuine, cares, loves what he’s doing. He loves being in the outdoors…He learns from his past, and he’s been in dark places in his life. He cares about where he came from and that’s what helps push him to race.”
To make ends meet, Walmsley works part-time in a bike shop in Flagstaff. When he first arrived in town, he couldn’t afford the rent, so he slept on couches and cots in closets, Bonnett said, and he relied on the support of his parents, whom he is quick to credit for his success. But his new sponsorship deals with Hoka One One and other brands have allowed him to finally focus more fully on training.
“The last year and a half things have been building and building,” Walmsley said, “and I'm finally at a point where I feel like I'm starting to outwork people again.”
