The 2025 Western States Endurance Run isn’t until June 28, but the journey to the starting line of the 49th running of the historic 100-miler began Saturday, Dec. 7, for six New England residents whose names were drawn in the Western States lottery.

Joseph D’Alessio, Patrick McEnaney, Lance Doherty and Christopher Lay of Massachusetts, Austin Black of New Hampshire, and Yuichiro Hidaka of Rhode Island were among the lucky few selected for one of ultrarunning’s most exclusive events.

The lottery took place at the Placer High School auditorium in Auburn, Calif., tantalizingly close to the event’s finish line just outside. The race begins in Olympic Valley, Calif., and concludes 100.2 miles later on the Placer High School track.

First held in 2000, the annual lottery helps select a majority of the event’s field. Of the 369 starting positions for the 2025 race, 260 were selected in the lottery and another 75 were added to the waitlist. The remaining 109 spots are awarded to a variety of runners, including the top-10 male and female finishers from the prior year, raffle winners, and spots reserved for athletes selected by corporate sponsors, among others. Thirty of those spots go to top finishers of the various Golden Ticket races. Winning a Golden Ticket only earns those runners the opportunity to enter Western States if they pay their own way. Though the Golden Tickets are presented by Western States’ corporate sponsor, the shoe company HOKA – which made $1.4 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2023 and $1.8 billion in 2024 – the cost of entry into Western States and all travel expenses are paid entirely by the runners themselves unless they happen to have a professional contract that covers it.

Some Golden Ticket events have yet to take place and sponsor slots aren’t yet filled, but 84 of the 109 non-lottery spots were already full prior to Saturday. New Hampshire’s Benjamin Fiandaca was one of 10 runners whose name was drawn in a raffle prior to the lottery. Fiandaca’s name was one of five selected on Dec. 2, 2023. The other five were drawn in a raffle on June 28, at the 2024 Western States pre-race briefing.

Those already in the field avoided having to test their luck in a lottery where the odds of success have been growing much worse by the year. This year’s Western States lottery had a record 9,993 entrants. Two years ago, a record 7,169 runners entered the Western States lottery. Last year, the number grew to 9,388. Another 605 joined the list of hopefuls this year. With limited spots available in the starting field and competition for them continuing to surge, New Mexico’s Greg Salvesen made Western States lottery history as the first hopeful to be in the lottery for the 10th consecutive year. Salvesen’s nine previous rejections allowed him to amass 512 tickets and an 88.8-percent chance of finally getting into the race. The 10th try was the charm for Salvesen as his name was selected third in this year’s lottery.

For the New England contingent, Joseph D’Alessio had his name drawn quickly after waiting for several years. D’Alessio, of Cambridge, Mass., was selected second – moments ahead of Salvesen. D’Alessio had 128 tickets and was in the lottery for the eighth straight year. Austin Black of Intervale, N.H., was selected next with the 52nd pick; Black was in the field for the fifth year in a row. Another fifth-year applicant, Yuichiro Hidaka of South Kingstown, R.I., was selected 96th. Patrick McEnaney of Mendon, Mass., was in the lottery for the third year in a row, and he was selected 105th. Lance Doherty of Somerville, Mass., followed with the 130th selection. Like D’Alessio, Doherty was in the lottery for the eighth consecutive year. Another 100 picks passed before the final New Englander entered the field. Christopher Lay, of Somerville, Mass., was the 230th selection in his fifth lottery appearance.

In addition to those whose lottery luck put them into the starting field, another 75 runners were selected for the waitlist. That included the New Englander who has waited the longest. Neil Feldman of Boylston, Mass., was the 11th runner on the waitlist. It’s his ninth time in the lottery. Denise Klatt of Germany – who lives in Massachusetts – was selected 20th for the waitlist; Kristijan Begic of Waterbury, Conn., was the 56th runner drawn, and Kristin Lundy of Charlotte, Vt., was the 74th runner selected for the waitlist.

Though six New England residents were selected to the starting field and a few more for the waitlist, 243 runners from the region were hopefuls with just more than half of them from Massachusetts. The Bay State had 122 applicants in the lottery, followed by Connecticut with 41, New Hampshire with 29, Vermont with 25, Maine with 14 and Rhode Island with 12.

Nineteen of the New Englanders were in the lottery for the fifth straight year, giving them the best odds of being selected. Those odds were still quite low given the record number of lottery applicants.

In for the ninth straight year, Massachusetts’ Neil Feldman was one of just 21 lottery hopefuls with 256 tickets and a 66.4-percent chance of being selected. Fellow Bay Staters Lance Doherty and Joseph D’Alessio, and Maine’s Bruce Dailey were among the 84 eighth-year applicants with 128 tickets and a 42-percent chance of having their names drawn. Massachusetts’ Wayne Ball and Vermont’s Bertram Johnson were among the 202 applicants with 64 tickets as seventh-year applicants, giving them a 23.8-percent possibility of being selected. Sarah Aponte of Massachusetts and Luke Robins of Vermont each had a 12.7-percent chance of having one of their 32 tickets drawn as they were among the 319 sixth-year applicants. Another 441 runners were fifth-year lottery applicants with 16 tickets and a 6.6-percent chance of getting into the race. New Englanders among that group were Massachusetts’ Whitney Hanschka, Christopher Lay, Juan Santos and Roy Van Buren; New Hampshire’s Austin Black, Julia Plourde and Giuseppe Le Pera; Connecticut’s Kristijan Begis and Jesse Howes; and Rhode Island’s Yuichiro Hidaka and Tek Ung.