Riley Brady finished 14th in the female division at this year’s Western States Endurance Run, coming in a smidge under 21 hours. This Western States debut makes Brady, 28, a strong up-and-coming name in the ultra world. But what’s more, perhaps, is they’re navigating high-level competition as a nonbinary runner.
This year’s Western States offered a new entrant policy for nonbinary and transgender athletes, A Part of Hearst Digital Media.
Riley Brady ran under 22 hours in their Western States debut Magdalena Lewy-Boulet sits on the race’s board and says she’s proud of the race’s effort to create an environment where runners and the race community feel like they belong.
“It excites me to see where else we can break the status quo,” Boulet told Runner's World.
Brady punched their ticket to Western States at last year’s Javelina Jundred, but they nearly missed the qualification due to registration confusion in the race signup software: Ultrasignup.
“[In my] Ultrasignup my gender is nonbinary, but the category I would like to compete in is the female category,” Brady says. “Javelina had a nonbinary division, and when I crossed the finish line, the race director announced me as first place in the nonbinary division. I said, ‘No, I signed up to compete in the female category because that’s what I need to be in to go for a [Golden] Ticket.’”
Brady commends races for creating nonbinary divisions, but they say there are still hiccups when it comes to logistics and award eligibility. They competed at Western States in the female division because although there is now a nonbinary division, there are no awards for it yet.
“The next step for us is how do we solve for nonbinary awards,” Boulet says.
Watch the Boston Marathon.
“I played a bunch of sports in middle school, and I as got a little older I realized I’m actually just good at the running part of these sports. I’m not very good at the sport part of these sports,” Brady says.
They joined cross-country for the last two years of high school and then spent a lot of free time during college running in the woods of Vermont. Brady fell in love with trail running and ultramarathons. So, the next logical step was to move to the mecca of trail running: Boulder, Colorado, which Brady did earlier this year.
They immediately found community in the mountains, and every weekend they gather with friends for a potluck dinner and to talk shop. It’s been incredibly easy to make friends in the Boulder running scene, Brady says.
“Running is so simple compared to other [things in life],” they say. “You just run.”
in an effort to make trail running and ultramarathoning more inclusive.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner's World, the author of The Runner's World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a seven-time marathoner with a best of 3:31—but she is most proud of her 1:32 half, 19:40 5K, and 5:33 mile.
