Lost Sierra Endurance 100K Race Returns to Downieville

DOWNIEVILLE — The 2nd Annual Lost Sierra Endurance Races began here in Downieville very early, at 5:00 AM, on Saturday morning, July 26, with 81 contestants on their way for a round-trip, 100K (60.2 miles) run to Johnsville and back. Nearly all of the course was on single-track trails, and runners navigated an elevation gain of 10,783 feet while passing the route’s nine aid stations.

Next, at 7:00 AM, 65 runners began the 25K (15.5 miles) race up from Downieville along the 1st and 2nd Divides and down the 3rd Divide back to Downieville.

Finally, at 8:00 AM, a 50K (30.1 miles, 4,226 feet of elevation gain) event commenced at the Plumas-Eureka State Park near Johnsville, with 114 competitors on their way towards Downieville over the course also used by the 100K runners.

By 9:15 AM, 20-year-old Ben Cihasky of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, was the first male to cross the 25K finish line, and at 9:47 AM, Bella Convertino, 27, from Garrison, New York, became the first female contestant to finish.

In the 50K race, at 1:05 PM. Dylan Giesler, 35, of Reno, Nevada, took a first-place medal with a time of five hours and five minutes, while Kimberly Neely of Mill Valley, California, also 35, won the women’s division by completing the course in five hours and twenty minutes.

The victor of the grueling 100K race was Scott Kellen, 34, of Reno, Nevada. By completing the course in 11 hours and 31 minutes, he bested last year’s winner by two hours and fourteen minutes, in the process setting a record likely to last for many years. Meghan Cihasky, coming over from Durango, Colorado, also torched the 100K route, coming in only eleven minutes after Kellen, winning the women’s division by two hours and thirty-two minutes, beating the second-place male by twenty minutes, and lowering the best time in the event for a woman by two hours and twenty minutes.

The event, organized by the Bad Luck Running Club of Auburn, was staffed by 60 volunteers who manned the aid stations, recorded times, took photographs of participants, marked and swept the trails, or shuttled runners and supplies. And, with the number of people signed up to run in the races growing from 110 in 2024 to 312 this year, the occasion is clearly gaining popularity amongst the nation’s long-distance runners.

Meanwhile, given the increased number of runners and their supporters who patronized local inns and restaurants this year, except for the small number of people awakened by the starter’s bullhorn shortly before 5 AM, it’s fair to say Downieville is looking forward to the return of this healthy, quiet, and well-behaved crowd in 2026.