From 52 on wait list to Western States start line: David Faught’s 40-hour path to glory

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David Faught and team celebrate on the track at Placer High School, roughly 40 hours after learning he'd cleared the Western States wait list.

By Henry Howard

Some runners spend six months tapering, planning, and obsessing over every mile of the Western States 100. David Faught had about 16 hours.

The 52-year-old Boise runner learned he’d finally gotten off the wait list and into the 2026 Western States Endurance Run on a Friday afternoon in Olympic Valley — less than a day before the 5 a.m. gun.

In less than 40 hours, Faught went from a wait list hopeful to Western States finisher. But the wait list miracle is only one chapter in his incredible story.

Getting to that start line was a two-decade journey that included a near-fatal burn accident, a ruptured Achilles and years of chasing a ticket that always seemed to stay just out of reach.

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A body built back from scratch

Faught’s running life started in high school as an 800/1600 runner, then took a long detour through mountain biking after a short, injury-plagued stint on Boise State’s track team. The real turning point came the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2004.

David Faught is all smiles on the track at Placer High School, roughly 40 hours after learning he'd cleared the Western States wait list.

Faught was clearing a stump near his mailbox, using a small amount of gasoline to help burn it out. The wind shifted, blew the flames toward an empty gas can, and when he grabbed the can to move it, the fumes ignited.

“My pants weren’t [visibly burned], they were just crisp,” he said. “But when they got my pants off, my skin was jello.”

He was life-flighted from Boise to the burn unit in Salt Lake City, where he underwent skin graft surgery on burns covering roughly 65% of his legs. He didn’t leave Salt Lake until nearly Christmas.

Rehab started almost immediately after the graft, first just to keep the new skin elastic. “If you’re grabbing your arm, they kind of pull it up, it goes right back into place,” he explained, describing how the surgeons compared healthy skin to grafted skin. “Once you do a skin graft, your skin becomes more like iron. It’s really strong, but if you hit it hard enough, it breaks open.”

Rebuilding started small: stair-stepping, treadmill walking and eventually running again. Within a few years, he was racing half marathons around Boise. A decade after that, in his 40s, he chased a Boston Marathon Qualifier and missed it by one minute — twice. He finally broke through, ran Boston in 2016 and 2018, and along the way discovered trail racing, jumping into the River No Return 100K in 2017.

Then, in the buildup to his second Boston Marathon, he ruptured his Achilles. He came back anyway, ran a relaxed 3:20 in 2016, and by 2017 was easing back into trail ultras — eventually finishing his first 100-miler at the Bear 100.

Through all of it, Western States sat in the background as the goal. Faught had crewed the race, run its trails at Way Too Cool and the Canyons, and fallen for the Auburn running community long before he ever toed the line himself.

A journey from wait list to Western States start line

Faught’s wife, Joelle Vaught, isn’t just a supportive partner in this story — she’s Western States royalty. A five-time starter and three-time finisher of the race (with a top-10 finish), she once held the course record at the Waldo 100K and ran in the same circles as Gary Robbins and Scott Jurek. She even appears briefly in the ultrarunning documentary “Unbreakable.”

So when Faught drew bib 52 on the Western States wait list last December, he’d seen enough wait list years to know better than to get his hopes up.

“Some years it doesn’t move, some years it moves,” he said. “I never got my hopes up for it.”

He hedged his bets the practical way: registering for the Gorge Waterfalls 100K to lock in another qualifying ticket for next year’s lottery, in case this year didn’t pan out. Training wasn’t smooth, either — a calf knot three weeks before Gorge nearly took him out of that race entirely, and he spent the following weeks in massage and needling instead of on trails. He toed the Gorge line anyway, ran pain-free, and got back to a modest 50–55 miles a week afterward, working around a still-cranky hamstring.

By race week, the wait list hadn’t moved much — Faught figured he was sitting around 10th or 12th and had all but written off the possibility. He and Joelle had a backup plan ready: a fastpacking trip through Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness. Weather forecasts changed their minds. “Auburn’s weather looks really good,” he told his wife. They booked two nights in Olympic Valley, packed nothing more ambitious than the intention to cheer and started driving.

Then the texts started.

Somewhere in the middle of Nevada — “there’s nothing out there,” Faught said — his phone buzzed: he’d moved to number six on the wait list. By the time they reached Olympic Valley, he was number two.

“I could be the last person not to get picked, or get ...” he said. “It was kind of a little surreal. Am I going to be drinking beer and eating pizza all weekend, or am I going to be running all weekend?”

The check-in that changed everything

David Faught learned he would be moved from the Western States wait list to the starting line about 16 hours before the start.

Thursday night, race organizers Topher Gaylord and Craig Thornley — along with pro runner Dylan Bowman, who Joelle knew from her own racing days — spotted the couple and let them in on where things stood. “I don’t know if I’m more scared to run the race or I’m scared I won’t get in the race at this point,” Faught told them.

Friday morning, with the roughly 1 p.m. cutoff approaching, Faught and Vaught walked over to the check-in area just to ask about timing. Thornley spotted Joelle first, pulled her in for a hug, then turned to Faught: “I need your phone number. Don’t go anywhere far. There’s some things in play.”

Two spots were still open. One runner was dealing with a hamstring injury. The other was a South Korean entrant they’d been trying to reach for days.

Faught went for a short run to burn off the nerves. When he came back and checked the list, he saw another name had filled one of the open spots — not the mystery South Korean runner. At 12:45, with the clock closing in, he walked up to check in himself and found three other hopefuls already waiting on the stairs, each sizing up the others.

David Faught gets assistance during the water crossing at Western States.

“What number are you?” one asked.

“One,” Faught said.

The others were two, three, and four.

Soon Thornley walked over. The South Korean runner hadn’t checked in. There was one spot.

“Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

What followed, Faught says, was one of the most emotional moments of his life. Bib numbers already printed. A card to sign. Strangers and Western States veterans coming over to hug him, celebrate with him, welcome him.

“It became this really out-of-body kind of thing,” he said. “Everybody’s cheering for you. You feel like an elite. I’m like, OK, I have to run a 100 miles tomorrow.’”

A HOKA rep even stopped him mid-celebration to make sure he had gear waiting once the paperwork was done.

“It was very special,” Faught said. “I can kind of tear up just thinking about how nice everybody was at that moment, and afterward.”

From celebration to Western States start line in one night

Reality set in fast. Faught wasn’t just running Western States in a matter of hours, he was running it with essentially zero taper, no dialed-in race plan and a body that had trained through injury setbacks all spring.

“I got really nervous, wondering if I was prepared enough to run 100 miles,” he said. He leaned on routine instead of a plan: an early dinner, a mental shift from “eating pizza and drinking beer” mode to race mode, and a simple gear list. His crew instructions were almost comically minimal: one red bag with his usual gels and drink mix, extra socks, and a grocery run in Auburn for Coke and Pringles.

His wife put the whole absurd, beautiful situation into words that stuck with him: “This is not the way you wanted to do it, but this is the way you needed to do it. Because it was so special.”

He slept better than expected, given a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call for a race he hadn’t known he was running 24 hours earlier.

Emigrant Pass, cramps and old friends on course

Faught’s bib number — 415, well above the roughly 377 assigned to the regular field — announced his story to everyone on course before he said a word. “People all knew that I was a wait-lister,” he said. Aid station volunteers greeted him with, “Oh, you’re the last guy off the list.”

The early miles up and over Emigrant Pass delivered the moment ultra runners chase for years. Crowds lined the climb, calling out names stitched onto race bibs. “You felt like everybody from the first person to the last person up there feels like a rock star,” Faught said. “You can’t stop smiling and you got tears in your eyes.”

The High Country lived up to its reputation, too — rain the day before had knocked the dust down into what Faught called “hero dirt,” with wildflowers lining the singletrack.

The race turned harder heading into Duncan Canyon, where a hamstring cramp hit before the 24-mile mark. “What the heck,” he remembers thinking. “I’m not even 24 miles into this yet.” A cramped, chaotic aid station and a shoe change later, ice, a Coke, and some Pringles got him moving again toward Robinson Flat.

The track, the tears and 25 minutes

David Faught and his wife Joelle Vaught, who are now both Western States finishers.

Stepping onto the high school track flipped a switch built into him since his 800/1600 days in high school.

“My legs just want to move,” he said. “This is where I belong. I belong on a track.” Cameras, his wife, his brother, a friend who’d flown in — and Faught in tears, barely hearing the announcer over the sound of his own disbelief as he finished in 24:24:06.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever done outside of marrying my wife,” he said.

Faught finished in just over 24 hours — and allowed himself one wistful thought at the clock: “If I was just 25 minutes faster ...” Then he wanted only one thing: sleep.

What’s next

Faught put his name back in for next year’s lottery — one ticket, no illusions. “It would be pretty amazing if I got in,” he said, but he’s not chasing bibs the way he once was. He and Joelle have shifted toward adventure runs over races: the Hut to Hut route in the Dolomites, the O Circuit in Patagonia, and this year, a trek through Slovenia’s Julian Alps.

There’s still one line item on the wish list — Waldo, the Oregon 100K where Joelle held the course record for years and calls her favorite race. And someday, Faught would like to go back to the Hardrock course — not to race it, but to camp, explore, and run it as a “Softrock,” the way he and Joelle have already done with their dogs.

But nothing, he says, will ever quite match the 40-hour journey from wait list to Western States start line and the finish.

Speed drill

Name: David Faught

Hometown: Boise, Idaho

Number of years running: 37

How many miles a week do you typically run: 50-55

Point of pride: “That I’m still able to run what I want.”

Favorite race distance: Marathon

Favorite pre-race or training food/drink: Pizza or burger

Favorite piece of gear: Garmin

Who inspires you: My wife Joélle

Favorite or inspirational song to run to: I don’t listen to anything while running