Heather Jackson | Western States 2025 Pre-Race Interview
The Freetrail Podcast with Dylan Bowman
Dylan Bowman
5 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This interview is part of Freetrail's coverage of the 2025 Western States 100, the most important trail running event in North America. Our shows and athlete interviews are hosted each day by Dylan Bowman who sits down to talk with some of the favorites who are racing this year.
In this interview, Dylan talks to professional runner Heather Jackson (HOKA) for a pre-race interview. Heather recently won the Unbound XL 350 mile gravel race just a few short weeks ago. Heather comes into Western States this year as a more seasoned trail runner, and it’s hard not to route for this incredible multi-sport phenom. This year’s training has been different for Heather, she’s learned a lot, and hopes to perform at a very high level.
Make sure to tune into our final live pre-race show leading into the 2025 Western States. We’ll be live at 3:30pm tonight both on YouTube and broadcast on the Coffeebar patio. Tonight’s show will conclude our pre-race show coverage, before we set our sites on the official broadcast where Dylan will be commentating, and we’ll be providing photo and video coverage of the race for the Freetrail social channels. Make sure to follow along here and @runfreetrail on Instagram.
Make sure to play Freetrail's own fantasy trail running at https://fantasy.freetrail.com/events and pick 10-deep for Western States. Fantasy winners this week will receive a head to toe trail kit from HOKA as well as other sweet prizes from Freetrail and brand partners like Ketone IQ and Neversecond.
Our Western States coverage is brought to you by our good friends at HOKA. We're grateful for their generous support and belief in Freetrail.
Make sure to check out the latest and greatest from HOKA, the Mafate X. The Mafate X is all about innovation and pushing past limits. HOKA evolved their max-cushion trail experience to provide the confidence, control, and adaptability ultra runners require for their biggest trail efforts. Embracing the paradox of max cushion and stability on trail to develop a new experience for the longest adventures.
You can learn more and shop here: https://www.hoka.com/en/us/mafate/
Freetrail Links:
Website | https://freetrail.com/
Freetrail Pro | https://freetrail.com/pro/
Patreon | / dylanbowman
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/runfreetrai...
YouTube | / @freetrail
Freetrail Experts | https://freetrail.com/experts/
Dylan Links:
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/dylanbo/?hl=en
Twitter | https://twitter.com/dylanbo?lang=en
LinkedIn | / dylan-bowman-06174380
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to free trails coverage of the 2025 Western States 100, the grand daddy of Trail 100 mile racing celebrating its 52nd year in beautiful |
| 0:22.9 | Olympic Valley, California. I'm Dylan Bowman and the whole free trail team is here on the ground |
| 0:27.7 | doing daily live shows in partnership with our good friends at Hoka and we couldn't be more |
| 0:33.6 | excited. It doesn't need to be stated, but Western States is truly one of the great sporting |
| 0:39.2 | events in the world. It's been a major part of my life for the last 15 years, and it's an honor |
| 0:43.9 | to be able to bring our coverage to the global trail running community. As I said, our coverage |
| 0:49.1 | all week is made possible with support from Hokel the brand born from Trail Running, the presenting |
| 0:54.0 | sponsor of Western |
| 0:55.1 | States and the makers of some of the most popular footwear and apparel products on the market. |
| 1:01.2 | You'll hear more from Hoka during the show, but please visit Hoka.com to check out all of their |
| 1:06.1 | amazing trail products. Best sport ever, best week ever, best race ever. |
| 1:13.4 | Western states is here. |
| 1:15.6 | Thanks for joining us. |
| 1:26.5 | And we are back here in the Hoka Outpost with Hoka Athlete Heather Jackson. |
| 1:31.6 | How are you feeling ahead of your third Western states? |
| 1:34.4 | I know, right? |
| 1:35.3 | Three in a row, right? |
| 1:37.0 | Yeah, third year here. |
| 1:39.0 | So just excited to be back. |
| 1:40.3 | Thanks for having me. |
| 1:41.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:41.5 | I have to say, I think you're maybe my favorite athlete in the world, |
... |
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