Ultrarunner Jared Hazen had every intention of attending Penn State University, but he couldn’t shake his dreams of bounding along Rocky Mountain singletrack. Following his high school graduation in 2013, he packed his bags and moved from his family’s home in Titusville, Penn., to Teton National Park, where he took a job as a housekeeper and began running long distances. Last year, he finished 14th in the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run in California, the most famous ultrarunning event in the U.S. He clocked in at 17 hours, 30 minutes, and was the youngest runner (19) in the race. Now a wily veteran with an ambitious race goal, the Colorado Springs resident will step to the WS100 starting line for the second time on Saturday in Squaw Valley. We tracked him down this week at work at the Colorado Running Company to get the lowdown on his race plan.

You get a second try at Western States. What did you learn last year that might help you this time around? Course knowledge will be the biggest one. I was a little intimidated last year with the level of competition. It’s a difficult course. It gets pretty hot. So I was quite conservative for the first 80 miles. I had a good last 20, but felt like I had a few matches to burn at the end. So hopefully this year I can take a few more risks early and kind of go for it a little bit more.

Have you tailored your training for this race and what does that look like? Yeah, it has been 21-25 hours a week. Usually three days a week of doing a workout. Longer intervals, 4x15 minutes, uphill, downhill, flat. Then I’ve thrown in a couple of long runs to build some extra strength. So three days a week of running really hard, the other days I just go by feel.

How many miles a week, or is that an accurate way of looking at it? Not really for me because I don’t track them all, but ball park would probably be around 140 to 180.

We’ve had some snow problems, have you been able to get some altitude training?: I’ve been getting up to Barr Camp (on Pikes Peak) at 10,000 feet. I did one workout where I got a mile past Barr, but I haven’t been above treeline this year. Every day I usually get up to 8,000 feet, so I always get a decent climb in.

Most of the climbing is at the start of the race?: There is a pretty good amount of climbing (there is about 18,000 feet of climbing, with 23,000 descending) through the first 62 miles, after that it’s a big descent. You get out of the canyons and into flatter ground. (The race) starts at 6,000 feet, then there is a 2,500 foot climb. From there it sits at 7,000 for a while, then you start dropping. Everything will be in my wheelhouse with that.

What part of Western States is most challenging? A section called the Canyons where you have a couple of pretty steep 2,000-foot drops, then a 1,500 foot climb and a 2,000 foot climb within a short amount of miles, maybe 20 at the most. It starts around 40 miles. It’s kind of the most rugged terrain. I dealt with it pretty well, but I was so far back from the leaders, I was like in 30th place. I was just doing my own thing.

So you battled back from 30th to 14th and did most of that late in the race? I was probably still in 20-25^th place at mile 80 and then was able to turn on the jets and catch some people.

Who all will be running at the front of pack? Nine of the Top 10 from last year will be back (minus Max King). There is a strong international field this year. But I think Rob Krar, who won last year, Dylan Bowman who was third, Seth Swanson who was second, and then Francois D'Haena from France, and Ryan Sandes from South Africa will be the guys who are really running for the win. But there will be others battling for Top 10.

What would success look like for you in this race? If I could spend most of the day running with the leaders. Finish in the upper half of Top 10 …

That would be like, Top 5. Yeah, so that would be the perfect day for me. I think Top 10 is very doable, so that is like a B goal, but I definitely want to give this one a strong go and take a few more chances than I usually would.

Chances … meaning going off on a descent or slamming an uphill? So yeah, if some of the Europeans take the race out harder, maybe go with them. Or if we’re 50 miles in and somebody starts pulling away on an uphill, I’ll go with them instead of holding back. So that’s what I mean by maybe taking a few more risks instead of staying within myself the whole time, maybe redlining it for a while.

You’re more prepared to actually race this year. Yeah, that’s really what it is, racing instead of running it.

Well, just running it is understandable. Isn’t the essence of the whole ultra thing 90 percent survival and 10 percent maybe you win and maybe you don’t? Yeah, I mean the guy who wins is the guy who slows down the least. It’s kind of just managing the low points. It’s competitive enough now though that you can’t slack off in the first half of the race like maybe you could in previous years. You kind of have to make sure you’re up there.

People always ask ultrarunners about their fuel plan. I usually eat Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies (laughs), Honey Stinger Waffles and then gels and soda late in the race. It starts out with more solid food, then as the day gets longer it gets hotter, stomach gets a little more upset, so I go with the liquid stuff. That’s it for me, and then some electrolyte drinks.

So you’re just hammering as much sugar as you can into your body: As much as I can stomach, yeah.

Were you a high school track guy in Pennsylvania? Yeah, track and cross country. The 3,200 was my best event. 9:42 I ran. It was good enough for me to win most meets. But I ran pretty poorly at the state competitions my senior year. That was my time to get a medal there and I never did.

At some point you got it into your head to move to Colorado and become an ultra runner. That had been kind of in the works my entire senior year. I had all intentions of going to college. But the more I ran, the more I got out on trails, because I was doing a lot of stuff by myself outside of cross country and track. I decided I liked that a ton more. I ran a couple of ultras in high school that led me to believe I was at least decent at it. I ran 50 miler as my first one, and then a 50K. Took second in the 50 miler and won the 50K. I just wanted to get out somewhere in the mountains where there was more trail access, a little more of a community for it, things like that. So I decided in the spring of my senior year that I was going to bail on college and took a job as a housekeeper in Wyoming, living in Grand Teton National Park for the summer. And then, after that, I moved down here. I had a friend (Brad Cole) that I knew from Pennsylvania that was living out here. Stayed with him for a few months, and then really thought I would bounce around. But I liked it enough here, I got settled. I don’t really want to leave.

When you were thinking about college did you have an idea of what you wanted to do? I was all over the place with that. I’m not good at making big decisions. I think the plan was to study geology at Penn State. I got good grades at high school. I was an honor student. But I wanted to try something … pursue my passions for a while.

Your folks (Carl and Sue Hazen), how did they feel about the ultrarunner decision? They were pretty upset about it. But ultimately it was my decision. I didn’t ask them to pay my way to Wyoming. So I’ve just been going solo. But since then, once I moved out, they’ve supported me. They’ve come to a couple of races. They were at Western States last year. I think that was kind of eye opening for them, to kind of help them understand it a little more.

Where are your favorite places to run in Colorado Springs? Definitely in the summer any time I can get up the peak (Pikes Peak.) But probably more so than the peak, I like Bear Creek Canyon and Cheyenne Cañon  going up toward Almagre (12,367 feet, south of Pikes Peak.) It’s a lot quieter up there. More single track snaking through the woods. I enjoy that area quite a bit.

How are you going to handle the crew/pacer thing at Western States? I have one of my best friends coming from Penn. Jeff Nelson. He’s 50, a lot older than I am. So he and his daughter (Taylor) who is my age, we went to high school together, they’re going to crew for me. It’s just going to be a fun five days.

Do you have pacers? If needed, Jeff can jump in, but I’d like to do it without one. I like having no pacer.

Any thoughts about races past this week? Not really. I got invited to go to Les Templier in France at the end of October. So that would be huge if I get to go there. It has been an unfortunate circumstance where the guy that was coordinating the athletes died. So I’m not sure. Me and Alex (Nichols) have been trying to contact the people at the race so we can get our tickets booked. It’s right around 50 miles. A U.S. Team is going.

Any sponsors yet? Drymax Socks. That's about it. I’ve been talking with Montrail. Nike just sent me some stuff. I kind of like being the unsponsored underdog. I’ll just have the Team Colorado singlet. That’s a fun team to be a part of. A good group of guys.