Cannabis in Ultrarunning: Avery Collins, Dokken, Estimated 50%

Avery Collins: The First Cannabis-Sponsored Pro Ultrarunner

Avery Collins (born 1991, based in Silverton, Colorado) was the first professional ultra-runner to sign a cannabis-brand sponsorship — with The Farm Dispensary in Boulder in 2016. The roster expanded to Mary's Medicinals, Roll-uh-Bowl, Incredibles, and the CBD line PurePower. The sponsorship pattern broke ground — before Collins, no U.S. professional ultra-runner had openly carried cannabis-brand backing. Coverage in iRunFar, Outside, and UltraRunning over the years that followed has chronicled both the racing record and the public-policy advocacy.

The 2017 Racing Year

Collins's 2017 racing year is the case-record bar for the cannabis-sponsored-pro question:

• 6th overall at the 2017 Western States 100 (June 24, 2017) — the most prestigious 100-mile race in North America.
• Winner of the 2017 Grindstone 100 (October 6, 2017) in 18:40:37 — the fastest Grindstone finish since Jeff Browning's 18:34 in 2014. iRunFar's "This Week In Running: October 9, 2017" reported: "Avery Collins, the dude has the 100-mile distance figured out. His 18:40 winning time is the fastest since 2014 when Jeff Browning went 18:34. Collins's banner year also includes a win at the Georgia Death Race and a sixth-place finish at the Western States 100 Mile."
• 15th at the 2017 UTMB CCC.
• Winner of the Georgia Death Race.

The 5-Week Washout Protocol

Collins competes clean in tested races. He stops THC use approximately 5 weeks before races subject to drug testing and submits voluntarily to post-race tests. He has tested clean across multiple WADA-protocol post-race screens. The 5-week window has become the most-cited individual-athlete washout template — quoted in washout-protocol planning for ultrarunners and other endurance athletes navigating UCI, IFSC, USATF, and WADA-aligned event testing.

The protocol's reliability rests partly on body-fat dynamics: ultrarunners typically operate at low body-fat percentages, which limits THC adipose-tissue storage and shortens the effective detection window relative to sedentary peers. THC re-mobilisation during fasted training and weight cuts can produce delayed urinary THC-COOH spikes (Wong et al., Drug Testing and Analysis, 2013); the 5-week window builds a margin against that risk.

Dokken, Hall, and the Wider Roster

Collins is the most-named pro ultrarunner in the cannabis-sponsored category, but he is not alone:

• Flavie Dokken — signed with Wana Brands in 2019. The Wana Brands roster anchors the cannabis-edibles side of the endurance-sport sponsorship landscape.
• Tanner Hall — signed with Black Rock Originals in 2016. Hall's deal is recorded as the first cannabis-athlete sponsorship in U.S. action sports, predating Collins's deal by months and opening the regulatory question that the rest of the athlete-cannabis sponsorship market subsequently navigated.

"At Least Half"

Per Collins's reporting, "at least half" of professional ultrarunners use cannabis to some degree — a figure widely cited in trade-press coverage of the cannabis-and-endurance overlap. ⚠️ The number is athlete reporting, not formal prevalence research; rigorous prevalence studies in elite-ultrarunner populations have not been published (⚠️ Emerging). What is well-documented is the visibility: cannabis use among elite ultrarunners is openly discussed in podcast interviews, race-recap pieces, and athlete-Q&A coverage in a way that has no parallel in stick-and-ball professional sports.

Why Ultras, Specifically

The cultural fit between cannabis and ultra-running is not random. Three factors compound:

• Endocannabinoid substrate. The Raichlen 2012 finding (humans and dogs — cursorial mammals — show exercise-induced anandamide elevation) and the Fuss 2015 PNAS demonstration that CB1 blockade abolishes the anxiolysis and analgesia of voluntary wheel running both place distance running squarely in CB1-modulated reward space. See Runner's High Science.
• Geography. The Boulder ultra-running scene, the Silverton/Telluride mountain ecosystem, and the Eugene track-and-field corridor all sit in cannabis-permissive jurisdictions and have done since well before federal hemp reform.
• Testing posture. Most ultramarathon and trail-running events do not drug-test. The competitive incentive to plan around in-competition tests applies only when athletes choose UCI, IFSC, USATF-sanctioned, or WADA-aligned events — a minority of the ultrarunning calendar.

The Wider Endurance Picture

The ultrarunning scene sits at the heart of the broader cannabis-and-endurance overlap covered in the Culture overview, the 420 Games (Joaquin Buscaglia's 4.20-mile event series), and the runner's-high mechanism page. For the brand-business side — Wana, Mary's Medicinals, Floyd's of Leadville — see Athlete-Founded Cannabis Brands.