Man Compares Running With Dean Karnazes With Playing Hoops With Michael Jordan

This horse is dead wejo. He's not Paul Tergat and everybody knows this. Dean Karnazes is doing a charity event and he's conducting it professionally. The quoted dude idolizes Dean as some people idolize Michael Jordan. He can idolize whomever he wants

He won the badwater ultramarathon, but other than that it seems like his accomplishments are basically just centered around finishing various long races. His website doesn't list any PRs. For example, in the western states race Scott jurek routinely beats him by 2-3 hours.

His book is selling for like 6 bucks, you should buy it for Rojo for christmas:

http://www.bookcloseouts.com/default.asp?R=1585422789B

ps. Either rojo is lying about not knowing who DK is, or he doesn't spend nearly enough time on this message board.

I haven't read many of the threads but don't think the horse is dead. Robert had never heard of the guy.

And I don't think the guy is idolizing Dean for his charity work. He compares it to playing basketball with Micahel Jordan. It is an athletic analogy.

i bumped shoulders with karnazes on a trail in in SF. OMG, i can only compare that experience to being on a crowded bus and ramming my shoulder into an asshole who wouldnt move to the back of the bus.

Lots of people read his book and idolize him because of it, but the Dean fans out there are not the same crowd as the letsrun fans. They don't give a sh!t that you could beat Dean by an hour in a marathon. I don't know why they idolize him (I don't, I've only read a few pages of the book) but he has a following. So Dean put together an event where these people can pay to run with him with the money going to charity. After each run Dean hangs around for a couple hours and talks to each runner individually, everybody goes home happy. He's courteous and professional to the people who help him with the organization. Yeah, some other guy scooped him with the 50/50 thing first. Big deal. Neither Dean nor the people who are running with him deserve to be subjected to the letsrun bashing for this particular event. Now the "cut like a prizefighter" line in the first couple pages of his book...

"Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Lapping the mighty Dean Karnazes in the Mile would be like Prince beating Dave Chappelle in a game of hoops one-on-one, or like Tito Ortiz getting mounted by a deer in a no holds barred UFC match. Oh, the humanity!"

more like playing basketball with that 70 yr old dude who could make hundreds of free throws in a row.

more like playing basketball with that 70 yr old dude who could make hundreds of free throws in a row.

Running with Karno is like playing pickup hoops with that autistic high school kid who sank like a half dozen three pointers the sole time he was put into a game.

Running with Dean Karnazes is like posting in a thread started by wejo.

Running with Dean is like . . .

who cares.

I must admit that he's proving he can do something 50 times in a row that I've never done once. So I suppose its more inspirational than running with me.

He won the Vermont 100-Miler either this year or last year in what, I believe, was/is a pretty respectable time. Other than that and winning Badwater, not sure of any big wins. Now "winning" is relative in ultras. Conquering a field of 40-60 years olds isn't like winning the Falmouth Road Race. But hey, a win is a f'in win.

turkey leg wrote:

more like playing basketball with that 70 yr old dude who could make hundreds of free throws in a row.

I think this is the closest one yet.

You don't like him? Well, let me tell you a little story. A story about a little fat kid who everybody made fun of, and nobody liked.....and he had a twin brother, and everybody said he never looked like his twin brother, but he wanted to...

I am more astonished that Rojo never heard of Dean K. than someone comparing Dean to MJ. Seriously, does Rojo even visit this site? You can't be a semi-regular message board reader and claim you haven't heard of Dean Karnazes, Pam Reed, Brandon Moen, Flagpole Willy, ttc, the430miler, etc.

Wejo, you need to give Rojo crap for that.

track dude wrote:

I am more astonished that Rojo never heard of Dean K. than someone comparing Dean to MJ. Seriously, does Rojo even visit this site? You can't be a semi-regular message board reader and claim you haven't heard of Dean Karnazes, Pam Reed, Brandon Moen, Flagpole Willy, ttc, the430miler, etc.

Wejo, you need to give Rojo crap for that.

Or Pirate/Cat/Gun girl... C'mon, don't ignore Ms. letsrun herself.

What a beauty...

Wejo, thanks for acknowledging that this is a serious issue.

I have read Dean's book, and he talks like he is the second coming.

Not sure what the deal is with this PR machine, but he needs to keep it where it belongs.

I have no problem with Dean running his runs, making his press releases and writing his books, but when he makes statements within these things like, "I am testing the limits of the human body," and "I am doing things that no man has ever done before," it kind of rubs me the wrong way...

He is just lying to mislead the public.

He is like a politician.

He is a nice enough guy I guess, no personal grudge, but show some class when it comes to educating the public.

And North Face just sucks, everything about that brand. If you want to buy decent gear, go the Patagonia route.

Don't know about his PRs, but I'm not a fan of the guy. Reasons are:

1) His book (which I read, a friend let me borrow it), is kind of nauseating. He just seems really full of himself. Granted, some of this might be the editor wanting to build up an image, but he just seems really narcissistic.

2) A lot of people don't like Ultra runners b/c they believe they have basically created a sub-genre of running that is such a small niche that it allows them to win. The idea is that they have no chance of winning in more popular, shorter distances. Dean seems to take this one step further by actually running TO these events (especially when he does a standard marathon) so that he gets the publicity, and also has an excuse for why is time is not so good! It's similar to people who are always "training through" a race, so they have an excuse for a poor time. It's like he's in his own sub-genre of a sub-genre, so he is still a "winner".

3) I read the RW article about his 50/50/50 PR tour and thought it was in poor taste they way he took a jab at that other guy (name escapes me) who beat him to it. Something about taking from his glory. He tries to paint himself as so Zen and beyond "competing" and petty things like what others think of him, but then he shows his true colors when you have someone who can potentially dent his pocket book by stealing his thunder.

It's more like playing football with Freddie Mitchell