How many of you think Dean Karnazes story is BS?

The main reason why Karnazes is as famous as he is has nothing to do with any of his so called "accomplishments" and everything to do with his ability to self-promote. I remember threads from the past with this exact same topic. If he did indeed run anywhere near as far as he said, he couldn't have been running any faster than he normally does, which is basically a trot. I would take anything he has ever written or said with a grain of salt.

You have to be working hard to get cramps. Dean probably just shuffled along at a couple of miles an hour.

Honestly he's another thick ankle/legged wanna be fast guy who just kept upping the distance hoping to be competitive in the fringe aspect of the sport

Dean actually has wiry bowed legs and scrawny ankles and calves.

The problem is that he has zero speed regardless of what leg shape he has.

Some of what you say may be true. Also some are great self-promoters. There are some good athletes who do ultras. I know of a collegiate runner who progressed to being a good ultra runner. One race consisted of 10 loops of 10 miles each in a wooded hilly area. That's impressive for anyone.

bsbrobs wrote:

(To those that don't know) He claims to have got into ultra running by getting drunk on his 30th BDay and out of no where thinking "I should go run 30 miles" and he he just got up and ran 30 miles away in the middle of the night and had his wife come get him a few towns over.

Seems like going from a stagnant drunk to "running" 30 miles would cramp the shit out of you, i call B.S.

This is totally believable. He wasn't running 6:30 pace or anything.

There was a guy in college who lived in the dorms. Non athlete, typical college guy etc. We bet him he could not run a marathon. He said he could.

We all went to the track and he ran the 105 laps in about 4:00. His legs were totally blown out for a while after that though but he did it.

Moral of the story is, people can run long distance untrained. They just will not go fast. If Dean said he ran 30 miles in 3:00 that is one thing.

The irony of letsrun: Disgusted with the lack of popularity, but also disgusted with self-promotion.

I completely believe it. I have known several people, all non-runners and non-athletes, that have at different times gotten it into their heads that they were going to run a certain distance and then walked out their doors and then done so. No, they don't break any records, but they did "run" the distance. One guy decided he needed to run 10 miles on his 10 anniversary for his wife and then spent the next 2.5 hours doing just that. He hadn't run before and to my knowledge hasn't run since. My own wife ran 3 miles one day to prove to me that anyone could do it. It took her 42 minutes, but she did it and hasn't run since.

Me. I don't pay attention to him, anyway.

Tony Krupicka is more interesting.