Zach Bitter breaks his 100 mile American record

7:01/mile pace if I did the math correctly. That is pretty baller.

Sincehe is faster than me. I will go ahead say it.

He's on the PEDs

lrcskeptic wrote:

7:01/mile pace if I did the math correctly. That is pretty baller.

Not horrible math.

This cool running calculator says it's 7:00.55 pace so that would round to 7:01.

All due respect, but you hardly need a calculator to check that. 100 miles x 7 minutes = 700 minutes = 11:40. That leaves 55 seconds to account for. Divide by 100 and you get 0.55. So, 7:00.55 pace.

I'm curious what his average HR is at 7:01 pace to maintain that for 100 miles? Literally his HR would be like 90's-115 range to essentially make it so he feels like he's doing notihng.

Wow. I'm impressed. Even on a track, that's a really quick pace for 100 miles. I was an ok 14:45 type guy in my prime, and I would have days where at the end of a 7 flat pace long run I'd be pretty tired out. To keep that up for another 80 miles? Props to him.

Assuming he took a few bio breaks, his running pace was almost certainly < 7:00. I could make it about 7 miles. Fml.

All I can think is: 400 left turns. Gawwwddd.

Snooze Alarm wrote:

All I can think is: 400 left turns. Gawwwddd.

Actually 800.

check ur math wrote:

Snooze Alarm wrote:

All I can think is: 400 left turns. Gawwwddd.

Actually 800.

I wasn't there, but usually in ultras on the track, we reverse direction every 4 hours. So you can have some right turns, if that's your dream.

Do you think he would have come back from a lap behind to win this race, had it been on a track?

Boatttt wrote:

I'm curious what his average HR is at 7:01 pace to maintain that for 100 miles? Literally his HR would be like 90's-115 range to essentially make it so he feels like he's doing notihng.

I highly doubt if you asked him how he felt yesterday he would say "like I'm doing nothing". And while everyone has different HR zones, I think there is a 100% chance he was higher than 90-115. I'm sure he was at his aerobic zone 2 140s-ish or whatever HR. I recently ran 9 hours and 20 minutes at 143 HR avg (max is 187, upper end of aerobic is high 140s depending on the "calculator").

Elite endurance athletes are without question able to push it for 11 hours. Ironman - 8 hours of pretty high intensity. The guys winning 100 mile trail ultras - more than 11 hours and I doubt there are at the top of their sport by sticking at what is essentially a walking HR.

This website has garbage info when it comes to heart rate stuff...

Yeah, no way he's in the 90-115 range. It's highly unlikely that he was even as low as the 140s. When I was 22, with a max heart rate of 199, I ran a very mountainous 50 mile in 9 hours wearing a heart rate monitor and averaged right about 160 (turning it off during bathroom and food breaks, which were about 15 minutes of the total) with a pretty solid effort and no major bonking. A trainer at my parents' gym (fast runner with a 14:xx 5k PR and an exercise science background) told me that it should be possible to get in shape to hold even 170 pretty indefinitely with a 200-ish max. I bet Zach's bummed that he couldn't take 56 seconds off. It'd be pretty cool to be in the 6s for 100 miles. I wonder if he can get fit enough to get under that 11:28 in the next couple years...

Isn't this the guy who used to post on here about "going pro" as an ultra runner?

Collin wrote:

Yeah, no way he's in the 90-115 range. It's highly unlikely that he was even as low as the 140s. When I was 22, with a max heart rate of 199, I ran a very mountainous 50 mile in 9 hours wearing a heart rate monitor and averaged right about 160 (turning it off during bathroom and food breaks, which were about 15 minutes of the total) with a pretty solid effort and no major bonking. A trainer at my parents' gym (fast runner with a 14:xx 5k PR and an exercise science background) told me that it should be possible to get in shape to hold even 170 pretty indefinitely with a 200-ish max. I bet Zach's bummed that he couldn't take 56 seconds off. It'd be pretty cool to be in the 6s for 100 miles. I wonder if he can get fit enough to get under that 11:28 in the next couple years...

Likewise my 143HR was from TNF50 just a couple weeks ago. If you scale our numbers by the 12 beat difference in max, plus your 15 minutes stopped, would seem like a very similar effort!

COrunz wrote:

Wow. I'm impressed. Even on a track, that's a really quick pace for 100 miles. I was an ok 14:45 type guy in my prime, and I would have days where at the end of a 7 flat pace long run I'd be pretty tired out. To keep that up for another 80 miles? Props to him.

I think that Berndt Heinrich averaged 6:20s for 62 miles when he ran his 40-and-over 100K record.

It looked to be a great run for Zach (9-min for so PR) and he worked hard for it (140mpw etc.)

I'd probably think his HR was at least in the 140s or not a super easy % of max, based on his age, level in training and ( and roughly 2:30 marathon PR).

That being said there is often a decent variation in max HR. even between runners of the same age/experience level in training. For example, I've seen data from Andy Wacker doing a 20-mile Long Run at the Res at about 5:20-5:25 pace and average a HR around 170. For me personally (a couple years older), I can hold 170 for maybe 40-60min at best but it's over my Lactate Threshold and it's going to be around 5:10-5:05 pace at altitude. But that's because my max is likely way lower than Andy's! At 7:00min pace here in Boulder I'm just under 130bpm. It's likely Zach probably has less "wiggle room" with the HR variation, but his issue was overcoming mounting skeletal muscular fatigue, burning a high % of fat as fuel, and staying hydrated while not getting any GI distress.

One thing I've learned doing ultras is that you can compete at what seems like a pretty high intensity for hours on end.

Road Marathoning is of course a bit more intense overall, but esp. in the high altitude mountain and hilly ultras you an literally run right up to your Lactate threshold at times as long as you back off on the downhills.

It would be hard to twist his arm to do this, but I'd be excited to see what someone like Max King could do for 100-miles on a track/flat road. Given his 2:14 marathon speed and experience at trail -100 milers as well as being 100km road champ, I'd be willing to bet he could lay down a pretty strong pace for 11 or so hours...on a flat runnable surface.

Congrats to Zach!

Great to see some appreciative posts on an ultrarunner's achievement here for a change. Well deserved, really strong performance!

Zach's gps showed 104.7 miles at the end.

"GPS adds a little bit on a track and lane two adds a bit. Hence the 104.7."

I watched the video feed here and there, and Zach was frequently moving around people, so he spent a lot of time in lane 2.

I can't comment about gps adding to a track. Anyone know out there?