Are most ultra “runners” just walking?

The very top guys may run. The majority of the participants mainly walk.

What's your best 100 mile time?

Irrelevant. 15 minute miles is walking pace, whether I’ve done it or not.

Like I said walking 100 miles is an impressive feat. But, walking is still walking no matter how far you’ve gone.

Even Killian and Jim walk. That’s not the point. Most the haters in this thread have zero concept of what it’s like to run up a mountain. 10-12min miles is flying on most mountainous trails. These aren’t bark paths in your local park.

All of our ancestors did it. All of our 1/2 ape-like, 1/2 human-like ancestors walked 100 miles either for safety or better food source.

Nope, didn’t happen. I don’t know kind of human civilizations or apes or pre-humans are you imagining walked and/or ran 100 miles a day (or in a single trip with minimal breaks) on a regular basis, but none such existed.

I love it when those with PhD in anthropology post on let'srun. Tell us details of your education.

Don't make more of your activity than it is. If 100 mile hiking & jogging keeps you out of dive bars, then continue hiking & jogging.

It's better for your health to be a middle distance runner and middle distance master runner.

Sounds like you don’t disagree with anything I actually said.

I can’t believe it - I am evolving into a “ultra hater”.
Having said that I do admire the ability to run down a technical mountain side on dead legs.

- But yes there is way too much walking. Even worse than that, 30+% don’t even finish the UTMB.
- When 9 hours is spent completing in complete darkness, amidst snow capped peaks (often with critical events occurring) the sports basic premise comes off as foolishly squandering prime viewership.
- Yet that is excused since the event is marketed as socially elite. With costly qualifications on top of numerous barriers to entry.

I am watching shorter mountain trail races. The athleticism is undeniable.

it is absolutely comparable across classes of individuals

a man moving at 7:00/mi pace is 100% jogging and this is not open to debate

call it whatever makes you feel good about yourself, but as an example crossfitters 100% believe in their minds they are doing "sprints" when running at 8:00/mi pace for 200 meters

let them do what they want and call it what they want, but the truth in the eyes of our lord and savior is that they are jogging

and so i repeat for the young children and seekers of the truth here whose minds have not yet rotted from decades of flouride intake; the absolute bare minimum speed to be classified as running is sub-6 for men and sub-6:40 for the womens

If it's steep enough you can easily be runninga world class effort at 20-minute pace or slower. That's having both feet off the ground at the same point in the stride, which is not walking by definition. Even 30-minute pace can be running. You can tell just by looking at people running vs. walking up steep climbs. You can't tell by pace alone.

The record on the Incline is 20:36 pace, and that is running, not walking, by a world-class mountain runner.

strava.com

New record Incline 😏 - Rémi B's 1.3 km run

Rémi B ran 1.3 km on Sep 12, 2023.

Link:www.strava.com/activities/9838077475

So Remi running 20:36/mi pace up the Incline (the record on a famous route) is doing super duper easy jogging? I call troll (or dumbpoop).

The weekly ultra bashing thread...

bro ain't nobody even naturally cdjogging at 20:36/mi pace

that is powerhiking

problem is people here have too much ego and think if it can't be called running it somehow lessens the accomplishment

if someone is going 20:36/mi (2.9mph!) pace up an incline and they are an elite athlete, it would be a massive waste of energy to not be walking or powerhiking or whatever tf y'all want to call it. there is no reason to be hopping from one foot to the other at that speed going up an incline.

There’s a video. Watch it.

link it

I did an ultra in the Alps this year. About 8 hours into my race, my legs were just giving out. I was only about half-way done (time-wise). It was humbling. Sort of like the feeling you get after doing as many pushups as you can... you just can't do "a few more" at some point.

The gun went off at 1am and the lead guys (not me) were running sub-6 pace through town. Then they hit a narrow staircase leading out of town up into the Alps. They hammered those stairs and hit the switchbacks, still running hard. But at every aid-station there is a ton of lost time just eating, refilling water, and changing into dry shoes/clothes (it rained for the first 6.5 hours of my race).

It is similar to someone saying, "are the guys who climb Mt. Everest just walking up to the top?" Yes, one some level, they are. But is that really the best way to describe it? Which is harder? Benching 400lbs once or doing 200 pushups without stopping? It is literally the same motion and the same muscle groups. So which one do you think you could do?

Racing ultras is different than racing the 1500m on the track, but you aren't "walking."

So I guess what I saw was only a clip on Instagram and they haven’t released a longer video yet. Here is last years attempt where he also broke the record and then ran faster this year I believe. It’s also just a clip but longer and shows more of the effort.

I don't know about the Incline specifically (never been there), and I agree that sometimes powerhiking is more efficient than running on steep climbs, particularly in the course of a longer race. But running can still be faster than powerhiking, particularly for shorter efforts like vertical Ks.

27:56/mi pace for the upper part of the Fully Vertical K for Remi Bonnet - running - see above video.