How hard are ultras really? 57-year old woman breaks storied Courtney Dauwalter ultra record

She later tested positive for Methamphetamine and Modafinil. No sanctioned record unfortunately.

300 miles in 72 hours.

do you have to even think about it?

go and run one 100 miler and come back before you speak.

that is 4 marathons.

or 12 marathons in 3 days.

I have done plenty of 100 milers and multi day races over decades.
The Backyard format is not a record worthy distance, I stand by that.

Records have to be run on certified and measured courses over acknowledged distances or time frames like 24 hours, 48 hours or 6 days on road or track. Trail course are not certifiable.

...and as we try to 'popularize track and field' maybe it would be prudent to stop ALL races at about 4 laps of a 400 meter track and have all the other silly events for those that can't quite run fast enough out on the roads or up on a mountain...

a lot of the haters/skeptics in this thread are missing part of what makes these events special. The fact that ~anybody can be competitive in backyard ultras is a feature, not a bug. it comes down to training, preparation, willpower etc.. much less to do with genetics/gender/age compared to other forms of running. which is kind of cool! to me at least.

and i love the competitive track circuit, major road races, western states/utmb etc.. but backyards are undeniably cool to me. i love how the playing field is ~leveled and it becomes much more of a mental test than pure athleticism. if you think it's dumb then don't watch but i'll watch diamond league then turn on a backyard cuz #whynot

I've always thought about it similarly to cycling different disciplines. No one in their right mind would think the average TDF cyclist could just switch over to downhill MTB and crush the competition. Similarly the best marathoner would get crushed in a golden trail race or golden ticket race. Unless they did specific training for it. Even than the cross over from track/road times to success in trails/ultras isn't perfect. Look at the cycling world for a moment and notice how even within MTB world the best XC MTB is different from the best downhill MTB and how in the TDF the best time trial specialist are different from the best climbers in the tour. That should tell us something and stop the BS on these boards that if the average elite track runner wanted to they could crush it in trails/ultras.

How is the playing field levelled?

That's like saying Michael Phelps is not a world class athlete because he runs a slow 5k.

I agree, having done two of the three (not Bigs, but a Backyard) and UTMB, it is definitely a different style. Overall I was much slower at UTMB, but I never suffered the mental anguish of "again, I've got to run the same boring lap again". The one thing that they have in common is the level of support was outstanding, as runners dropping out of the LMS became crew/cheerleaders for those who were left.

What gives ultras a bad name (IMHO) is that Hobby Joggers use them to make people think that they're really good runners and beasts and rock stars.

The average person has the impression that longer is more difficult.

I have a friend who has been providing us with a dramatic countdown to her ultra this weekend.

The furthest she's run was 7 miles, once. Most runs are 1 or 2 miles.

That, to me, takes away from the serious runners who train and race to their limits at ultras and at shorter distances.

Someone local can post a 15:00 5K in a local race and no one notices. Someone completes a 50K in 7 hours and people think they're a beast.

No it's not. Phelps is not a world class runner. He's a world class sprinter.

I know what he meant by not world class. An NBA player can run an ultra really slow and he's NOT a world runner. But he is a world class athlete.

Aaaaand the truth comes out. What the serious runners of letsrun continually fail to realize is that the general public do not care about times. They care that you ran 26.2 miles or 50 miles up a couple mountains. Running a fast 5k doesn’t mean much to them, because they can run a 5k also. It’s why the Twitter meme of someone proposing the Olympics put an average person in each event to see how good pros really are goes viral every couple months.

That's exactly what I'm saying. They also seem to think that the faster (even local) runners are a different breed.

We have a woman in her 40's who is one of the top masters in the nation.

Someone I know finished 2nd to her in a local race. Somone else actually said- You won, she's too good and doesn't count. (The runner who was 2nd disagreed with that publicly.

At least around here, there's almost a begrudging attitude about the faster runners.

This is a problem, but isn't specific to ultras. I hit this all the time with non-runners at short distances as well. The conversation when an ex-college runner is asked if he's running a race this weekend often looks like: "Yea, I've been training hard for the 5k, trying to get back to my college PR level." "Oh yea I ran a 5k a few years ago. So and so is running a half, I can't imagine running for 13 miles!!"

Just think how dumb the average person is, and then remember that half the population is that dumb - or dumber.

As an ultra runner, I would rather "suffer" through a 50 miler, enjoying the scenery, the buffet tables and the companionship, than actually suffer racing a 5k. Those short distances hurt, and I hate to think how much pain a 100 meter sprint would be, if I tried to compete at the same level that I can get away with in ultras.

The field is leveled because ~any runner can run 4.2 miles in an hour, right? Like, the vast majority of this message board could run at least couple loops at a backyard without timing out. So in a lot of ways, these races come down to training that ~anybody can accomplish, and willpower.

Most people can train themselves to complete say a full day of a backyard (100 miles), whereas they may have no chance at being competitive in a 5k, marathon, or ultra bc they simply can't go fast enough compared to their competition.

At worlds the winners were 2 ~50 y/o belgian guys. Women have obviously had some big 2nd place results with Courtney & Jennifer etc.. and (you can't say this on a college campus) women are significantly slower than men (on average and at the elite level). But you don't need to be fast to run 4.2 miles in an hour - anybody can do it!

Anyway, I think it's a great format. It's an area where people with a lot of willpower & not so much natural talent actually have a shot at winning/being competitive, whereas they could never in the straight up races.

74 yards…. can they even do communication?

Have you ever been to Disney world and spent the whole day walking and standing, and perhaps racked up 12 miles of walking? Or have you hiked with a backpack on mountains? I’d imagine that running 100 miles per day for 3 days is substantially more difficult than the first two.

A 35 mile ultra on a moderate or flat terrain with good weather, a 9 min+ pace, running buddies, and good logistics is probably quite easy. But as soon as you up the work demands and tap into the peak of recovery, I’m sure it gets very very hard.

Well we have 57 year olds finishing marathons. Does that mean the marathon world isn't very competitive?

Are we really going to compare the competition Fred Kerley faces versus that of Camille Herron?

Do you really think that if Kenyons and Ethiopians started doing Ultra en masse that they wouldn’t dominate?

Ultra is a nice little niche sport and of course running 100 miles is hard, but in no way does it attract top level athletes.