Ignorance of letsrun staff on ultras

a ultra enthusiast wrote:

Just listening to the last letsrun podcast, they did a segment on UTMB. I can understand it if it's not your thing, but to underplay the physical component and claim the fields aren't that deep is just ignorant. On top of that I heard the same old BS of well if you got Kenyans into ultras they would dominate it. This is total BS as the comrades marathon gets a handful of sub 2:10 marathoners from Kenya every year and they usually DNF. And that is only a 5-6 hour ultra marathon on the roads. A totally different ball game when you introduce trails, 30000+ feet of climbing and a race that takes 20 hours or so for the winner to win. So instead of letsrun just keep repeating this BS, why doesn't letsrun fund a Kenyan entrance to a golden ticket race? It would at least be nice to see letsrun have someone on their podcast that is more knowledgeable on ultras when they rarely do discuss it. Before they disrespect it again like they usually do. And it would be nice to see letsrun go to a highly competitive ultra like a UTMB event or a golden ticket race.

the truth about ultras wrote:

fan of running wrote:

You just need to look at where athletes are going.

Lots of exceptional athletes do track and field when young and move on to be professionals in other sports.

How many soccer players leave soccer to become marathoners? I'm not aware of any.

Its hands down a weak sport.

There's a few things to consider that you are not:

1) Can you support yourself doing this sport? As in, can you make at least a modest living. In the world of track and road racing, it's orders of magnitude more viable to do this than in ultra running. Yes, many will leave track to play other sports for various reasons, and money is a popular reason. But plenty of people are happy with a modest living doing their sport of choice.

2) Running, throwing, and jumping is foundational. That's why much of the world calls it "athletics." If you're good at track, and have some other skills like great foot coordination, it might make sense to move to soccer. Kids get put in track and XC in the offseason for conditioning as well, without ever intending to stick with it. Almost all of my highschool's best sprinters were primarily focused on football.

3) Popularity. Football and soccer and tennis are much more popular than track. Track and road racing is much much more popular than ultra running. If the three had a proverbial fight with popularity being their strength, soccer would be an atomic bomb, track/road running would be a gun, and ultra running would be a sponge.

4) It's mostly power/speed sports that steal athletes from track. Sprinters and throwers and jumpers play football. Plenty of soccer guys could cook a 400 or 800 I'd bet. I'd like to see some of the NFL guys run a 400, I bet some can run 48 without a lick of actual 400 training. But who steals endurance athletes? Track and road running are by far the most popular and accessible endurance sports. Everything else becomes more niche and inaccessible. In rough order of popularity off the top of my head: swimming, XC skiing, cycling, triathlon. At the very bottom of the list is ultra running.

Again, I have no beef with ultra running itself. Just beef with people who live in some fantasy land that think it's something other than a niche and developing sport.

the truth about ultras wrote:

fan of running wrote:

To illustrate how stupid this logic is: no one cares about running. Thats why the best athletes in the world all participate in sports that are much higher paying. If running paid more you wouldn't have some of the poorest people in the world dominating the sport.

Since you are good with using your imagination, just think if all of the best athletes from the highest paying sports in the world all took up running. The current crop of top level talent would disappear and be replaced with other people. Does that make you enjoy the sport less now? Do you no longer care?

There's more nuance to it than that. You could make an argument that lots of great sprinters are in the NBA or NFL. But so many of these athletes get some exposure to track, in fact, many of them participated at some point.

Ultra running is different. The closest you get to it is cross country, and cross country is nowhere near as popular as something like football in the US. And even then, cross country is a far cry from actual ultra and trail running. How do you get a start in ultra running? It's not easy at all and requires a lot of things before you can even begin.

fan of running wrote:

the truth about ultras wrote:

There's a few things to consider that you are not:

1) Can you support yourself doing this sport? As in, can you make at least a modest living. In the world of track and road racing, it's orders of magnitude more viable to do this than in ultra running. Yes, many will leave track to play other sports for various reasons, and money is a popular reason. But plenty of people are happy with a modest living doing their sport of choice.

2) Running, throwing, and jumping is foundational. That's why much of the world calls it "athletics." If you're good at track, and have some other skills like great foot coordination, it might make sense to move to soccer. Kids get put in track and XC in the offseason for conditioning as well, without ever intending to stick with it. Almost all of my highschool's best sprinters were primarily focused on football.

3) Popularity. Football and soccer and tennis are much more popular than track. Track and road racing is much much more popular than ultra running. If the three had a proverbial fight with popularity being their strength, soccer would be an atomic bomb, track/road running would be a gun, and ultra running would be a sponge.

4) It's mostly power/speed sports that steal athletes from track. Sprinters and throwers and jumpers play football. Plenty of soccer guys could cook a 400 or 800 I'd bet. I'd like to see some of the NFL guys run a 400, I bet some can run 48 without a lick of actual 400 training. But who steals endurance athletes? Track and road running are by far the most popular and accessible endurance sports. Everything else becomes more niche and inaccessible. In rough order of popularity off the top of my head: swimming, XC skiing, cycling, triathlon. At the very bottom of the list is ultra running.

Again, I have no beef with ultra running itself. Just beef with people who live in some fantasy land that think it's something other than a niche and developing sport.

I think you are missing my point. My point is that is dumb to drone on about how if the best marathoners in the world took up ultra running they would dominate. Because that is the same exact logic that I am using, that if the best athletes in the world focused on running, than the current best runners in the world would no longer be the best and would be replaced by others.

This kind of argument and comparison is akin to children arguing about which bear vs shark and what not. Or what fictional super hero would beat some other fictional super hero. But I guess this is the level of thinking that people that can't help themselves but to make these comparisons every time ultra running comes up are limited to.

the truth about ultras wrote:

fan of running wrote:

I think you are missing my point. My point is that is dumb to drone on about how if the best marathoners in the world took up ultra running they would dominate. Because that is the same exact logic that I am using, that if the best athletes in the world focused on running, than the current best runners in the world would no longer be the best and would be replaced by others.

This kind of argument and comparison is akin to children arguing about which bear vs shark and what not. Or what fictional super hero would beat some other fictional super hero. But I guess this is the level of thinking that people that can't help themselves but to make these comparisons every time ultra running comes up are limited to.

It's not the same logic you're using. Comparing running to ultra running is apples to, like, crab apples — they're extremely similar in nature except one's less popular. There's also a pipeline of traditional runners going into ultras and trails. Comparing running to every other sport is apples to oranges, but I wouldn't really call it childish. It's a worthwhile thought experiment.

Sage just came in and said how easy it is to go from being a "good" regular runner to a "big fish in a small pond" in ultra running and that there's a strong correlation between marathon times and ultra times. I suggest you tell him why he's wrong.

the truth about ultras wrote:

fan of running wrote:

I think you are missing my point. My point is that is dumb to drone on about how if the best marathoners in the world took up ultra running they would dominate. Because that is the same exact logic that I am using, that if the best athletes in the world focused on running, than the current best runners in the world would no longer be the best and would be replaced by others.

This kind of argument and comparison is akin to children arguing about which bear vs shark and what not. Or what fictional super hero would beat some other fictional super hero. But I guess this is the level of thinking that people that can't help themselves but to make these comparisons every time ultra running comes up are limited to.

It's not the same logic you're using. Comparing running to ultra running is apples to, like, crab apples — they're extremely similar in nature except one's less popular. There's also a pipeline of traditional runners going into ultras and trails. Comparing running to every other sport is apples to oranges, but I wouldn't really call it childish. It's a worthwhile thought experiment.

Sage just came in and said how easy it is to go from being a "good" regular runner to a "big fish in a small pond" in ultra running and that there's a strong correlation between marathon times and ultra times. I suggest you tell him why he's wrong.

ELTON\'S PORTABLE JOHN wrote:

the truth about ultras wrote:

Again, I have no beef with ultra running itself. Just beef with people who live in some fantasy land that think it's something other than a niche and developing sport.

It's going to be a niche and "developing" sport in perpetuity IMO. And probably by design. Take your average hobbyjogger. If they wanted to get into 100-mile ultras, they will be faced with:

• Very high financial cost (race fees, gear, nutrition). Lots of the bigger races will have travel costs as well
• Difficulty entering premiere races. Races WS and HardRock are really difficult if not impossible for an average Joe to enter. On the other hand, look at the marathon majors - lottery odds for Chicago and Berlin are about 50%. Boston is easy to get into if you put in the work. And these are just the majors - there are tons of great competitive marathons that don't have lotteries.
• Requirement to "train on the terrain". I can train for a road marathon by running 1-mile loops on the street around my house. Training for a 100-mile trail mountain race will require training in similar conditions. Many people in the US don't have easy access to trails and/or mountains.
• High training time requirements. Hobbyjoggers can run a sub-5 road marathon on 25-30mpw. That's not true for a 100-miler. So of course this sport will favor those with a lot of time and exclude tons of people (people who work long hours, have families, people of lesser means, etc.)
• Long races and recoveries. A 100-mile race is going to take 26 +/- 4 hours for most people, with a very long recovery afterwards. Longer ultras (200+ miles) could easily be week-long affairs. Again, this severely limits who can even participate.

It's a fun sport, but I don't see this being something that the masses ever rush into. That will in turn limit the amount of fans/sponsors/money in the sport and hence put a natural cap on the number of pros that can sustain themselves.

Look at the Chicago Marathon - it takes in probably $10-12mil in entry fees from 40k+ hobbyjoggers. Plus gets several 100k viewers. That in turn gets the attention of sponsors like Bank of America, McDonalds, Abbott, Nike. That in turn allows for a prize pool at the elite level. That in turn makes the event more exciting and gets even more runners interested. This just doesn't work in ultrarunning without the massive amounts of hobby joggers as a foundation.

the truth about ultras wrote:

While we're all arguing, I just want to say, I don't think ultra running is inferior or that it's a dumb sport or anything like that. It's a niche sport and if you want to do it, more power to you. I have nothing but respect for people who do it.

I do, however, have a problem with the self-importance of the ultra world — as wonderfully highlighted by this thread. It's a niche sport with no money, and yet people believe it's as competitive as the NYC marathon.

I recently read this article and my eyes did a few barrelrolls into the back of my brain. How much self-centeredness does it take to look at an issue that stems from centuries of systematic abuse, and say, "Well, how do we get more non-white people into our sport?" They're looking at the entirety of class disparity, a problem we may never solve, and trying to distill it down into some studies for their microcosm of a sport so they can pat themselves on the back.

Link:www.trailrunnermag.com/people/culture-...