A 100 miler offered $15,000 for 1st last weekend. Where does the money come from & when will the Africans start showing up?

Showing up ready to partake and finish an ultra is half the battle. You were able to do so. Perhaps some 2:10 marathons could be ready to do so. In my experience/ opinion, many guys who run a fast marathon are too fixated on pace, execution. Their mindset is too rigid to navigate the adaptability required to get through a trail ultra. Something can and will go wrong, and most performance minded individuals bail because the best possible result is long gone.

One thing that casual runners that don’t run ultras fail to understand is that technical trail running is a distinct skill that requires a lot of work to develop. You can be a 2:07 marathoner with a history of running 130 mpw, but if you show up at a trail ultra 100 miler without extensive experience running on technical trails, your mechanics will falter and you will blow up. That isn’t to say it’s not possible to build up to it with that pedigree but many road marathoners have thought they can waltz into these races and claim these prizes, and they have failed.

That’s a bit of a straw man. I doubt if there’s a runner on the planet that thinks a 100 miler would be easy. In fact, it’s the opposite and that combined with minimal income available, is why EAs don’t run them.

What people also don't consider is, that most top Marathon runners are worn out at the end of their career. There is just no energy left to branch out into ultrarunning.

Alberto Salazar did it once and he won the Comrades Marathon but that was just 56 miles.

You do realize that East Africans dominate the s**t out of Amers and Euros on technical cross country courses, don't you? They would have no problem with the technical aspect of ultra running.

They don't race ultras because you unload your big bullet and need several months to recover. They race the roads and get as many races in as they can. Put a top three prize money stack of $500K-$250K-$125K M-F for a highly technical ultra three years from now and the East Africans would blow your doors off and moonball all of the records. If given the proper financial incentive, I think Tigst could take Walmsley's Western States record outright in two or three years.

You lost your argument immediately when you tried to compare cross country courses to technical trails. A few haybails and mud pits do not equate to roots and rocks and 30% grades. We’re talking courses that are designed to remain runnable vs routes that ensure you can’t run.

Beyond 800 meters!

That's not what I said! Check your reading comprehension.

I said "gear management is key [for everyone]".....which it is especially in a 100-miler like Run Rabbit because you're up at pretty high altitudes above Steamboat Springs Colorado in mid-Sept and are going to be running all night.

Some years it has been under 20F degrees at night, but during the day you are sweating in the afternoon sun and it's in the 60s. Lots of runners get knocked out because of hypothermia (I did!).

Re: "no top runners do it": Courtney Dauwalter actually burst onto the ultra running scene right after winning Run Rabbit 100 in 2016. It was a huge jump forward for her and really put her name on the map.

I also think a lot of 2:10 kinda marathoners would obviously crush a lot of ultramarathons. (Even 100-milers+). People focus on the distance like "100-miles" or "50-miles" but the bigger difference is the type of trail you are running on. Does it have over 20% grade steep trails a lot? Is it technical? A mountain trail? Do you have to carry a 4lb pack of gear and are the aid stations far apart? How efficient will your aid station crew be?

I've said this for years on here and I'll say it again: Success in ultras correlates very highly with best marathon times. Yes, of course sometimes the 2:15 guy has a horrible meltdown and gets beat by the 2:25 or 2:30 guy. But generally they are destroying the 2:40 guy.

Of course there is a "learning curve" in the 100-milers (and other long mountain ultras that may take well over 15-20 hours). But it can be learned. If you have the talent and have trained your aerobic system to run a sub 2:20 or sub 2:10 road marathon then you are doing to be a pretty good distance runner on #AnySurfaceAnyDistance probably (or at least could learn to be eventually). Mental toughness and Grit? You already have it! Blisters? That's generally a mid packer problem. Issues with hydration and nutrition? Could cause GI distress that takes you totally out of an ultra....but it's not like fast road marathon runners don't know what it's like to eat and drink calories during a multi-hour aerobic effort. These are all long aerobic (mostly running) based events. My term "Variable Running Economy" comes into play though: What is your efficiency power hiking? At 12-min/mile pace vs 6-min/mile pace. Are you a good "long range" climber?

The bigger learning curves involve things like gear management, running at night, and running technical mountain terrain (Run Rabbit isn't that technical on average and doesn't have a ton of climbing relative to many other mountain 100s).

You're making me feel like I should try Run Rabbit down the road, Sage.

I remember a time when a cocky former track runner jumped into the ultra scene, and all the diehard ultrarunners s%#$ all over his chances of ever being good in the sport. Oh he might win Sonoma 50 but he'll never be good at 100s. Oh, well he might have won WS but he'll never win a true mountain ultra. Even after his second attempt at winning UTMB, there were euros saying he and African runners were too skinny and frail to ever win their prestigious race. If he hadn't shatter Killian's record, you'd still have people saying "well Killian wasn't there and that's why he won." Running is running; sure it's a different skillset, but that's like saying Serena and Venus couldn't learn Pickleball in a week and dominate the "elite" players.

Deer rojo, this race has been offering this sort of prize money for at least a decade now and still no Kenyan winners. I don't know if it's mental or physiologic, but if you've been to a elite ultra mountain race you'd realize these sort of athletes are built different from fast marathoners and 10000 runners. You don't only have to be good at running fast and flat. But also good at trail running, power hiking, have the stomach for it and there's a x factor to it that you wouldn't know unless you saw it first hand. Sure there's a few sub 2:15 marathoners at the high end of the sport of ultra mountain running. But the vast majority are in that 2:20-2:30 range. And 9 times out of 10 those sub 2:10 guys crash and burn in these mountain ultras. A good recent example was the Canadian Olympic marathoner who finished way back in western states I think two years back. There was also a 2:10 guy that went at it in black canyon earlier this year and DNF. But whatever rojo, keep being ignorant. Rojo next year not too far away from Baltimore there's a UTMB event in Virginia (referring Grindstone). For the love of God go there next year and educate yourself.

Assuming you speak of the great Jimbo. His trial and error process to get good at ultra running was very open and public.

Just jumping in to say I did Run Rabbit Run for the first time this year. It was my fifth 100 and by far the most beautiful/fun course and well managed. Aid station volunteers are top notch. If anyone is looking to do a hundred miler I highly recommend this one

Are Kenyans into scenic races?

He could also just give me a call.

No, the reason why a bunch of sub 2:10 East African marathoners don't show up is because they don't know about races like Run Rabbit Run 100 and the $15k prize money! A bunch probably don't even know about Comrades or all the ways to make money in ultrarunning. There is also an injury risk consideration and opportunity cost.

Heck, I didn't even know about the $10k prize at the now defunct TNF50-miler San Fran Champs until I saw an ad for it in an old Running Times while I was at the Hansons Running shop in 2011. Then I was all in for the sport and I got that prize money in 2014.

There are a lot of barriers to entry to get into a race like UTMB 100-miler in Chamonix for example. As a road marathon runner you're going to have to invest in a pack and other somewhat specialized gear (which can be expensive) as well as other qualifying races first. So there are financial barriers to entry (especially to travel to some remote mountains in some distant country), but also for a race like UTMB where you need to qualify by doing other races first. I just found out yesterday I'm not even qualified for UTMB next year because I didn't get any "stones/points" at TDS and my 790 "UTMB index score" from that race doesn't count....despite it being a gnarly and mountain filled 98-miler. It's actually kind of complicated to get into some of these races and I'd imagine that would be discouraging for a lot of marathon road runners (especially if from countires like those in East Africa).

That's why mountain-ultra trail 100-milers are usually full of mostly caucasian men in their 30s and 40s and 50s with disposable income who have the time and flexibility to train and travel. There aren't a ton of sub 2:20 marathoners in this cohort...but the one's that are that fast (or at least have the potential to run sub 2:25 marathon fitness) *generally* do pretty well eventually!

There are plenty of ultraraces where you can get in with out any problems.
UMTB, Hardrock and Western States are probably the most difficult to get into.

That’s only $150 per mile. So it would be the equivalent of a marathon paying out under $4000 for first place. I think more money is needed to attract the top African runners.

Umm, hi, have you seen the entry fee for a race like this? 450 x $325 = a lot. And if you don't hit the early entry deadline, you're looking at $450. And $475 if you're later still.

^^^This, along with the comments from Sage and several others who've obviously been there/done that have largely covered it. Adding to the above list:

1) Michael Aish - 2:13 Olympian (NZ but living in Boulder) started Leadville 100 about a decade ago ready to show all the trail hobbyjoggers how it's done. How was it done? Although well under CR during the early miles, he dropped around 60M. So he returned the following year - only to drop again. On his 3rd try he finally finished 5th, and I give him props for that.

2) Alexis Pappas - yeah her, the much maligned IG influencer ad nauseum. But an Olympian nonetheless. In this year's LV100 was pacing 5-6th place for 50-60 miles before reality hit, eventually gritting it out for 23rd. And I give her props for that.

3) That 2:12 guy who showed up at the Trail National Championships at one of the East Coast ski resorts a couple years ago ready to wax Joe Gray, Seth and gang - just a 12k race where speed matters. Result - he got waxed. Off the top of my head 10+ minutes off Gray's winning time and didn't crack the top 10, but you can search the board for exact details as it was well covered here.

Nobody is saying 2:10 types can't win in the mountains - all things being equal it's generally better to have speed than not. That said, all things are generally not equal and other skills beyond pure speed come into play. You're not going to train in the gentle rolling hills and mild climate of the Rift valley then crush a high-altitude mountain 100 miler in CO. Specific training matters.