Why Ultrarunning is Dumb

How about "Marathons are for athletes who can't be competitive in shorter races"? Would you agree?

Kind of ridiculous, eh?

pennywise de clown wrote:

If you don't want to race an ultra, then don't. But why all the negitive ranting on here? Is this an insecurity? Are you scared to try one?

Have you ever competed on the collegiate level? Your last 2 questions lead me to believe you have not.

Actually the attitude I have found by most ultra runners in my area is one of superiority over the rest of the running community. There is one guy who did run collegiately and he is a great guy who respects even the 15:30 5K runners because he knows it takes hard work for many to get there.

Conversely, the majority of the ultrarunners in the area found running post collegiately and decided that they would do a marathon to finish one. Having finished one, done a couple more, and having never broken 3 hours, many have moved up in distance and now declare marathons to be fun-runs.

But now because they do ultras and finish high they have an attitude of superiority.

This is the attitude of the majority of Ultra runners I have encountered. And there are even some marathoners that are of the opinion that because a sub 3:00 marathon was so difficult for them and took several tries, the idea of a faster 10K runner breaking 2:30 on his first try is laughable.

Bravo for completing an ultra, it takes a lot to be out there that long. But don't give me this garbage about being persecuted. You are a runner like the rest of us, no better, no worse. Just a different type.

If you really want to feel like the world is against you then racewalk.

sexist much wrote:

"To each his own."

Are you sexist? Do you think women can't run ultras, too??

I love the fact that Ann Trason beats the pants off of most of the Ultra runners who are "ranked"

Let's be truthful here - you 'thoners are glorified ultra-runners anyway.

But for an accident of history the marathon wouldn't even exist.

What really is the difference between 42km and 50km....they are both extreme....they are both ultra.

Actually I did, but it was D3. But thanks for answering my question. Now I know the negative ranting is because of the perception that most ultra runners consider themselves superior.

But isn't that true of racers at every distance to some degree? Sprinters believe they are the best, and so do milers, etc. Maybe all runners posess a certain amount of confidence / cockyness in this regard.

Besides, I don't actually think that's really what ultrarunners think. If you talk to an ultrarunner, I think just about every one will agree that ultramarathons don't attract the top runners in the country.

For example, I personally believe that if Ryan Hall ran Western States (the most competitive 100 in the US) he'd blow away the field and destroy Jurek's record (15:36). What could Hall run there? I don't know, but I'm confident he'd be a hell of a lot faster.

For the ultrarunners who have never ran a distance shorter than a marathon, and who got into it later in life (and btw, these are rarely the types that win ultras), I really think there is just some innocence. They don't follow Track & Field like we do. They don't know who Bekele is. They have no idea what a good 10K time is.

pennywise de clown wrote:...

Besides, I don't actually think that's really what ultrarunners think. If you talk to an ultrarunner, I think just about every one will agree that ultramarathons don't attract the top runners in the country.

No. Sprints attract the top sprinters. The mile tends to attract the top milers, and so on. Ultramarathons attract the top ultramarathoners. No single event attracts the top "runners" (whatever that might mean).

For example, I personally believe that if Ryan Hall ran Western States (the most competitive 100 in the US) he'd blow away the field and destroy Jurek's record (15:36). What could Hall run there? I don't know, but I'm confident he'd be a hell of a lot faster.

Western is not the most competitive 100 in the U.S. That is the same as saying Boston is the most competitive marathon in the U.S. Nonultrarunners seldom know of many hundreds besides WSER and some really weird assumptions get made--silly ideas like some roadie suddenly being capable of running a trail 100.

For the ultrarunners who have never ran a distance shorter than a marathon, and who got into it later in life (and btw, these are rarely the types that win ultras), I really think there is just some innocence. They don't follow Track & Field like we do. They don't know who Bekele is. They have no idea what a good 10K time is.[/quote]

I was a sprinter/hurdler in college (several generations ago). I have done ultras for over twenty years. I have enjoyed the company of people knowledgeable and interested in track and field, cross country, and many other athletic fields--that company continued on the trails at Leadville,

the Siskiyous, Cascade Crest, Strolling Jim, Bandera, ... and many other places few, if any, letsrun folks have any knowledge of, although many pretend absolute expertise--look at the mistakes about ultras made in the preceding posts---Jurek, Trason, ... simple fact-checks might help.

Why the continued silliness of trying to say one type of running/runner is better than another? I'll continue to hold that it is due to the ignorance of people too young and inexperienced to know anything beyond their current environment. They cannot appreciate something totally foreign--imaginations are too weak to go outside the safety of the track or the well-marked road course.

Your turn?

To is ebrli:

I am an ultrarunner. So far I've done 3 50s and 2 100s. I was going to run Angeles Crest this year, before it got cancelled by the station fire. I am on your side. Look at my previous posts.

Distance runners are distance runners. Most agree that the marathon world record is Bekele's for the taking, if he wants it. Similarly, the WS100 CR could probably be had by any sub-2:07 guy who wants it.

WS is not the most competitive 100-miler? Which do you think is? Year in and year out, no other field in a 100-miler is as deep, on average, in my opinion. There are other, more competitive shorter ultras, I'll grant you that, such as Way Too Cool, Miwok, etc.

I am not saying ultrarunners are better or worse...just different. Some ultrarunners think they are superior to regular distance runners, just like some regular distance runners think they are superior to ultrarunners.

I run all distances, and don't think I happen to be superior to anyone, unless of course I happen to beat them in a race, and even in that case, it was just for that day. :-)

Phil_P wrote:

I read here once that if you have talent you run the 100 meters. Otherwise you move up in distance. ;-)

Haha, I've heard the same.

is ebrli wrote:

look at the mistakes about ultras made in the preceding posts---Jurek, Trason, ... simple fact-checks might help.

Your turn?

Here is your sh!tburger, fvckstick, nice and hot. Take a bite:

Hot On The Trail

Ann Trason is among ultramarathon's top competitors, male or female

Austin Murphy

It seemed an odd time for Tim Twietmeyer to have a woman on his mind. But there he was, seven miles from the finish of a hellish 100-mile trek through the Sierra Nevada, asking, "Where is she?"

As he loped into the Highway 49 checkpoint at mile marker 93 of the Western States Endurance Run at about 9 p.m. on June 25, Twietmeyer was running well and running scared. Having started, along with 381 other kindred lunatics, at 5 o'clock that morning, Twietmeyer had taken the lead after the 62-mile mark. A software engineer from Auburn, Calif., he had spent the next 30 miles alternately looking ahead—for rattlers, cougars and bears, all of which have surprised runners on race day—and over his shoulder. Between gulps of water Twietmeyer inquired again, "How close is she?"

His concern was well-founded. Lurking somewhere on the trail behind him was Ann Trason, a gutsy divining rod of a woman who six weeks earlier had won the Silver State 50 in Nevada over 107 other runners. When the 5'4", 105-pound Trason crossed the tape there, she was literally foaming at the mouth. In addition to holding six women's ultramarathon world records, Trason, 33, has won five races outright, including the '89 TAC 24-hour national championship. While other women have won mixed ultramarathon national titles, none have had Trason's success. When she is at her best, ultramarathon's gender gap becomes the distance between her and the men eating her dust.

In the Western States she had no such bold kick. Twietmeyer, 35, crossed the finish line at the Placer High football stadium in Auburn in 16:51:01. Striding in strongly in 17:37:51, Trason lopped 38 minutes from her own course record to finish 3� hours ahead of the next-fastest woman and second overall. It was Trason's sixth straight year as the Western States' top female finisher, inducing Earl Towner, who had tried to stay with her only to drop out at the 62-mile mark, to say, "That chick is bionic!"

Several serious injuries have proved otherwise. After a sensational scholastic track career in Pacific Grove, Calif., Trason blew out a knee as a freshman at the University of New Mexico and did not compete in college. She had already begun to tire of the sport, anyway. "Times were sooooo important," she says.

After transferring to Cal and graduating in 1983 with a degree in biochemistry, she tried bicycling but got hit from behind by a car and injured her right elbow. In 1985 she read about a race in Sacramento called the American River 50 and asked a salesman in an athletic-shoe store what to expect. Be ready to do a lot of walking, he told her.

In retrospect Trason sees the point he was making; she had no ultra experience and only six weeks to train. Still, she was insulted and entered the race with a chip on her shoulder and, fortunately, a water bottle; some kind soul handed her one in the race's early stages. A good thing, too, because the temperature on the course that day reached 100�. Astonishingly, Trason won. "Afterward, everyone was walking around smiling," she says, recalling the feeling of camaraderie and goodwill among the racers at the finish. "I was like, Why are these people so happy?"

Along with an uncanny pain threshold, Trason harbors a wide contrary streak: Despite entreaties from her friends, she refused to enter another ultra for two years. In 1987 she ran the first 50 miles of the Western States, her first 100-mile race, before a bum knee forced her out. In those 50 miles she had an epiphany. She fell in love with the Western States trail. "I consider ultra pure sport," she says. "It's you against the trail."

Blazed first by Paiute and Washoe Indians, then by gold miners, the Western States trail is a supremely worthy opponent. Plenty of racers leave their breakfast along the first 4.7 miles of the course, from Squaw Valley at 6,200 feet to Emigrant Pass at 8,700 feet. At mile 78, runners must ford the wide, frigid and waist-deep Rucky-Chucky rapids. These ordeals bookend the trail's trademark open-air torture chambers—a series of heat-trapping, brain-baking canyons that begin at the 40-mile mark. In 1986, when ABC had the television rights to the race, reporter Jimmy Cefalo decided he would run from the floor of Deadwood Canyon to Devils Thumb, a near-vertical climb of 1,700 feet crammed into 1.8 miles. On the air Cefalo gasped, "The only word to describe what I just did: gruesome."

"He'd run one sixtieth of the course, and it took him 45 minutes to catch his breath," recalls race director Norm Klein, tickled to this day by the memory.

And I know the next thing you'll do is bring up Radcliffe. Save it, there is a world of difference.

sammagucci wrote:

[quote]is ebrli wrote:

look at the mistakes about ultras made in the preceding posts---Jurek, Trason, ... simple fact-checks might help.

Your turn?

Here is your sh!tburger, fvckstick, nice and hot. Take a bite:

==============================

What I was getting at is talking about Trason in the present--she is arguably the greatest ultrarunner the U.S. has produced, but she has not raced for several years. Her last major victory (1st woman at Western) was in 2003.

She is one of the few women to be an overall winner at an ultra. She won on roads, trails, and time-events. No one else has displayed the versatility she has--even qualified for the Olympic marathon trials (I think it was while running a 50k).

Okay?

OK.

(sorry I did not include french fries and a shake)

Ryan Hall has the talent to dominate ultra events. There is no way in hell he would dominate if he entered one this weekend. He would be completely out of his league today against the top ultrarunners even though his upside is significantly beyone theirs. There is so much more that goes into the long ultras than plain running talent. That's what really cracks me up...all the people talking down to ultrarunners that haven't done one. Go out and run a 100 then come back and tell everybody how subpar these runnners are.

The great Yiannis Kouros on what it means to be an ultrarunner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyfQmLAxXQM&feature=player_embedded

Nobody has ever come close to his 24-hour world record. He's also got the CR at Spartathlon.

"she is arguably the greatest ultrarunner the U.S. has produced"

No, Dean K is. By far.

not kilgore wrote:

Barry in SD wrote:

His 50mile split was 5hours 25mins. Then he came off for a proper meal and a rub down.

And as we all know, thata-been the 50 mile National Record down under, back in '86.

By the way, can a Kiwi break an Aussie record?

I am so confused...100 miles of rough road.

after you run that far, everyone is too tired and no one cares

NO!

I think the thrust of my original post has been lost in the discussion. This pic might help illustrate the principle I am getting at:

http://www.smileosmile.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/valentino.jpg

Ultrarunners are in the same mindset as this bodybuilder with the ginormous biceps. The famous duel between Karno and Pam Reed over who could go farther is another example of this lunacy. It is the folly of extremism.

I can't point to the exact coordinate when something becomes extreme. Balance is not mathematics. It is relative and requires some common sense. But if you run a "race" in 120+ temperatures with a crew spritzing you with water to keep you from dying and your shoes are melting to the pavement, this is extreme. This is not a test of virtue anymore but a stunt to amaze people at how stupid you are.

I also contest that ultrarunning is really running when the bulk of the course has to be walked. It should be called "speed hiking" because this is what it is. Ultrarunning is antirunning because it embraces everything that is anticompetitive--hilly courses, hot temperatures, injuries, kidney failure. Runners try to avoid these things because they want a good time. They compete not just against each other but against all history. Ultrarunners want an event that makes them suffer the most. It is not sport but spectacle.

Let's apply the ultrarunning philosophy to other endeavors:

ART

You can't paint a Mona Lisa, but you have painted 5000 Jackson Pollack style paintings.

BASKETBALL

You can't shoot a three pointer, but you have dribbled a ball for 24 hours straight.

SCIENCE

You never discovered anything new, but you logged more hours in the lab than any of your peers. You have brain damage from the formaldehyde fumes.

CINEMA

You never made a blockbuster or won an Oscar, but you did make 100 home porno flicks with your webcam. You also got genital warts in the process. Beat that, Scorsese.

The problem people have is they have equated extremism with excellence because they are both rare. But they are not the same. They are very different. It is one thing to do something others can't do. It is another thing to do something that no one wants to do because it is stupid.

Out.

What distance then is the max to be considered real running?

That guy's not a "bodybuilder". He's actually quite hated in the bodybuilding world.

He's just some idiot who decided to inject synthrol (which as it sounds..is an oil) into his bicep. This did nothing but make his arm huge because of the oil. Anything these synthrol hacks enter competitions they get last. Why? They tend to lack the discipline required to either 1)Build actual muslce and/or 2) Diet for weeks on end getting down to sub 5% bodyfat.

Here is an example of an "extreme" bodybuilder:

Markus Ruhl goes shopping:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEa6xgUyKVI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVECVFzTdKc&feature=quicklist

Evolution of Markus Ruhl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhrCd65k_NQ&feature=related

Insane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Uovt6Uq_Q

The Hulk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJcjWkbJZOc