Zach Miller' Amazing North Face 50 Miler Finish

Running on trails is awesome. No one disputes that.

And there is a legit form of trail racing. It's called cross-country. You may have heard of it.

Races like this North Face 50-miler are mamby bamby country club nonsense. A circlejerk for rich white people who can't handle true XC, track, and road running. Hard to measure what a "good" performance is, when the competition is diluted to the point where it's practically nonexistent.

It's okay to be a fan of this stuff, but let's not pretend that winning one of these is some great accomplishment. There's stiffer competition at your local Turkey Trot.

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Running on trails is awesome. No one disputes that.

And there is a legit form of trail racing. It's called cross-country. You may have heard of it.

Races like this North Face 50-miler are mamby bamby country club nonsense. A circlejerk for rich white people who can't handle true XC, track, and road running. Hard to measure what a "good" performance is, when the competition is diluted to the point where it's practically nonexistent.

It's okay to be a fan of this stuff, but let's not pretend that winning one of these is some great accomplishment. There's stiffer competition at your local Turkey Trot.

Quit talking and go prove it. Sign up. Run it. Tell us your results. Zach would annhilate pretty much any pro road runner in a 50 mile trail race.

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Running on trails is awesome. No one disputes that.

And there is a legit form of trail racing. It's called cross-country. You may have heard of it.

Races like this North Face 50-miler are mamby bamby country club nonsense. A circlejerk for rich white people who can't handle true XC, track, and road running. Hard to measure what a "good" performance is, when the competition is diluted to the point where it's practically nonexistent.

It's okay to be a fan of this stuff, but let's not pretend that winning one of these is some great accomplishment. There's stiffer competition at your local Turkey Trot.

No one cares. I did the TNF DC, it cost me 75 bucks and I came in around 100th place. I did it becuase I wanted to prove it to myself that I could run 50 miles. Ultra runners dont care about placing its all about testing ones own limits and running free on trails. Take youre elitist nonsense somewhere else.

Also I’m Indian and make $45K a year. Take your racist nonsense somewhere else. The only cringe part of the whole thing was the start when they had the North Face tents and Dean giving some speech to an unethusiatic croud. But hey Dean crewed and gave people support atthe aide stations and ran with bottom of the packers to show support so even he was motivational.

No one is disputing that road races are prettier than trail races. It's not even a comparison, trail races are more beautiful. No one goes hiking along a marathoner course, they go to trails. Where the North Face race is there are thousands of hikers every weekend.

BUT road races is where the real talent and fitness is, whether or not it's more or less fun or nice-looking.

Of course there are exceptions.

I know a guy who was 7th place at lake sonoma running 60-80 mpw. he ran just below 31:00 and about 14:30 5k in college. those are very solid times and i'm not trying to pick on him, but he got 7th. he's a 2:32 marathoner.

Imagine if some NCAA guys who are running around 29:00 and below 14:00 did some continuous trail running and were durable enough to stay injury free. It'd be a different game in these ultra races.

Prove yourself wrote:

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Running on trails is awesome. No one disputes that.

And there is a legit form of trail racing. It's called cross-country. You may have heard of it.

Races like this North Face 50-miler are mamby bamby country club nonsense. A circlejerk for rich white people who can't handle true XC, track, and road running. Hard to measure what a "good" performance is, when the competition is diluted to the point where it's practically nonexistent.

It's okay to be a fan of this stuff, but let's not pretend that winning one of these is some great accomplishment. There's stiffer competition at your local Turkey Trot.

Quit talking and go prove it. Sign up. Run it. Tell us your results. Zach would annhilate pretty much any pro road runner in a 50 mile trail race.

lol no...... Any 2:20 (or below) marathoner would absolutely crush this race. It wouldn't even be close. Keep pretending your country club frat parties are legitimate competitions though.

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Prove yourself wrote:

Quit talking and go prove it. Sign up. Run it. Tell us your results. Zach would annhilate pretty much any pro road runner in a 50 mile trail race.

lol no...... Any 2:20 (or below) marathoner would absolutely crush this race. It wouldn't even be close. Keep pretending your country club frat parties are legitimate competitions though.

Just false. A 6 mine mile on trail is 10x harder than a flat hard road. Fitness is way better on trails.

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Prove yourself wrote:

Quit talking and go prove it. Sign up. Run it. Tell us your results. Zach would annhilate pretty much any pro road runner in a 50 mile trail race.

lol no...... Any 2:20 (or below) marathoner would absolutely crush this race. It wouldn't even be close. Keep pretending your country club frat parties are legitimate competitions though.

Hey dum dum. Max King (2:14 marathoner) has ran that race and finished about an hour slower than Zach.

Nippon Telenet wrote:

Prove yourself wrote:

Quit talking and go prove it. Sign up. Run it. Tell us your results. Zach would annhilate pretty much any pro road runner in a 50 mile trail race.

lol no...... Any 2:20 (or below) marathoner would absolutely crush this race. It wouldn't even be close. Keep pretending your country club frat parties are legitimate competitions though.

YOU ARE ALL PATHETIC. You are sitting here bickeirng about running. LOL. It’s incredibly unrealistic to become filthy rich running. This isn’t the NBA, NFL, FIFA or MLB, NHL here. It’s freaking running. Bickering insistently about elite forms of running is a waste of your time and energy. Stop. Trail running is fun and a great accomplishment and source of happiness for thousands of people. Road running is gthe same albeit on a more competitve level. Both are a tremondoues workout. Wether you run on a track, road, or high up in the mountains you are execrising. In a world were obesity is rampid, how dare any of you belittle one another for being healthy. PATHETIC

From the video , the issue with the breathing, looks like he was doing it to focus away from the pain and keep a rhythm. That's not showboating, or whatever. It's smart and if in fact that's what he was doing, which I suspect because he was able to talk when he wanted to , quite a successful strategy.

Road. Racing is dead. High school track and road runners are at an all time low as far as participation goes. The truth is around 2007 or so most trail ultra haters thought trail running would die out along with minimalist running, however, it grew and has continued to grow. Just like smart phones, you road runners need to get with the times. Trail running is the future you fossils.

This is so true. Road racing is for fossils. Trail running is the future. I imagine in 10 years time high schools won’t even have track programs.

Empirepalpatinerederf wrote:

Retrospective Raptor wrote:

Road. Racing is dead. High school track and road runners are at an all time low as far as participation goes. The truth is around 2007 or so most trail ultra haters thought trail running would die out along with minimalist running, however, it grew and has continued to grow. Just like smart phones, you road runners need to get with the times. Trail running is the future you fossils.

This is so true. Road racing is for fossils. Trail running is the future. I imagine in 10 years time high schools won’t even have track programs.

Totally agree.

Yesss wrote:

Empirepalpatinerederf wrote:

This is so true. Road racing is for fossils. Trail running is the future. I imagine in 10 years time high schools won’t even have track programs.

Totally agree.

This deserves a bump. I’m shocked people even run on roads anymore. What a terrible and easy way to run. Running on trails is much harder and requires more technique and will power.

Jack stanton wrote:

Yesss wrote:

Totally agree.

This deserves a bump. I’m shocked people even run on roads anymore. What a terrible and easy way to run. Running on trails is much harder and requires more technique and will power.

I agree as well

Yes i agree too wrote:

Jack stanton wrote:

This deserves a bump. I’m shocked people even run on roads anymore. What a terrible and easy way to run. Running on trails is much harder and requires more technique and will power.

I agree as well

I second this

Sounbs about right wrote:

Yes i agree too wrote:

I agree as well

I second this

It’s prettyobvious to any real runner that ultra trails are true running. Anyone claiming road races or track stuff is in denial.

Totallhysadsafsdfsdfawefwdc wrote:

Sounbs about right wrote:

I second this

It’s prettyobvious to any real runner that ultra trails are true running. Anyone claiming road races or track stuff is in denial.

Trail running is the best end of thread/////

I checked out Rob's TNF race in 2013 on strava. From 41.7 to 42 miles he was sub-5, going as fast as 4:34 pace. Coming into Tennessee Valley at mile 43, he was going as fast as 4:24 pace (briefly). So the reports were accurate.

As for me, yeah, I really did drop a 4:46 in the race in 2015. I wasn't in the lead because I'm a hobby jogger who hasn't really trained since 1991. I haven't done hill repeats since the early '90s, and was at least 15 lbs heavier than PR weight, so I suck going uphills (though I run in the mountains all the time). I was in about 40th right before the downhill, and passed 30 people or so on that downhill to make it into the top 10/lead pack. I was thinking, why are people going so fast on the uphills, but so slowly on the downhills?

I'm a short distance trail runner, and my usual running (jogging 10 mpm pace on trails/not really training) and/or physiology means that I've only done well on races less than about 1 hour 50 minutes. I've cramped in every running race I've ever done longer than that. I had raced my local trail race series in the fall (15 to 35 minute long races), so TNF50 felt like it was basically easy running in the race (both up and down hills), until it wasn't. My legs couldn't go anymore on Cardiac, so I jogged/walked it in to Stinson for a DNF. Yes it's on strava. The 4:46 was from about 3.7 to 4.7 miles, and it looks like I hit 4:05 pace momentarily.