Camille Herron has just broke the 300k world record in 48 hour race in Australia

Thanks for your good reply.

What your post was about specifically --- the 48 hour record --- applies to all the cool adventures in the world: painful, pointless, exhausting, unhealthy, blisters, mentally tough, physically hard, and at the limit of human ability.

All of these "pointless" challenges - more or less - check the box of our own human potential:

• Swim like the English channel - check
• Climb a huge, freezing, deadly mountain in the middle of nowhere - check
• Train for and race a marathon at all-out effort - check
• Row a boat across an ocean - check
• Race the Ironman despite wind and heat - check
• Cross a state, a mountain range, a continent under your own power - check

The pattern is pretty clear, the harder something is, the more amazing it is to us humans. And I say this as a former college 1500m who loved trying to race "fast" --- but "fast running" doesn't always allow us to really explore the upper limits of human endurance and mental toughness. These kind of events do.

p.s. If anyone thinks they could easily just jog 7:30 pace "forever" then I would recommend them just doing nice, easy, slow push-ups "forever." It is the same problem. You don't run out of cardio-vascular fitness or "get winded." You just can't do it anymore.

First off I wouldn't put Camille and Ashley even in the same sentence.

Camille is a seasoned, multiple time OTQ qualifier with a long history of solid marathon race performances. She's found a niche in track/road ultras and done really, really well. Heck, she's won Comrades and the 100km Champs (along with these track records like 12-24-48 hours etc.

Like me she is very outspoken about anti-doping (like me) and wants to bring in WADA testing to the international ultra-races (especially the trail ultras where it has been non-existent).

Besides her and maybe Joseph Gray (mountain runner), they are probably the only actual American MUT Runners that get multiple tests performed on them since they win World Champs (IAAF or WMRA).

Amazing as Camille's records are, I don't think they are suspicious and I'd be very confident that she is 100% clean (And I don't say that about a lot of top ultra runners!). She has found a certainly niche that honestly not a lot of people attempt (24-48 hours on a track). But again she's won Comrades and run marathons in the 2:30s. That's legit. Her talent/strength seems to be about grinding it out for days on end on the flat and runnable surfaces.

However, on the international MUT scene there is definitely more bias for being a star ultra-trail or ultra-mountain runner. For example, look at how much of a following Courtney Dauwalter has (a top women that Camille has beaten head to head on the track at an ultra) compared to Camille.

Camille has placed top 10 at races like WS100 (pretty tame trail that is better for "roadies" generally compared to something like UTMB), but there seems to be a key difference when she is on a more uniform surface that is not a mountain trail. I'd guess given her form/style her running economy (especially at 7-12min/mile paces) on a road/track or flattish trail is super, super good.

Finally, if one was running sub 8-min/mile pace I'd probably wear carbon fiber supershoes (i.e. HOKA Rocket X2 now), but given she is going more like 10-12-min/mile pace I'd bet the difference is fairly marginal with HOKA Rincons. Her running economy might be more efficient in the Rincons at that pace range?

I can't believe some posters tried to diminish her accomplishment (even if some later claimed they were trolling). This is amazing stuff, requiring tremendous mental discipline and physical preparation. Kudos to her indeed!!!!

Outstanding accomplishment by Camille Herron. Congratulations to her on setting a new International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) World Record. Sports governance generally is a mess, see for example the many threads on letsrun about Max Seigel and USA Track and Field (USATF), although USATF recognizes and sends national teams to IAU events. Such as: "The United States 24-Hour National Team will compete in the 2023 International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) 24-Hour World Championship under the patronage of World Athletics on December 2-3, 2023 in Chinese Taipei." Sure, many people are not attracted to these types of events, but world records and world champions in all types of running events should be recognized and celebrated. Camille Herron is an inspiration. Big kudos to her!

I agree that Camille and Ashley don't belong in the same sentence since Ashley is the way better and accomplished athlete having set the Badwater course record by a huge amount, is also an OTQ qualifier for the 2020 Olympics marathon, and also does Ironman and ultra-triathlon races, something Camille is not even capable of finishing. Camille wishes she had a fraction of the talent that Ashley has.

Obvious troll attempt. 2/10. Comparing ultra signup history it's not even close. Again, Camille won Comrades and the IAAF 100km World Champs. Those are some "pinnacle of the sport" races. Hardly anyone does Badwater.

And FYI Ashley Paulson has a previous doping ban:

usada.org

US Triathlon Athlete, Paulson, Accepts Sanction for Anti-Doping Rule Violation

Hailey Horwath

Ashley Paulson of Pleasant Grove, Utah, an athlete in the sport of triathlon, has accepted a 6-month sanction for an anti-doping rule violation.

Open link

#cleansport

jogging and shuffling along mile after mile with breaks ...for 48 hours. Not too many people could do it, or want to but what the hey...

Comparing triathlon results it's not even close. Can Camille even swim? No one considers ultra running races "pinnacle of the sport". Ashley is an Ironman and Ultra-Tri finisher, something the general American would recognize. Hardly any general American know what Comrades or 100km World Champs are, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of IAAF world champs in various age groups, genders and distances that IAAF world champs don't even matter or get any attention.

You know who is also outspoken about doping? Shelby and Jerry at BTC. Those who shout the loudest are typically ones who are also taking PEDs.

Yet Ashley is the proven cheat.

Plated super shoes for ROAD ultras > 100k is playing with fire IMO. I’d imagine Camille’s mechanics make this an even easier choice for her. I do get a kick out of her having so much success in Hoka’s lightest & most affordable model. Aleksandr Sorokin & Nick Coury are exceptions not the rule.

Clean as a Kenyan

You don't even need to target that statement at someone specifically. No one can do that. Or, less sensationally, only one person ever has done that, and that's the 24 hour world record holder Alexandr Sorokin. Even the great Yiannis Kouros never got down to 7:30 pace for a 24 hour.

If Sorokin seriously went after this he would cover 520km - 323 miles. This is the equivalent of 470km for a female.

Sorokin could cover 170 miles on day 1 easily. He is closing in on 200 miles - 24 hours.

Saying he could beat Kouros' 48 hour record by 10% feels pretty generous. He bested Kouros' 24 hour record by 16km, about 5.3%. Assuming he could perform at the same margin for 48 hours, he would only be at 498km. Plus Sorokin has yet to prove himself at anything longer than single-day events, and 48 hours are much more difficult to get right.

Yet it was Ashley that sent Camille and Derek Murphy crawling away and begging her after they falsely accused her of cheating at Badwater.

Who is Ashley anyway?

Does she provide blood work and drug tests before and after every world record attempt?

Asking for a friend

She's one of the few ultra runners that actually does get tested reasonably often. Testing at fixed-time events like this is more common than it is in trail ultras. I know for many of her previous records she was tested - for this one I can't say for sure, but in general these records do require tests in order to be certified.

For what it's worth, she's pretty vocal that more testing should be done in ultras in general.

Lance Armstrong was also pretty vocal that more tests should be done.

For a 48 hour ultra, PED testing is but a mere joke. Even if you test, you wouldn't catch anyone but the really stupid because you could just dope during the first 24 hours with microdosing or with short half life drugs like stimulants and they will be gone out of your system long before the end of the 48 hours. Heck, you could even do a microdose of testosterone at the start of the 48 hours and it will be undetectable by the end of the race. It's why so many Americans avoid answering the doorbell for a day when they just took a dose and know they will be undetectable the next day.