How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
That would be a challenge. Western States was 5500 m up, and 7000m down, yet Spartathlon is only 1200m. up. Jim ran all over the mountains for 100miles at 8:40 ave., and Kouros ran 153miles at 8:00 ave. I think Jim could compete with that...barely. Scott Jurek improved his pace by around 38 seconds per mile by running the virtually flat Spartathlon. If Jim improved the same, his 8:40 pace would drop to 8:02, and that is close to Kouros' 8:00.
But, it seems wrong to beat Kouros's record. National pride. Why not leave it alone?
cheaterfly wrote:
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
Of course he could. Big Jim is the best athlete in the world right now and easily the best runner ever. Kouros was a star but he doesn't walk on the same path as Big Jim.
cheaterfly wrote:
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
spartathlon is nowhere close to being the most prestigious ultra race outside the US.
jim might consider it in like ten years when he's bored of the other ultras. no chance he runs it before 2025, and slim chance he ever does it.
reed wrote:
cheaterfly wrote:
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
spartathlon is nowhere close to being the most prestigious ultra race outside the US.
jim might consider it in like ten years when he's bored of the other ultras. no chance he runs it before 2025, and slim chance he ever does it.
Ok so which race is? Sounds like he's afraid of going up against the record of Yiannis!
cheaterfly wrote:
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
No.
First of all, Jim Walmsley is a mentally weak runner. Just watch his video when he lost his direction at Western States. Jim has never done a proper 24 hour race. Jim is not able to perform without pacers. There are no pacers at the Spartathlon.
Jim might be able to finish but winning, or a new course record, no way.
Spartathlete wrote:
cheaterfly wrote:
How would Jim fare in the Spartathlon? surely this must be on his to do list, it's the most prestigious ultra race outside of the USA.
No.
First of all, Jim Walmsley is a mentally weak runner. Just watch his video when he lost his direction at Western States. Jim has never done a proper 24 hour race. Jim is not able to perform without pacers. There are no pacers at the Spartathlon.
Jim might be able to finish but winning, or a new course record, no way.
In that case people need to stop calling him the greatest ultra runner.
cheaterfly wrote:
In that case people need to stop calling him the greatest ultra runner.
Nobody with some ultrarunning knowledge calls Walmsely the "Greatest ultra runner".
Jim is a very good ultrarunner but he comes not even close to US best ultrarunner Scott Jurek with 7 Western States and 3 Spartathlon wins.
Wow! I was just thinking about this a few days ago and here it is. Yannis Kouros, who holds the CR as you probably know, was a totally different breed of runner I think. JW is a great runner and I admire his FKT's but I don't think that anything over 100 mountain miles is his cup of tea.
Luvin' this response from the cowboys hahaha!
Walmsley fan here But I think that one is out of his wheelhouse. I don’t think you can say Jurek was better than Jim based on his 7 States wins. Ultrarunning is far more competitive now. Match them in their primes and I think Jim wins at 50k to 100 miles most times. Time will tell if he can sustain excellence as long as Jurek though.
Walmsley only won 2 WS100 races. That's all in the 100 mile category.
He is not even close to Jurek's achievements on trails and roads.
Jim would destroy that record. The guy has GUTS like no other cat alive. Loosers like you don't get it.
callio.pea wrote:
Jim would destroy that record. The guy has GUTS like no other cat alive. Loosers like you don't get it.
We believe that when we see it.
Unless then Walmsley is just a big mouth and a 2:15 Marathoner.
Jurek broke 16 hours 1 time. Walmsley’s best time is almost 1.5 hours faster than Jurek’s. Jurek dominated for sure. But Walmsley’s career isn’t over yet so arguing this is pretty silly anyways. Races are run so differently now too. Less margin for error.
cb wrote:
Jurek broke 16 hours 1 time. Walmsley’s best time is almost 1.5 hours faster than Jurek’s. Jurek dominated for sure. But Walmsley’s career isn’t over yet so arguing this is pretty silly anyways. Races are run so differently now too. Less margin for error.
Well, it's a trail race with quite different conditions every year. Walmsley's record was done in probably the best overall trail conditions of the Western States.
And I like to point out that Walmsley got schooled by 2 time 100k World Champion at his own Hoka 100k race last year. Walmsley is a good runner but he is not that good.
I would put it this way, Jim is a more talented runner, Scott was a better ultrarunner. Being able to win long races is not always about running talent. Just look at Karl Meltzer. Its unsurprising a bunch of folks (LR'ers) who have never completed a 100 mile race wouldnt understand this. Then you have guys like Sage coming on here, who is a very talented runner but is a terrible ultrarunner (sure he's great at 50k's maybe up to 100k on a good day) telling people about how talented runners would destroy the competition in ultra's. And he wonders why he can't figure out the 100 mile distance. Hint: its not just about talent.
bigb wrote:
I would put it this way, Jim is a more talented runner, Scott was a better ultrarunner. Being able to win long races is not always about running talent. Just look at Karl Meltzer. Its unsurprising a bunch of folks (LR'ers) who have never completed a 100 mile race wouldnt understand this. Then you have guys like Sage coming on here, who is a very talented runner but is a terrible ultrarunner (sure he's great at 50k's maybe up to 100k on a good day) telling people about how talented runners would destroy the competition in ultra's. And he wonders why he can't figure out the 100 mile distance. Hint: its not just about talent.
Jim is a fast runner no question about that.
Scott Jurek is the most successful US ultrarunner of all times, he won Western States 7 times and Spartathlon 3 times. Nobody else comes close to that kind of success on roads AND trails.
Karl Meltzer is the most successful mountain trail ultra runner.
All 3 of them have different running talents. You can't just say that Jim has the most talent.
Ultrarunning provides so many different distances on trail and road which makes it impossible to compare runners who just do only roads or only trail running.
I am referring to running talent as in natural ability to run fast. Scott was never a fast runner, this is something he admits wholeheartedly. Sure you could say there are different running talents, but bottom line Scott was successful not because of his ability to run but in large part to his mental toughness and desire to win etc....
The reason I point this out is that it seems like people want to deny or downplay other aspects of what it takes to win long races. So often on these boards it turns into this 'with specific training so and so would do blah blah'. People want to pretend like there isn't a huge mental component.