Kilian Jornet will try to break the toughest ultra record in the books

He got paid very well to do the event, there is not much else going on why isn’t he entitled to give it a try?

Obviously nobody expected him to win. But nobody expected AS to win comrades when he gave it a go for the first time. Stranger things have happened.

It was probably a test run for Kilian to see where he’s at. Nutrition was terrible, weather was terrible. To make it worse something was off with Kilian. He’s pushed himself this hard before, for longer...

rojo "ultra source" = rojo

I find it hard to respect this guy despite his niche accomplishments. An ultramarathoner who won't run a marathon -- because it would provide a clear index of comparison to others not in his niche? A person who in his first attempt at a distance presumptuously goes for a record and then quits.

Compare him to a guy like Gene Dykes who quietly gets it done at every distance.

Kouros had a Marathon time of around 2:25 in a time where the world record was around 2:08. 17 minutes difference. Now the world record is 2:01:39 and 17 minutes difference would make it a 2:19.

Kilian's attempt was never going to result in a world record. This was just a race created out of the vacuum of races in the times of Covid 19. No doubt Kilian can run 24 hours on track. His goal mentioned before the race start was 660 laps = 264k. That seemed a reasonable goal for somebody like him. Of course not on a track in the winter in Norway.

Most people here have no idea how good Kouros records actually are. They will stand for a couple more decades.

Wow, KJ just embarrassed himself. I’m going to break Usain Bolt’s 100m record today. Everyone come watch.

I’m not for getting on someone for having a bad race but this attempt was pathetic if your goal was to break the world record. Yes, it gives more circumstantial evidence that the guy is full of it and lied about Everest.

masterofdisaster wrote:

Krisp Krunchman wrote:

Everybody knows that Badwater is the toughest ultra in the world and if KJ wants a real test well he needs to head there. Shoes and shirts melt and only the best of the best are accepted. KJ might not even get in. Badwater is the ultimate test.

The best of the best? You can't be serious dude. KJ wouldn't be accepted? Go online and see lots of weirdos who did get accepted year after year no problem. Badwater is for most of the time the slow jog/walk sufferfest in the extreme temperatures. Ever seen the winners of the Badwater succeeding in any other race? Nope. Melting shirts and shoes don't translate into runners quality.

There have been some winners of Badwater who were exceptional runners like

Anatoly Kruklikov, Irina Reutovich, Scott Jurek, Sumie Inagaki, Valmir Nunes, Yoshihiko Ishikawa and Patrycja Bereznowska. Others where pretty good like Mike Morton, Harvey Lewis or Pete Kostelnick.

But overall I agree with the assessment that Kostman likes to invite people with big egos and big press teams.

Also the Everest thing is pretty relevant. You don’t need to prove he faked the Everest ascent. He did fake it. It’s on him to prove he didn’t fake it. There’s literally no evidence that he accomplished the feat. Why don’t we just give the WR to all events to people based on their honesty? If you make it to the summit, you would make sure to have some sort of evidence, I don’t care how delirious you are. And his GPS just conveniently stopped... ok. Guys a fraud.

“ Apparently, he ascended at odd hours that other expert climbers suggest would be foolish to do: 9:30 pm and midnight. Additionally, he did not provide the customary photo or video evidence, did not phone anyone with his satellite phone and his GPS watch stopped well short of the summit. Finally, there are apparently no eyewitnesses – no one has come forward. ”

anonymoose wrote:

Rojo’s hot takes on this event are exactly what’s wrong with Letsrun. Clear USA center of the universe biased and opinionated news coverage with an attached message board filled with trolls that can’t even match the site’s founder’s level of inflame. At least I can browse the message board now on mobile without the advertisements melting my phone.

Nice news article. Just about contained your glee about Kilian’s performance.

What? A "USA center of universe bias?" What in the heck are you talking about?

I wrote an article about a Spanish runner going after a legendary record from a Greek guy. A Greek guy that we anointed as the GOAT for ultra records. I wrote this article before staying up half the night as one of 250 people worldwide watching the Delhi Half Marathon featuring Africa's finest runners so I could write a recap of that race.

Now the last part of your criticism is correct. I did take a certain amount of glee of seeing a PR stunt - of which our sport is filled with many - come up short.

What's wrong with that? The dude is amazing but you can't have it both ways. Do PR stunt after PR stunt and expect the press only to fawn over the ones that are successful and not also talk about the one's that blow up in your face or are questioned as illegitimate like Everest.

Krisp Krunchman wrote:

Everybody knows that Badwater is the toughest ultra in the world and if KJ wants a real test well he needs to head there. Shoes and shirts melt and only the best of the best are accepted. KJ might not even get in. Badwater is the ultimate test.

Badwater always seems a bit like a novelty race simply because the conditions are so insane. Bit like saying the Antractica marathon is the toughest because it's cold not because it's got the deepest field.

Sure some great runners have taken part but if you want a long road ultra, Spartathlon is far more competitive and storied and if you want toughness and something like UTMB spits out world class runners every year.

fighting with your users? you are trash, rojo. If it weren't for the community posting on this 2002-era message board I would never read this site.

Okay I came back on here to defend Rojo. Did Rojo say something that wasn't true? He is very correct to call it a "PR/media stunt"...of course it was. I also think Kilian really was interested in seeing how he could do on "the flats" and probably figured that 24 hours suited him better compared to something like a 100km record attempt. (and who cares about 100-mile splits/times outside of the US and UK?!) Rojo is also correct to question exactly what happened on Everest...given the available data [or lack thereof]... is he not? Do I think Kilian thought he had a shot at the record? I actually think he did. I think he probably knew it was a long shot though. Given the conditions (too cold) and given that he was coming off a 10km and an injury last month I think it was a super long shot. Still, I've seen Kilian throw down some ridiculous physical performances in mountain races (and finished one place behind him in races multiple times...granted pretty far behind him usually!). I'd imagine his musculature and running form probably made his Running Economy at 7-min mile pace on a flat track pretty bad. This is assuming his Running Economy going up and down 30-40% grade trails in the mountains is probably exceptionally good. Still Rojo's coverage and comments are fair and logical. As far as competitive ultras go...is Spartathalon that competitive really? Badwater is a super small field, expensive and has a lot of barriers to entry. It's a lot like these track ultra events....24 hours and 12 hours and multi-day (200-milers etc) and 100-miles on a track are actually all super niche...even within MUT. Not very many people attempt them. I mean the American record holder Zach Bitter is like a 2:28+ marathoner. Even a Hardrock 100 or Barkleys is super niche (small field size) and very exclusive in who they let in. Again lots of barriers to entry and really not that much competitive depth. They of course are all hard and challenging if you push yourself (hot or cold weather) and require specific unique demands with a lot of variables that can go exponentially wrong. I suffered terribly in the few 100-milers I've attempted and its been a disaster. Obviously I know it is not exactly like road marathon running. If you want "competitive" ultras Comrades is the ultimate. Then on some years maybe IAU 100km world champs and something like UTMB. I used argue that some years the North Face 50-mile in San Francisco (now extinct) was more competitive than Western States a lot of times. So it is all relative to field size and quality of the field (easy to measure with the density of the top 10-20 finishers) as well as barriers to entry of a specific race. In the whole realm of MUT Running it's actually a lot of the sub-ultras that are the most competitive: Sierre-Zinal (maybe Kilian's best race performance ever), Zegama, and WMRA world mountain champs (10-12km). Apparently Yiannis himself wasn't pleased about this stunt? Does anyone know the details of how and when he set his 24 hour record?

John___Matrix wrote:

Krisp Krunchman wrote:

Everybody knows that Badwater is the toughest ultra in the world and if KJ wants a real test well he needs to head there. Shoes and shirts melt and only the best of the best are accepted. KJ might not even get in. Badwater is the ultimate test.

Badwater always seems a bit like a novelty race simply because the conditions are so insane. Bit like saying the Antractica marathon is the toughest because it's cold not because it's got the deepest field.

Sure some great runners have taken part but if you want a long road ultra, Spartathlon is far more competitive and storied and if you want toughness and something like UTMB spits out world class runners every year.

I'm going to feel better when SC stops commenting on KJ. Too much of barely concealed jealousy from a fallen runner.

This is probably out of the topic in question but what if Eliud Kipchoge was to attempt this record?

Here is what I thought of how he could easily take the record down (he will end up running about 190miles). Since he's known as the greatest marathon runner, he would need to run 7.252 marathons in 20 hrs, If we think it is possible?

This is just an idea that I had, so here it goes;

He would need to average about 6:19/mile for 26.2miles then gets about 40minutes before he goes again for another 26.2miles. He would only have to do this 7times and that last 0.252 (6.6miles) could be added to the last 26.2 miles making it 32.80miles. What do people think s of this? is this humanly possible? can the king pull this off?

The data (how I came up with the 7.252 marathons in 20 hrs):

So we have 24hrs to cover 188.6 miles

20hrs x 60mins = 1200mins

4hrs x 60mins = 240mins

190miles/26.2miles =7.252 marathons

1200mins/7.252 marathon = 165.47mins(2hrs 45mins per marathon)

2 hrs 45min/26.2miles = 6:19min/mile

The other 4hrs (240mins) will be divided between the 7.252 marathons as rest/recovery time:

240mins/6marathons = 40mins

Thoughts?? Or maybe Iam just crazy :)

Wow, I am surprised about Sages response.

Kilian had never a chance on Kouros record. Not in best weather conditions and of course not on the cold track in Norway.

Yiannis ran his record on a track in Adelaide in 1997.

And lets not forget that Kouros held the record already since 1984.

He improved his road record of 1985 on a track in 96 and twice in 97. In 1998 he improved the road record. At that time there were still separate road, track, indoors record lists kept.

http://statistik.d-u-v.org/getintbestlist.php?year=all&dist=24h&gender=M&cat=all&nat=all&label=&hili=none&tt=netto&Submit.x=16&Submit.y=13

It doesn't work that way. Your thoughts indicate that you have never run a 24 hour race.

Kipchoge might survive until the 100k mark. There is no way he would run for 24 hours.

Remember, he can run a 2 hour Marathon, which is a twelfth of 24 hours. He wouldn't know how to fuel himself, he wouldn't know how to deal with blisters or chafing. Weather changes, running through the night.... so many ways to fail.

Nowhere in the post do you wonder how he deals with fueling, how he deals with not sleeping much (or at all, depending on how the schedule goes), and how his body reacts to approximately 1,500 180-degree turns (even if rounded) at 6:19 pace.

1 - Rojo was 100% right to call out KJ. Dude is a fraud. This was a clear money grab for him, nothing else. All the crybabies complaining about rojo are sad and pathetic.

2 - Any insinuation that these ultra athletes are better than elite marathoners is complete and utter nonsense. Any elite marathoner would dominate these competitions if they wanted to, but there is no incentive to do it.

TheXCrunner wrote:

This is probably out of the topic in question but what if Eliud Kipchoge was to attempt this record?

Kipchoge (or Bekele) would feel a twinge in their calf and call it quits after less than 10 hours.

I think Kipchoge could destroy the record (And probably a lot of sub 2:10 marathoners). Many would probably fail though....at least on a first. attempt. Taking 40-minute rest breaks wouldn't be as efficient though. I think he'd be better off slowing the pace slightly and taking shorter rest breaks between marathons. Generally its better to at least kind of "keep moving" I'd imagine. So in terms of efficiency, yeah 7-min miles would feel like a jog to him, but it would be his best bet (or any fast marathon runner's best bet) at breaking this record. It's not like this is UTMB or some 188 mile trail/mountain race with technical trails and climbing (more variables) where you have to run with a 4-5lb pack full of gear and most people use trekking poles. A 400m track is at least a pretty controlled environment (you can get aid every 400m!) and a flat uniform surface is what an elite road marathoner has totally dialed their Running Economy and Running Form for. Not to mention carbon plated shoes nowadays. Yes, some issues like GI distress/Blisters/Nutrition/Hydration/muscle failure would inevitably pop up....but this things also happen in 26.2 mile races (at at sub 5-min mile pace). They happen when you're doing 140-mile training weeks too. In short, I think a lot of fast road marathon runners could go very far on a track (and even make it a full 24 hours). But yeah sometimes the 2:20 guy beats the 2:10 guy in these kinds of events (and Comrades for that matter)... Not that many people have actually run these kinds of races.