Don't Look Now: Kenyans Dominating Mountain Running

Good news. All the influencer, granola bar eating types who romanticise walking 20 minute miles are in for a massive shock when actually decent runners get into the mountains. Some real grifters in that space like Sage and his little buddies.

Trail runners certainly aren’t the cream of the crop in worldwide distance running but at the top of the sport they are definitely still legit runners. I wouldn’t say that 2:12-2:17 types you see at the top of ultras aren’t “decent runners”

They go where the drug testing is lax

Lol good joke. For races like UTMB and other similar mountainous ultras similar in technique/vert, athletes with a cross country skiing/skimo background do better than the athletes with a track/XC background(I bring this up as the physiological demands of those sports are more similar to mountainous ultras like UTMB than track. And guess what?Kenyans don't have any success there). Let me know when one of them can even win a competitive road ultra like comrades before claiming they're on their way to win UTMB.

Uphill
Saturday’s uphill race went just 9k but with 1,050 meters of
elevation gain. Things got super steep at the end, climbing over 400
meters in the final kilometer.
Patrick Kipngeno (Kenya) has been a revelation on this year’s tour. Kipgneno won his fifth Cup race of the year, finishing in 46:12. Philemon Kiriago (Kenya), only 19 years old, was second in 46:58, and Sylvain Cachard (France) topped out in 47:22 for third.

That will not happen anytime soon. A Kenyan won a 9k race. The UTMB is slightly longer.

they are not runners, they are joggers, just like 99% of letsrun users

fred kerley is a runner, you guys are clowns

Kenyans can't compete with Kilian. He often does a 60K warmup, 5x5000 in 13:20, then a vertical K in 2:30. His Strava and Instagram will confirm these times.

From the iRun Far article (you've got 2 formerly convicted dopers back racing in the same event!):

"Classic
Sunday’s 32k race celebrated its 28th year, and with 2,400 meters of gain. Runners from 14 countries took part.
The men’s race ran close and Petro Mamu (Eritrea) escaped Cristian Minoggio (Italy) by only 13 seconds as both finished in 3:11. Mattia Gianola (Italy) was third in 3:20.

[In 2017, Mamu failed two doping tests, after both the World Mountain Running Championships and the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships. He was given a nine-month ban starting in September of 2017 by the IAAF for testing positive for fenoterol.]

The women’s race was close too with Elisa Desco (Italy) only 44 seconds in front of Lucy Murigi (Kenya). The pair finished in 4:00 and 4:01, and third-place Hillary Gerardi (USA) came in 4:06.

[From 2010 to 2012, Elisa Desco served a two-year doping ban from the IAAF after she tested positive for EPO at the 2009 World Mountain Running Championships.]"

This is because good track/xc runners aren't weirdos that enjoy running for 10 hours unlike xc skiers who have to xc ski because they have awful running efficiency because they are unathletic

If you're talking about relatively nontechnical mountain running at rather moderate grades of somewhere around 10-15%, I would expect Kenyans to begin dominating the sport when the financial stakes make it worthwhile. Although many people on this site wouldn't remember this, Kenyans -- although outstanding runners in shorter distance events -- were generally rather poor marathoners into the late 1980s, with a few notable exceptions like Simeon Kigen, Joe Nzau, Douglas Wakiihuri, and Ibrahim Hussein. In 1988, only about a dozen Kenyans broke 2:20 in the marathon, about a quarter of the number of sub-2:20 Americans that year. There was a belief that the East Africans (perhaps especially the Kenyans) lacked something to carry their speed to the finish. But when Kenyans became able to complete on something close to equal financial footing with Americans and Europeans in the marathon (something that was less true during the "shamateurism" years of under-the-table prize money and preferential appearance and "consulting" fees), they (and a few Tanzanians, a number of Ethiopians, and scattered other African runners) overwhelmed the rest of the world in both quantity and quality of strong marathoners. Physiologically, I don't see much that would tilt the odds in the other direction.

- implying track runners aren't weirdos, I'm sorry but weirdos are attracted to running like flies to honey.

- implying XC skiers are unathletic, but it takes a lot more coordination to ski than to run. And to say they are unathletic despite having some of the highest vo2 max ever recorded.

- there's a two main reasons i believe that XC/skimo athletes are better prepared for mountain trail/mountainous ultras. One is they already have the mindset to train via high volume. Two, the way you engage your muscles running up a mountain is more similar to XC/skimo.

- lastly I'm assuming whoever made this comment lives somewhere where not in the mountains. And if you live in the trump land USA, I can see why you wouldn't want to spend much time outside. But if you lived somewhere else, I think you would change your mind about not wanting to spend 10 hours outside.

Meh. They have been saying this for years now. Wake me up when it happens.