Jurek calls out Dean Karnazes

greenbeer wrote:

Just the fact that Dean would never be picked for the US 100k team tells you where he stands in the ultra world.

That's Perfect!

Flagpole, you have to concede your fight over the PGA analogy, just a little bit. You're looking to much at the logistics involved in the 2 sports and not recognizing the semantic meaning of what Jurek was saying, which is essentialy, "I think is misrepresenting to the public that a guy who is a mid level ultra pro is taking credit as being the greatest runner in america, including all distances, it doesn't happen in other sports..."

You say there is no luck in winning a 135 mile race... are you kidding... its just like any other marathoner in an elite field... what do they all say... "its a marathon, if one little thing goes wrong, its all over.." and how many times has the favorite lost, dnf'd, or just plain bombed... I can only imagine that running 135 miles would exponentially increase that issue. To win, everything would have to go perfectly, which in our sport, takes a bit of luck. A perfect example would be Gomez winning new york... do you really think he's better than Tergat, Baldini, and a slew of others... no, it was a great day..

sure, he'll have the title of New York Champ forever, but that doesn't mean he should be considered one of the best forever.. its a highlight to a career, not the definition of it.

for the good of the team wrote:

Surprising the Kenyans haven't had someone do one of the big trail 100's already. I'm not talking Tergat but a B level dude maybe. They've had guys do CC skiing and have a go at triathlons, so why not ultras. I wish one of us (preferably me) would win a mega lotto and take a bit of that money and offer it up as incentive to see a world-class marathoner do a hard trail 100. That would be cool to see.

I tend to agree the likes of Tergat may be too frail on the trails, but maybe one of those thick legged Asians (like Seko) might be pretty awesome out there.

MONEY

Agreed with Jurek. Nice callout.

I'm sure Jurek is interested in your agreement 9 years later.

Jurek sounds bitter. Probably because 99% of Americans have no clue who he is.

Most people know Dean K, from his endless Runners World cover shoots but also his challenges as well as raising money for charity.

How many $$$ has Jurek raise? 0?

Now I have some newfound respect for Scott Jurek. Although it looks like he alienated some of his hobby-jogger fanbase who have been under the marketing machine of Karnazes for a while. Wake up sheeple

Fact is Dean Karnazes propped himself up as an elite athlete in a sport with no rules and then spent years making lots of money off of that image. He is not competitive at all and hasn't been in a long time, but is seen as being a great ambassador for the sport bla bla bla. Hey people, guess what he's an ambassador for? Himself and his brand, which he makes a lot of money off of. Align yourself with a "good cause" and you become bulletproof.

I too would like to see ultra-running look a little more professional with more focus on competitive runners who actually live and breathe the life more than anybody else. Cause guess what? Without them all ultra-runners are just long distance hikers littering the forest with their gu wrappers and poop piles, and spending a lot of money on races.

Yesterday at the Boston Marathon expo Dean was going to give a talk (I think) sponsored by Runners World) on what made the marathon the marathon. At the same time Jurek was at a booth signing autographs.

If Runners World knew Jurek was going to be there, I wonder if they would have had him give a talk instead of Dean.

Seemed really strange to me for Dean to be giving a talk at the expo for Boston Marathon.

America's Best Distance Runner is Galen Rupp. And its not even close. Galen doesn't have the 5k wheels anymore, but he's the best marathoner we have, and the marathon is the "king of the distances" as Haile once put it. And he's also the best we have at 10k.

hm

BigJim just got 4th, just like Pre.