http://instagram.com/p/uTSmhJCfUM/
Wins $30,000 and beats Hobie Call
Wins $30,000 and beats Hobie Call
Julia Webb 3rd
Renee Baillie 2nd
Huge win for King, considering Hobie Call is capable of a sub 2 hour marathon. He should be a lock for the gold in Rio.
$30,000 and no Kenyans?? Obstacle course or not, you'd think a few would have shown up and given it a shot.
How the mighty have fallen...
How hard could it be to run under 8:00 pace in these things? It's only 5k.
Max
King of the trails
King of the track
King of the roads
King of the Warriors
Division I steeplers win top honors?
That shows a 10:14 5000 m result. Fix it people!
Turducken wrote:
How hard could it be to run under 8:00 pace in these things? It's only 5k.
I raced in it today and placed well, so I'll give my two cents since I was there. Laugh all you want about how obstacle course races are a joke, but his race was one of the toughest physical challenge I've ever done. It started off by going up a seemingly endless hill (10-15% grade) followed by an equally as steep downhill, each about 1/2 mile long. As soon as you reached the bottom of the hill, you had to go right back up and start a ridiculous climb. The footing was difficult and it was 30-40% grade at a minimum. You didn't even reach the first obstacle until 1.3 miles in, and 8 of the 13 obstacles were in the last mile.
There's a reason a trail runner won (and dominated), as Max King has a ridiculously impressive resume. However, several of the top finishers don't have elite PRs yet beat a lot of guys with strong running backgrounds. Before you start thinking anyone who is good at hills could win this, think again.
The guy who finished 9th represented Canada in the 2010 Olympics biathlon [
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc-Andr%C3%A9_B%C3%A9dard_(biathlete)]. He is a world-class athlete whose specialty involves cross-country skiing and hills. Hunter McIntyre weighs about 200 lbs and partied all the time, yet he finished 6th, over a minute ahead of Bedard. He doesn't have a running background and is actually pretty interesting to read up on (http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/born-to-race-hunter-mcintyre-20140620). You'd never expect him to place so well in a race that seems like it would favor runners, but he puts ground on people because he is so good at obstacles.
Similarly, I just checked and saw that I beat Austin Baillie, who ran for Colorado from 2002-2005. His 5k PR is almost 3 minutes faster than mine and he has run a 64 half-marathon, so clearly he is much better than me. I have no reason to be beating someone like him, but I specifically train for obstacle course races so that was likely the difference.
Bottom line: you do realize $30,000 was on the line for first place, right? People tend to put in a lot of effort when that much money is on the line, so I'm pretty sure the entire field tried very hard. I also have a hard time seeing Kenyans winning, too, because the stop-and-go nature of the obstacles would be a complete change from the non-stop constant pace running they're used to. Having little upper body strength would hurt them, too. Whether you want to believe it or not, 7:16 as the winning pace was flying.
Yeah, Kenyans are so used to those smooth, flat roads in Great Rift Valley, they cannot handle rugged terrains.
And they also suck at clearing hurdles. Look at the girl who tripped over the last hurdle in the Continental Cup race to give Emma Coburn the gold medal... Oops, she is an Ethiopian, isn't she?
multi-talented wrote:
Max
King of the trails
King of the track
King of the roads
King of the Warriors
He is impressive.
One born every minute wrote:
multi-talented wrote:Max
King of the trails
King of the track
King of the roads
King of the Warriors
He is impressive.
I'll give you that Max is King of the trails and Warriors...but when was he ever King of the track and roads? In order to be King, you have to win titles.
I thought you were just making a joke saying Cobie Hall (Hobie?) was capable of running a sub 2:00 marathon, I didn't realize the dude actually said that! To his credit, he's a 2:16 marathoner who now specifically trains for obstacle course racing, like, this is his life and how he makes money. So dude has good speed, and trains for these and Max still beat him. I don't give 2 craps about OCR or how it stacks up against other disciplines, but that's really impressive. Props to Max.
HAHA, the more I read about this guy Cobey Call the more hilarious he becomes. He even gets made fun of by Runners World. He lists his PRs in this article and they make it a point to show the net elevation drop in each of his supposed PRs.
http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/hobie-call-would-be-sub-200-marathoner
Hobie Call: "Do you want to know why I can break 2:00 in the marathon? Because I believe I can. And when you're willing to put in the work required to make dreams come true, amazing things can happen."
Sure...
I finished 18th in the men's race and my 5000m PR is 14:20 (I'm in that shape or better right now). This course was no joke, and there's no way in hell any Kenyan runner was getting top 5 in my opinion. Max King is #1 in the world for sure right now. He trains specifically for these obstacles and has a mountain running background to help. As another poster said, the steep uphills and downhills were relentless, there was absolutely no flats at all on this course, and several obstacles were very challenging and time consuming. The one uphill was so steep that most were crawling on their hands and knees at the top. There was mud pits and trenches the racers had to crawl through, and it's 10 times harder than it looks. Tackling an obstacle while tired is a whole different ball game than doing it at full rest. It's interesting to hear some background/credentials of the top racers.
Would like to see some video of this.