Pete Kostelnick has destroyed the Badwater course record by nearly an hour

Wow!

I see that he's going to try for the across USA record and is looking for folks to join him for legs:

https://www.facebook.com/hammernutrition/posts/10153490042906566

This is perfect. He has a legit 2:41 marathon pr just like the claimed one of our favorite continental crosser. Should make for a nice comparison.

Was the weather favorable somehow (cooler than normal temps, favorable southerly breeze, ...)? Or just two dominant athletes? On surface seems weird for CR in both races.

Is he related to the Kostelnick that ran at Duke a while ago?

This happened a week ago.

Race times now benefit from a NPS forced schedule that puts more miles in the dark out of the heat of the day.

hankmoody wrote:

Was the weather favorable somehow (cooler than normal temps, favorable southerly breeze, ...)? Or just two dominant athletes? On surface seems weird for CR in both races.

It sounds like it was cooler than normal. From the Whitney forum:

Apparently, to the disappointment of some,the 2016 race is tainted by unusually cool temps in Death Valley today (108 F).

Better late than never? wrote:

Race times now benefit from a NPS forced schedule that puts more miles in the dark out of the heat of the day.

Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.

It's NOT the same race at night as it is during the day. Is it a COURSE record, sure. But for anyone who knows about Badwater and has been there, it's a totally different experience in the night versus the day. If it's 120 and sunny, it's going to feel a lot hotter to the runners than 100 and dark.

The original race (actually 146 miles) started at night, then it went to a staggered start (6am, 8am and 10am). The hottest part of the course is generally considered to be miles 0 thru 45 (or so). Hitting this in the direct sun is just brutal.

With it now being a night start again, it eliminates the sun as a factor until much later in the race for the elites, with many of them getting to the climbing up Townes Pass (and therefore much lower temps) while the sun has barely come up.

Are they following the old course, Old Man Runner? I recall a couple of years back that they didn't have permission for parts of it.

Yes, it has gone back to the "old" course, starting at Badwater Basin and going to Mt. Whitney trailhead (134.6 miles)

calling Asher wrote:

I see that he's going to try for the across USA record and is looking for folks to join him for legs:

https://www.facebook.com/hammernutrition/posts/10153490042906566

What kind of tracking will they be using? Curious if they'll nip those issues in the bud, now, rather than a few days in.

Thanks. Even running in the dark it's still pretty impressive on that course.

Your argument would be valid if he had just barely got the course record. Difference at night? sure. 1 hours difference? no

I'm inclined to side with Captain Obvious - or whatever that says. Not knowing much about Ultra runners, 2:41 sounds like a pretty good marathon PR for one of them from what I do know. Is it that the Badwater record isn't faster simply because people who are "fast" simply haven't attempted it yet? This guy and this record could be a turning point for Ultra running if so...

I don't know if he has the fastest PR of anyone to run Badwater, but Michael Wardian ran it back in like 2011 and finished 3rd (I think).

Badwater is not where it's at in ultrarunning right now. Scott Jurek ran Badwater during his prime, but the sport's current top guys are not racing Badwater.

Raced like Western States, Hardrock, and mountain races in Europe get more talent, and the fastest guys on roads are more likely to run the 100k world championships, Comrades, or even the Desert Solstice track race than Badwater.

Badwater is more of a circus. It's a didathon. It tough because of the heat but do it in the middle of winter and I'm sure dudes could go under 21 hours for sure. The competition goes to Western States 100, Hardrock, UTMB and even Leadville.

Just run a Mile. Quickly. wrote:

cAptAINObvIoU$ wrote:

Your argument would be valid if he had just barely got the course record. Difference at night? sure. 1 hours difference? no

I'm inclined to side with Captain Obvious - or whatever that says. Not knowing much about Ultra runners, 2:41 sounds like a pretty good marathon PR for one of them from what I do know. Is it that the Badwater record isn't faster simply because people who are "fast" simply haven't attempted it yet? This guy and this record could be a turning point for Ultra running if so...

You are obviously not all that familiar with ultra-running. 2:41 is not an unusually fast time for an ultra-runner (one who is winning races, anyway). I have a 2:32 marathon PR, and back when I did ultras, I wasn't particularly good.

You have to figure that a lot of top ultra people don't have fast marathon PRs because they've never really tried the marathon seriously. But there have been guys here and there in the US with sub-2:20 marathons to their name who have tried ultras. And of course, a race like Comrades can bring in plenty of runners of that caliber every year.

The truth is, for a race like Badwater, marathon PR is not all that important. At some level, of course overall running ability is important, but you wouldn't show up to Badwater with a 2:30 marathon PR and be like, "I've got this in the bag!"

Just for the record, I'm not trying to say that 2:05 marathoners wouldn't clean up if they tried running ultras. Just saying that 2:41 is not unusual, and the guy who just won Badwater is/was probably capable of faster.

A lot of the top ultra women have marathon PRs faster than 2:41.