JFK 50 Miler record crushed 5:21:29

Hawks is definitely a new up and comer to watch. He is an honest hard worker and a good kid. His track times are better than Jim’s (13:51 to Jim’s 13:53 for 5k, and 28:53 to Jim’s 29:08 for 10k)He’s also run a 2:23 marathon and is a beast of an ascender with a 4th place finish at the world mountain running champs behind top American Joe Gray this year.But Hawks hasn’t been smashing any ultra records yet. Nobody has smashed records by the large margins that Jim has this year.Comparing Speedgoat 50km debut times Hawks was considerably better than Jim: (5:25 to Jim’s dismal 6:51). It was Hawks very first ultra, but Jim already had been racing ultras in Montana before that. But Hawk’s 5:25 still ranks behind the likes of King (5:23), Schlarb (5:19), Gates (5:18), Jonret (5:14), Krupicka (5:09) and Canady (5:08). The Speedgoat course has become slower and harder with sight changes over the years - and it was hot this year, but still Hawk’s winning time was very much in line with what talented mountain runners have done for that race. Jim and Hayden are also not in their early twenties. Hawks is younger at 25, and Jim is a year or two older. There is no big 'new' group of 'fast' track guys entering the scene. They have been trickling in for the past 5-6 years and slowly mixing things up (Tollefson and Laney at UTMB for example - both 2:17-2:18 marathoners with Laney also having 14:03 5k speed). Tim Freriks (14:03 5k) who debuted at Lake Sonoma 50 in 6:17. Runners like Ryan Bak (13:36 5k, 2:14 marathoner) and Mike Aish (13:23 5k, 2:13 marathoner) might have been on the older side, but they still trained up to 140mpw for some of those 50-milers. Other guys would include Andy Wacker (sub 13:40 5k and 1:03 half) and Joe Gray (2:18 marathon/1:03 half) who have mixed it up to 50km with good results.If anything the more experienced road marathoners should translate better to fast ultra-trail running as a 5k-10k on the track isn’t always the best prerequisite for much longer distances on trails. High caliber, national class guys that have actually run in the Olympic Trials marathon and other marathon majors would have a good base for this. They would contrast to where Jim came from: floundering on the roads with a 1:08 half after college and not being able to hold 5:20 mile pace for a flat 12km cross country last year at US Cross Nats. Even the old school guys like Max King seem to get more ultra strength and experience in their early thirties. One could argue that being older is an advantage at the 100 mile distance. Consider Max still has a 2:14 marathon in him. Max is somewhat inconsistent in very hilly mountain ultras, but on a course like JFK50, World 100km Road Champs and Comrades he has recently competed very well. Jim shattered his record this year – and just 10 months ago nobody would’ve thought that Jim could even come close to that mark because he simply hadn’t done anything close to competitive in ultras for years.

no peds needed....... wrote:

RDP wrote:

It wasn't until mid 2016 that Jim even made it on the radar of ultra running fans and suddenly got some attention from ultra-trail media outlets as well as sponsorship.

]

Exactly. He didn't have a sponsor until AFTER he crushed the field at Western States for 93 miles.

Another guy to watch is Hayden Hawks who was a 28:53 10k guy in college and won Speedgoat in his first 50k. He just put up 136,139, and 120 mile weeks leading up to North Face 50.

The ultra-trail scene is getting a lot more competitive and it is very fun to watch. The difference now is that these guys are coming out in their early 20s rather than mid 30s after they are on the downside of their running careers.

Nicely summarized.

Walmsley is a special athlete we need to appreciate right now. This won't last forever, it never does. Thankfully, he's over six figures with his HOKA deal, but he needs to pick his battles. He may dominate or blow up at TNF. 2 weeks turnaround after a 5:21 at JFK is unreal.

Good news is that Spinnler is a tool, basically saying Walmsley had no chance at the record. Dude just cashes in his race entries.

Walms needs to win WS100 like Jornet did in his 2nd attempt, his up Sierre Zinal, hit up UTMB and just light the world on fire in 2017-2018. That or go to marathons and run a 2:11 like he can right now.

I agree. There have been some faster guys coming in for a few years and the records have been falling. Andrew Miller started in his teens. Dakota started at 18. Zach Miller started at 25. Walmsley at 24. I ran a race last weekend and a college guy (just out of eligibility) won the 50k. He's 22 and going to graduate in December.

I ran trails all my life but I never raced them until a few years ago. There is a certain learning curve that can take a year or two to accomplish and the earlier you start, the better you are going to be. With the popularity of the sport rising, we will continue to see some of the fast college guys choose trails over track or roads. It's no different than why a guy would choose marathon over 5k or roads over track. Each individual is going to go where they think they will be the best and what they will enjoy the most. I think we will be seeing more guys coming into the sport right out of college.

Why play in the past wrote:

Isn't there like $10,000 on the line at NorthFace? And hasn't it been that way for a few years? Isn't that enough to get even a nibble from the EAs living in America? I mean, it'd just be a 50 mile walk in the park, right? I agree that the times at ultras will go down when the cream of the crop comes to play, but what's holding them back from winning, or even running, races such as NorthFace? Are they showing up this year?

If they made it $100,000, then some top marathoners might get interested.

Look at who won the women's division of the IAU 50K World Championship just recently. It is a 2nd tier Kenyan woman you have never heard of.

What a surprise.

Can you imagine what would happen if Mary Keitany showed up?

rjm33 wrote:

Why play in the past wrote:

Isn't there like $10,000 on the line at NorthFace? And hasn't it been that way for a few years? Isn't that enough to get even a nibble from the EAs living in America? I mean, it'd just be a 50 mile walk in the park, right? I agree that the times at ultras will go down when the cream of the crop comes to play, but what's holding them back from winning, or even running, races such as NorthFace? Are they showing up this year?

If they made it $100,000, then some top marathoners might get interested.

Look at who won the women's division of the IAU 50K World Championship just recently. It is a 2nd tier Kenyan woman you have never heard of.

What a surprise.

Can you imagine what would happen if Mary Keitany showed up?

I'm not asking why the big dogs aren't there, but why aren't the B and C level EAs swooping in for the so easy money?

If you bring the money, they will come run your race…and win the money.

Let me restate that: speedster track and road marathon guys have been getting into the sport for the last 5-6 years. Guys that ran NCAA DI. All-Americans and Olympic Trials qualifiers.Your examples don't reflect that. While Dakota Jones and Andrew Miller are very good at some ultras, they did not run fast in college track and xc (if at all). Then Zach Miller is an example of a strength runner that was a 31:00ish 10km, DII college runner. He is an honest hard worker and pure ultra focus. He's also a good kid who mixes it up with the likes of Varner, Krar, Canady, and all the top Euros . It's likely he could only run about a 2:24-2:25 marathon based on his 10k though. Zach is not a fast 50km and below runner - and while he doesn't have the flat track speed he is still very competitive at hilly-mountain 50 to 100-mile races.He won the North Face 50 last year.That's why trails and ultras are usually the "great equalizer." The fast track guys don't always win (much like the 30-min 10km guy who runs a 2:18 marathon can soundly beat the 29:00 10km guy who only runs 2:20-2:22). However, faster CRs and competitive depth in trail-ultras will continue with the influx of more talented runners. Usually the most competitive records even at 50-mile and 5-6 hours in duration races are only taken down by a few minutes here and there. If the race is fairly competitive and has had a history over the years, the records simply aren't totally shattered anymore (unless it is like Western States and it is a cold weather year)Think about what Jim was on pace to do at Western States 100 this summer: He got to the river at around mile 78, 40-minutes faster than anyone ever in the history of the race. 40-minutes faster than the likes of Max King or Rob Krar or Kllian Jornet. So he was averaging nearly 30-seconds per mile faster for the first 78 miles than anyone in the history of the race on a fairly hot day. Thirty seconds per mile. 2:17 marathoners like Canady and Laney were simply left in the dust and totally destroyed. That kind of huge margin of improvement is simply insane - and coming from a guy that only ran 6:40 at the Lake Sonoma 50-miler the year before. It would be one thing if we had some established 2:08 Kenyan marathoner tearing down the trails at Western, but Jim mysteriously improved by a superhuman rate this year after floundering in ultras for all of 2014 and 2015.

The money will also bring some other things:

http://trailrunnermag.com/people/culture/article/2299-anti-doping-efforts-trail-running

You've done your research, but your assertion that he was "floundering on the roads" is ridiculous and so is the weight you place on his 2014 Speedgiat result. The guy went out hard, but walked it in for a finish without regard for his crappy time being used by critics on a message board a couple years later.

His other results from that time show potential, such as his dominant performance that spring at a La Sportiva race against a talented field that included several pros and a couple guys who had won US trail champs in the past. So did his only other ultra in MT, which he ran conservatively and won ahead of Andrew Miller. As far as xc, what do you expect from training alone in winter in Great Falls while working full time on intercontinental ballistic missles? I suspect there wasn't a whole lot of time spent on the alter-g. And didn't the 1:08 come at over 7000' in another race he won?

JW is doing some special things right now due to the right training/financial situation and a bold attitude the gives him the confidence to push boundaries. So until he burns out, might as well enjoy the show.

rjm33 wrote:

he IAU 50K World Championship p?

The IAU 50k is a track meet on flat hard bricks or cobblestones. This year it was 20 laps!

You don't like it? It is still an Ultra World Championship. I have never heard of any of the ultra-runners in the race because most ultra-runners are completely unknown by anyone except themselves.(Nobody cares about ultra-runners.)On the bright side, I like them better than racewalkers.There is one ultra-runner I have heard of:Magdalena Boulet. She was coached by Jack Daniels. She coaches Brian Pilcher now. She was a U.S. Olympic marathoner with a PR of 2:26:22 set in 2010. That is why I have heard of Magdalena Boulet.She has won TNF 50M. She won the Western States 100M in 2015 in her debut... at age 41. Does that count for you as a fast road marathoner being pretty good at ultras on trails?

Barely an ultra..... wrote:

rjm33 wrote:

he IAU 50K World Championship p?

The IAU 50k is a track meet on flat hard bricks or cobblestones. This year it was 20 laps!

Thanks Jim.No, I'm also looking at the 5:47 he ran at JFK last year and the 6:40 he also ran at Lake Sonoma.The real talented roadies and track runners debut really well at ultras usually. His 'financial situation' and 'bold attitude' and 'confidence to push boundaries' is nothing extraordinary.

3 things to know:

1) he started using the Maffetone method this year.

2) he started doing low carb-high fat/keto this year.

and 3) On Sunday, Kaiha Bertollini ran the JFK 50 course and smashed Walmsley's record by another 12 minutes.

Seriously - I hope this is legit but wow, the improvement Walmsley has shown this year is of Lance Armstrong proportions. And he just doesn't appear to be breaking down at all. Sad, but with all we have seen over the years, performance jumps like this simply can't be accepted on faith. I hope he is legit.

You're joking, right?Jim seems to have plenty of well established sponsors on his crop top. Apparently he also had professional photographers there to capture his Grand Canyon trail run. He go maximum publicity out of it.Leonid's record runs at Comrades have also been extremely shady. It is about $30,000 to win the race last time I checked the race page.Jim was so confident before JFK this year:http://www.heraldmailmedia.com/sports/walmsley-chasing-history-at-jfk-mile/article_4c86472a-ad17-11e6-bd7f-6b7892db9d67.html"If someone wants to stick on the ride, they're going to have a really, really long day," said Jim Walmsley, the two-time defending champ. "Bank on something going wrong because I wouldn't bank on staying with me."Even the RD Mike Spinnler thought he couldn't do it: "Is there anyone else in the field capable of going under Max King's record? I don't think so," JFK director Mike Spinnler said.Mike probably thought this because when Jim first ran JFK50 in 5:56 it was slower than what Mike himself had run on the course. And then when Jim ran last year he only managed a 5:47, almost 10-minutes slower than Zach Miller.Jim was so sure of himself this year it also appears he ran 120 miles the week before and set a few Strava CRs the day before the race.

rjm33 wrote:

Jim hardly has any sponsors. Look at how many people were there for his Grand Canyon run.

If the prize money at ultras was the same (or more) as at the major marathons…then Eliud Kipchoge and lots of other Kenyans would come over and really destroy the records. What happens when a guy with a 26:49 10K best shows up well trained for an ultra?….. Uh oh.

Is there some money at Comrades?

I remember the Russian marathon record holder, Dr. Leonid Shvetsov. He was also the record holder for both directions at Comrades, until one of his records was recently broken. He is now back in Russia 'coaching' runners.

He has quite an interesting past history in Albuquerque, New Mexico:

http://www.coachnorrie.co.za/?p=205http://comrades.runnersworld.co.za/comrades-champ-in-doping-scandal/

Apparently he was also still "floundering" on the roads last year at the IAU 100km World Road Champs where he placed 28th in 7:05. He almost got chicked by Camille Herron (7:08). There's seems to be a very defined pattern with Jim: Terrible inconsistency and lots of slow times from 12km to 100km in all of 2014 and 2015. Not showing much promise to be a "great talent" for setting any ultra trail records or let alone smashing them. Then in 2016: An amazing improvement and total transformation with records not just being broken by a few minutes, but totally destroyed. Records and times that he was not even remotely close to just the year before.

Answerman/AnotherDataPoint:

"No, I'm also looking at the 5:47 he ran at JFK last year and the 6:40 he also ran at Lake Sonoma."

Wake up, he won that JFK and the 6:40 still placed him ahead of both Tollefson and King that day... are they cheats too because they had bad days?

"The real talented roadies and track runners debut really well at ultras usually"

FYI: JW won his 2014 ultra debut @ Old Gabe in a course record.

As for 100K worlds, twice as far has he'd ever run, he seemed to race in his typical style but blew up : from irufar: "After the first lap, American Jim Walmsley took off and blazed ahead of the field, eventually building a five-minute lead on everyone. Every lap he’d shrug seeming to say, “Yeah, I know this is way too fast,” but he couldn’t help himself... Walmsley continued to hold the lead mid-race, coming through 50k in 3:05:20. The next lap he gave up three and a half minutes to the other front runners… and although he kept his composure, it was clear that his run at the front would soon end."

You see this as "floundering," but now we know it was a sign of his potential.

He always goes out real fast. He was in the lead for 60km at that 100km WC race last year and died.

http://www.irunfar.com/2015/09/2015-iau-100k-world-championships-results.html

This year he is much stronger.

He still goes out real fast.

He dies at a faster pace this year…which is after the other runners are already dead because Jim already destroyed them earlier in the race.

OK?

Sage, why don't you write under your own name?Envy is an ugly beast.