Western States talk 2018

I Am Sam wrote:

Linus wrote:

No. Dont think you know the reason behind the shift by one demographic to become uninterested in one aspect of a sport. No. I dont believe most tennis pros would whip me in golf. Im pretty sure of that. Thats about the the difference between running track and running a mountain ultra

Maybe you are a better golfer than most. Good athletes in hand/eye coordination skill sports are generally good (better than most) at all hand/eye coordination sports. Our latest rugby league sensation (20yo) had scholarships to all the football codes here to choose from, 4 yr contract signed at 17 with one code which actually let him go to pursue another.

And at 13 he was a national junior golf champ...

...sucks for the hacks hey :-)

Anyway, I will tell you the major reason for shift.

The Brownlees , as good runners as they are, would not be wasting their time with triathlon if they could beat the best in T&F at same level, and to go further triathlon as a sport would not be as big if people that could swim/bike were happy to lose at running or vice versa. The best runners , to be honest , do not grow up swimming and biking...if that changes, the current dominating group in triathlon would have to create another sport.

To be even more brutally honest, the recent growth in trail has been as a 'white man's sport', somewhere they can win and where the BOP are people that don't care about time, but more about activity/leisure.

Personally, I have always 'enjoyed' the quantification of road running where performances can be 'equivalent' and measurable. But that does not mean I could not have raced well at trails, especially since I am a good canyoner (different activity) and my best historical performances (in competition not time) have been on brutal trail and mountain races...but I just don't care too much about racing such for pure time bases

Ultra Trail Guy wrote:

Dhaene is a utmb guy. Like kilian...cannot handle heat or running races. Euros are not good in heat. Sharman wins leadville every year....hes a bad ace. Hell go sub 16. Browning always goes top 10. You can look up Coree. Hes kinda a big deal in the ultra running community. Has a couple sub 6 50 mile times....isnt as famous because hes from the midwest and does road races mainly but if you get on irunfar him and krar just had a nice batle last weekend. Devon olson has the silver rush 50 course last year record came 4th at RRR100 too and has ran western once a few years ago. Hes fast and prepared. Probably sub 16:30. All the other guys are shorter distance guys so i cant give them much credit. A lot of those cowboys go for the CR or they drop. Zach bitter trains in phoenix now so heat wont affect him. My reasonings.

S. Canaday wrote:

I'll chime in (as someone who has done both).

First off it's all just the sport of distance running...it is all hard.

I did horrible at WS100 (pretty much walked the last 30 miles). I was puking my guts out. It sucked. 100-milers are for sure a different beast compared to 50-milers and 50km. Very humbling. But so is showing up at a major marathon and getting your butt kicked by guys that are beating you by over 2-miles and running sub 5:00/mile pace for 2 hours.

A lot really depends on the course though (how technical the trails are and how much climbing there is...as well as weather conditions).

It is easy to predict how well a 2:20-2:25 or so marathoner (male) or a 2:30-2:45 marathoner (woman) will do in a "runnable" and more flat race....pretty darn well usually (aside from nutritional/stomach mistakes, hypothermia-overheating or dehydration..which are always big factors!). The aerobic fitness and "talent" is there usually. But 2:20 guys lose to 2:35 guys all the time. How fast do you think Francois D'haene can run a marathon in?

In the mountains it can be a very different story though (same goes with mud, snow and technical rocks). Basically the longer the duration of the race (which comes with climbing and distance) the more that can go exponentially wrong.

The most competitive ultra is of course Comrades though (At least for the men). You get some 2:08-2:10 marathoner types. You get dopers sometimes. You get $40,000 for the win. But it is a road race, so of course that correlates better to road marathon PRs.

Western States is unique in that is is a net downhill race and it is usually very hot. They don't let "elite runners" who aren't qualified on the world ultra tour or don't have a "golden ticket" into the race. It has high altitude pushes in the first 30-miles and some decent mountain-trails that may or may not be covered in snow and mud depending on the year. There are some uneven rocks. The canyons are quite hot and exposed to the sun (think over 100 degrees). There are grades on the trail over 15%. After that is is very, very smooth dirt and runnable mostly.

I've been humbled by #AnySurfaceAnyDistance in this sport. It is all hard. No doubt the competitive depth is much greater on the roads and tracks. No doubt some trail-mountain-ultra races are so hilly and technical (and long) that they are almost a "different form of running." I used to joke that some races in the "SkyRunning" series should be called "SkyClimbing" because you have to use your arms and hands to climb up rocks and you have to worry about falling and dying from a fall off a cliff (in some very limited races in limited spots). Powerhiking becomes a serious thing!

Abdoujaparov wrote:

You seem very insecure. No one seriously argues that trail running is as deep as road running (though for the record road running is not deep at all which is why, I'm guessing, your sorry a*s made the trials). At the very sharp end though long distance trail runners are unique athletes that possess physical and mental traits that just aren't required on the roads. Any road runner claiming that any elite who chose to transition would automatically dominate just displays their arrogance and lack of knowledge. They sound like an 800m runner claiming that Rudisha would win Berlin if he could be bothered. The difference in skill set is that profound. I've run with 4 men who finished in the top 30 of the World Mountain Running Chmaps this weekend and my marathon PR is 5 minutes faster than any of them but I wouldn't be within 3 hours of them on a course like Spain.

reed wrote:

Ultra Trail Guy wrote:

Dhaene is a utmb guy. Like kilian...cannot handle heat or running races. Euros are not good in heat. Sharman wins leadville every year....hes a bad ace. Hell go sub 16. Browning always goes top 10. You can look up Coree. Hes kinda a big deal in the ultra running community. Has a couple sub 6 50 mile times....isnt as famous because hes from the midwest and does road races mainly but if you get on irunfar him and krar just had a nice batle last weekend. Devon olson has the silver rush 50 course last year record came 4th at RRR100 too and has ran western once a few years ago. Hes fast and prepared. Probably sub 16:30. All the other guys are shorter distance guys so i cant give them much credit. A lot of those cowboys go for the CR or they drop. Zach bitter trains in phoenix now so heat wont affect him. My reasonings.

Kilian WON western states. many europeans have been in the top 3. guess what, Americans aren't good in the heat either. Nobody is. Not even Zach Bitter.

and I'm sorry but Coree isn't "a big deal" (yet) in the ultrarunning community. No dis-respect to the guy, but a sub-6 50 mile isn't that impressive, I could probably do it assuming it's a flat road course. That's like 7:12s right? And yes, I've run ultras, before you assume I haven't.

also, I looked up Coree. he ran 5:30 for 50 miles. much different than "sub-6". also ran a 2:26 marathon. However, he only ran 6:39 at AR50 this year. Lost about 15 minutes in the last ten miles so probably could've run 6:30 with better pacing. If that's all he can manage for AR50 that's not a good sign for WS100. A Walmsley-type could run an hour faster at AR50. Looks like he did run 6:25 in 2016 but he got crushed by Denucci and Sharman, both of whom aren't exactly known for their legspeed.

going for that cougar wrote:

S. Canaday wrote:

I'll chime in (as someone who has done both).

First off it's all just the sport of distance running...it is all hard.

I did horrible at WS100 (pretty much walked the last 30 miles). I was puking my guts out. It sucked. 100-milers are for sure a different beast compared to 50-milers and 50km. Very humbling. But so is showing up at a major marathon and getting your butt kicked by guys that are beating you by over 2-miles and running sub 5:00/mile pace for 2 hours.

A lot really depends on the course though (how technical the trails are and how much climbing there is...as well as weather conditions).

It is easy to predict how well a 2:20-2:25 or so marathoner (male) or a 2:30-2:45 marathoner (woman) will do in a "runnable" and more flat race....pretty darn well usually (aside from nutritional/stomach mistakes, hypothermia-overheating or dehydration..which are always big factors!). The aerobic fitness and "talent" is there usually. But 2:20 guys lose to 2:35 guys all the time. How fast do you think Francois D'haene can run a marathon in?

In the mountains it can be a very different story though (same goes with mud, snow and technical rocks). Basically the longer the duration of the race (which comes with climbing and distance) the more that can go exponentially wrong.

The most competitive ultra is of course Comrades though (At least for the men). You get some 2:08-2:10 marathoner types. You get dopers sometimes. You get $40,000 for the win. But it is a road race, so of course that correlates better to road marathon PRs.

Western States is unique in that is is a net downhill race and it is usually very hot. They don't let "elite runners" who aren't qualified on the world ultra tour or don't have a "golden ticket" into the race. It has high altitude pushes in the first 30-miles and some decent mountain-trails that may or may not be covered in snow and mud depending on the year. There are some uneven rocks. The canyons are quite hot and exposed to the sun (think over 100 degrees). There are grades on the trail over 15%. After that is is very, very smooth dirt and runnable mostly.

I've been humbled by #AnySurfaceAnyDistance in this sport. It is all hard. No doubt the competitive depth is much greater on the roads and tracks. No doubt some trail-mountain-ultra races are so hilly and technical (and long) that they are almost a "different form of running." I used to joke that some races in the "SkyRunning" series should be called "SkyClimbing" because you have to use your arms and hands to climb up rocks and you have to worry about falling and dying from a fall off a cliff (in some very limited races in limited spots). Powerhiking becomes a serious thing!

Well stated Sage, was hoping you'd "bite" at this thread. While you were never a 2:10 guy, your speed in 26.2 is still in one of top times amongst ultra runners, and yet your struggles with the 100 mile distance are well documented. As the sport of ultrarunning has evolved greatly in even the last 5-8 years, it's still mocked terribly on this site and it leaves a lot of us in disbelief at the ignorance. Take a guy like Max King, an absolute beast, 2:14 right? Listen to him speak in regards to 100 milers, Leadville nearly broke him, he did place 4th at Western, but I highly doubt he ever returns to 100s though. His climbing skills took a few years to develop as it wasn't an easy transition. Nobody with a rational mind dismisses how incredibly hard it is for the average person to even run a 6 something pace for a marathon, regardless of what fellow delusional runners may believe, it takes a lot of work, year after year dedication, and some genetic backing to evolve in this sport. Pounding the roads or ripping around the track is absolutely brutal in it's own right. However, the blatant ignorance towards the unique challenges of ultras just needs to be put to rest and instead should be celebrated by all runners. Does a 5/10k guy look down on 100 meter runners because it's done in 10-11 seconds? No, because all running events require it's own specificity and madness to excel.

Well there's that wrote:

That's the reason for a shift? Keeping it to just track, did you know that in the 80s, folks from the West, US/UK were a lot faster than than they are now? Do you really think there would not be a lot more and a lot faster runners of the same group now?

Some of the reasons are just that track is not followed as much any more and it's lost a lot of luster internationally. It's also full of dopers now and it's worse than cycling.

People like the the Brownless may also love the sport that they are doing, with the triathlon being a more challenging and interesting event. Do you forget that there are actually a crazy amount of choices for sports now? Humans evolve and tastes change naturally. People go on to more challenging and interesting things. But this is only if one is actually active. Many more choose to be inactive now and go on to cerebral, non-sporting endeavors.

I see mountain ultras as something extreme. Not many can be cut out for that. Certainly not a "white mans sports" as Asians relish what is considered an "ultimate challenge' as well. As a decent road runner and a lover of hiking and mountain climbing, I consider completing something like the WS 100 in a good time as something quite impressive. Personally, I would consider it a greater accomplishment to complete that in 18 hours vs a 30 minute 10k on the road.

S. Canaday wrote:

Max King really inspired me to get into the sport. 6 years ago i knew I couldn't make a US National Team at the half/full marathon, but when I saw the team got a paid trip to Europe for Worlds I entered Mt. WA that year (2012 US Mountain Running Champs). Max had always been a guy that had a lot more speed than someone like me...and I saw how a 2:14 road marathoner could crush a lot of ultras and mountain races. Max also still mixes it up on the roads and at 100-milers and I greatly respect that. Not many guys will do that. Top 20 at the US Olympic Trials marathon. Guy is a total stud and even in his late 30s now he is getting more "mountain strength".