Ben Bruce tries out for Worlds at USA Mountain Champs - Ends up eating a big fat slice of "humble pie" as Joe Gray and Allie McL

zzzz wrote:

Here's a training article about Norris from a couple years ago:

thank's for all the info about APU, interesting, i had no idea!

I remember Kikkan back from when she was running cross country in high school, (for East I think?), but have been out of the state for years, so out of the loop.

Mtns are different wrote:

Oh and Allie Mac was within 2 mins of Ben Bruce after nearly an hour. Probably the performance of the day.

To be fair the men's field was far deeper and has been historically for off road races so typical C level women excel in trail while c and b level men don't pan out all that much

derp wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Here's a training article about Norris from a couple years ago:

thank's for all the info about APU, interesting, i had no idea!

I remember Kikkan back from when she was running cross country in high school, (for East I think?), but have been out of the state for years, so out of the loop.

Yeah, East. Funny, I just saw David out running (with his girlfriend and some other APU women) 5 minutes after my last post.

WTF!?! The “Mountain” running champs for the US are held in New Hampshire? What a f$&king joke. No wonder we get our a$$es handed to us at the world year in and year out.

This shouldn’t be allowed. The championship should only be held in CA, CO, northern NM, Utah, Montana, or Alaska where there are REAL mountains.

I've run the USA mountain champs. I made the team. I beat Joe at nationals that year (MT. WA) and finished ahead of him at Worlds (2012). Now he would kick my butt at 10km-marathon, although for the record I did beat him head to head at the Moab Trail Marathon in 2016 as well as the Pikes Peak Ascent. Also for the record he has run up Pikes Peak in 2:05 and I only did a 2:10 though on different years. Anything sub 2:08 is really legit on the Pikes Peak Ascent...much like a sub 60:00 at MT. WA. Joe has exceptional climbing ability is a a great mountain runner from 10km to 20 miles or so. He has beat Kilian. After the marathon distance his range tends to fade a bit and he has been more vulnerable historically (i.e. even at the road marathon where his PB is 2:18). Still I respect him a ton and he did lower my Mt. WA American record by 12 seconds! He is a similar type of runner to someone like Max King although he hasn't explored the longer ultra distances much yet (like Max has). Joe is certainly a better climber though...the best in the business at "short range climbing" in the US right now and for the past 4 years. What we see in "mountain ultra trail running" is that 3km-10km flat track speed isn't everything. It certainly helps, but variable running economy over 10%-20% uphill grade and on uneven dirt/grass throws guys with high Vo2max values for a loop sometimes. My guess is Ben probably didn't have enough steep mountain training (think ski slope training)....he was also just coming off a flat 3km steeple in about 9:00 and a track 10km which is not specific to this kind of event at all. I respect Ben a ton as well. He is a very talented athlete. I've been all sorts of 1:02-1:03 guys not do well or even come close to running that time at Mt. WA (Ryan Bak etc.). Last weekend I was running with Patrick Smyth (28:25 for 10km, 1:02 half, 2:15 marathoner) at the MT. Blanc Marathon. We were hanging with Kilian for the first 12-13 miles or so...after the first big climb got "technical" and we hit a technical trail descent he faded back. Kilian dropped the hammer and we were all strung out. I don't know what happened, but Pat is the type of runner that would clean my clock at a road marathon or any track/xc event. I've raced him head to head at Speedgoat and Lake Sonoma as well. We both probably got beat by 2:25 marathoners in that race...but it is a mountain race. Variable running economy is key. Throw your lactate threshold values on the road and Vo2max and track 5km PRs out the window. Even Max King and Hayden Hawks are vulnerable to a runner like Zach Miller on a course like The North Face 50-miler in SF. There is a bigger difference when you get into the mountain ultras and long duration races. Road marathons correlate very well. It's not like a low 8:00 3km track runner is always a "sub 2:15 marathoner" even. Different stress in different events. That's just my two cents from racing these types of events for the past 6 years.

shaft wrote:

Maybe Ben will be one less anon poster slagging on trail/ultra runners.

Why doesn't Sage ever do this one? Too short? Too Grey?

How the heck do you train for this stuff without getting hurt or beat up? Training for the track/road beats the sh1t outta me...this seems impossible.

Sage, you probably have your race schedule worked out already, but it'd be great to see you race Crow Pass Crossing at the end of this month. 22.5 mile mountain run, big climb out of the start, but net downhill. APU skier Scott Patterson (top male US Olympic skier, decent sky runner too, hopefully will be recovered from a broken toe by then and in shape) will be racing, among others, Zach Miller, Tim Tollefson, and Dave Laney. Geoff Roes' course record 2:54:xx might go down. Seems in line with the shorter mountain runs you've been doing this year.

Lydiard Cerutty wrote:

rojo wrote:

You nailed it. I'm amazed by your post. He won by like what 5:36. You must reallyunderstand trail running. I'd love to see Kipchoge or someone try one of these things or an ultra. People just assume he'd dominate. Do we know that's really true? What do you think since you seem to know what you are talking about?

Kenenisa Bekele would do well in mountain racing with his thick strong muscular quads and he was a monster in cross country. Once he breaks the world record in the marathon he should move towards mountain running.

Agreed, Bekele would absolutely kill, John Treacy back in the day is a guy I'd put money on.

Is that the Allie McLaughlin formerly from the CU team? Good to see her racing again. She was an incredible talent. No shocker she'd be able to crush these mountain goats. Her power to weight ratio must be bonkers.

Bersagel runs mountains in Norway. She's finished on the podium at world cup races in Europe before too. Not a surprise at all to finally see her on an uphill team.

Running, cycling, and long steady climbs.

Downhill running is a different ball game.

Some courses are made for runners, others for uphills, others are technical as hell...

IMHO the Italians are the best downhill runners.

running commenter wrote:

Is that the Allie McLaughlin formerly from the CU team? Good to see her racing again. She was an incredible talent. No shocker she'd be able to crush these mountain goats. Her power to weight ratio must be bonkers.

She has been a mountain runner for years, while she ran only one season of cross country and a handful of track races for CU. I'd say she is one of those mountain goats.

Phantasy Star wrote:

lol more country club nonsense.

Any sub-2:25 thonner would crush these chumps.

A contrived race for those who can't handle XC. Weak.

I run a 2:25 marathon and would get utterly destroyed by Joe Grey.

derp wrote:

especially considering that Mount Marathon is MUCH steeper and more technical than what they ran for the US Mnt. running champs. us champs . 3,200 feet gain in ~6 miles Mt. Marathon 3,000 feet gain in ~1.5 miles , then a CRAZY descent

I don't know about Mt. Marathon, but Loon Mountain is so steep in the last half mile that everyone is forced to walk, and you discover as a strange unexpected result that walking fast uphill produces greater exhaustion than running. Running entails maintaining form to some degree, but walking incurs no such limits. With the help of the arms, you can push the foot forward without any particular systemic constraint. You end up directly stressing the heart and aerobic system in a way it is perhaps impossible to do in running where the muscular limits and formal movements constrain the effort.

Thanks for the reply, Sage. So have you run the U.S. Mountain Running Champs since 2012? I knew you had run well at Mt Washington, but didn't realize it used to be the champs course.

Gray > Max >_ Sage

Gray has better pr's and has won head to head more times. Would love to see him focus on longer stuff but seems it's not of interest in latest interview. He ran an ultra this year early I saw in Colorado so I thought maybe he was shifting. Someone share this post and tell him to go for UTMB!!

No REAL mountains east of Kansas wrote:

WTF!?! The “Mountain” running champs for the US are held in New Hampshire? What a f$&king joke. No wonder we get our a$$es handed to us at the world year in and year out.

This shouldn’t be allowed. The championship should only be held in CA, CO, northern NM, Utah, Montana, or Alaska where there are REAL mountains.

First off they rotate so its been held out west. There was a great turnout this year over 1000 runners I believe. Last time it was west at Mt. Bachelor there was like 250 so obviously more people do it east.

And when it was held at Mt. Bachelor it started and finished at the same point and times were much faster considering distance, so if you are insinuating it would be harder out west that's false.

Lastly the WORLD championships have been held in some low lying areas like Wales in 2015 and are pretty easy.

I just hiked for an hour. Where's my thread?