The Legend of Jim Walmsley Grows

Remind me what Bruce Fordyce did after he broke the 50 mile record? Oh, that's right, he sat down. Didn't have to go another 20k afterwards. I think we are all a bit shocked by how stupid you are.

records official. wrote:

Camille won Comrades, 50K and 100K World titles, and broke Ann Trason’s records. Anyone breaking multiple Trason records and winning Comrades is not overhyped.

Ann Trason won 14 times Western States and 2 times Comrades.

Camille got a concussion at Western States. AND that is a World Record on it's own.

AP5000 wrote:

Remind me what Bruce Fordyce did after he broke the 50 mile record? Oh, that's right, he sat down. Didn't have to go another 20k afterwards. I think we are all a bit shocked by how stupid you are.

Bruce Fordyce was in a 50 mile race. So he stopped after 50 miles.

Jim Walmsley was in a 100k race and he stopped after 50 miles and jogged and walked it in at the end. He almost got lapped and was 4th overall.

Actually he kept racing another 5 miles.. His 4:50 came as a 50-mile split in the London to Brighton Race (55-miles)

AP5000 wrote:

Remind me what Bruce Fordyce did after he broke the 50 mile record? Oh, that's right, he sat down. Didn't have to go another 20k afterwards. I think we are all a bit shocked by how stupid you are.

Courtney won't run Western States cause Camille will kick her a**, again.

Nobody cares about the 50 mile? Sounds more like a personal opinion. I peraonally would hate to live in your world where any world record or fastest time is not impressive. I know many people who would say the same about the 5 km, half marathon, 100 km, and so on. The fact that he was able to run this time and setting a new record that only a few in the world can accomplish is a great achievement.

I find Walmsley's achievement on the first 50 miles remarkable and regret that he could not finish the 100km well.

As far as the distances are concerned, nobody outside the US cares about 50 miles. In the US, I am not sure, but when I hear how ignorant the brojos are about ultra-running, it does not seem it can have a big relevance. And as you could see on Saturday, PB on 50km and 100km were mentioned a lot. PB on 50 miles for the runners in the race had 0 relevance. It will remain so, except for Walmsley.

Mhmm wrote:

Nobody cares about the 50 mile? Sounds more like a personal opinion. I peraonally would hate to live in your world where any world record or fastest time is not impressive. I know many people who would say the same about the 5 km, half marathon, 100 km, and so on. The fact that he was able to run this time and setting a new record that only a few in the world can accomplish is a great achievement.

What is so challenging about just acknowledging that somebody did something special on that given day. Did you set a 50 mile road record lately?

Welcome to LetsRun where most all posters go out and hate on the very things they seemingly arm chair QB on a daily basis. Just give it a break. My god..

As far as the distances are concerned, nobody outside the US cares about 50 miles.

...until they have the record. Humans will compete at anything, and now that a handful of 100k runners know that there is such a thing as a 50-mile record, who knows?

Sanferd wrote:

As far as the distances are concerned, nobody outside the US cares about 50 miles.

...until they have the record. Humans will compete at anything, and now that a handful of 100k runners know that there is such a thing as a 50-mile record, who knows?

100k runners well now that there is a 50 mile distance. But it doesn't matter because that is not an official distance on roads.

100k runners well know, that there is a 50 mile distance. But it doesn't matter because that is not an official distance on roads.

In case you didn’t know, most of the world uses the metric system. 100k is the gold standard internationally and a World Record distance. 50 miles is not. No one around the globe except Americans blinks an eye at 50 miles. The Japanese runners were running 100k pace. Jim knew this and had no competitive pressure for 50 miles.

Imagine if Bekele ran a marathon knowing he was gunning for the 30k WR while everyone else was running marathon pace. Then he jogs it in and everyone made a big deal about it. Sorry, it was not a 30k race, it was a marathon.

Mhmm wrote:

Nobody cares about the 50 mile? Sounds more like a personal opinion. I peraonally would hate to live in your world where any world record or fastest time is not impressive. I know many people who would say the same about the 5 km, half marathon, 100 km, and so on. The fact that he was able to run this time and setting a new record that only a few in the world can accomplish is a great achievement.

There are people that care about the 50-mile record, but not many. I Googled his name and "50-mile world record" and there were no hits that weren't from a running site. Before he ran the race, though, Squirrel Nuts Butter had article about him. I doubt if Kipchoge heard about the race and was impressed that someone could run 5:48 pace for 5 hours.

Maybe you're right that only a few people in the world could run that fast for 50 miles or maybe there are Kenyans that could run 20+ minutes faster, but we'll never know. Watching someone run 4:38 for 26 miles on T.V. is comparable to watching a major sports championship for someone that competed in track. A 50-mile race on T.V. at 5:48 pace would be unbearable to watch for all but a few hardcore fans. Without T.V. revenue there will never be elite marathon runners competing in the event.

Jim Walmsley is more popular that this website:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fg%2F11cs1z3_zg,letsrun.com

trane wrote:

By targeting both records, he admittedly gave too much importance to the one almost nobody cares about. Given the temperature at the end, it was probably the right decision to get at least one record (notice though that it is a world best and not a world record) but it would have been interesting to see what he can do for 100km since his 100km PB now remains very modest compared to his aura.

In terms of marketing, he has done fine and Hoka will be able to build a nice story on this result, but it is sad because this is a distance nobody should have heard about. Let's focus on the ones that are relevant (marathon and 100km).

The 50 Mile world record is more popular than the 100k world record:

On Average, Walmsley is more popular than Kipchoge:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=walmsley,kipchoge

Sorry, but Walmsley and Herron do not belong in the same sentence as the likes of Jager, Rupp, Kipchoge, or any other real runners that ultra fanatics are trying to group them with. The competition level is nowhere near the same on the ultra side of the equation. Celebrate his accomplishments however you want, but temper it with the reality that there is about as much competition in the ultra world as there is in underwater basket weaving.

joedirt wrote:

Sorry, but Walmsley and Herron do not belong in the same sentence as the likes of Jager, Rupp, Kipchoge, or any other real runners that ultra fanatics are trying to group them with. The competition level is nowhere near the same on the ultra side of the equation. Celebrate his accomplishments however you want, but temper it with the reality that there is about as much competition in the ultra world as there is in underwater basket weaving.

refer to the username