Could Rupp Beat Walmsley at Western States 100 Mile

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Tom Johnson was the American record holder for 100K for several years. He couldn't break 2:20 and was about a 31:00 guy, yet he ran 6:30 compared to Max King's 6:28.

Thanks a lot for mentioning Tom Johnson.

I wasn't aware of any person who was that good in road 100k and on trail 100s.

Johnson won Western States in 1990 and 91.

Let's Talk wrote:

shootpost wrote:

The top ultra runners are very very dirty. Soviet Union doping levels.

There are two reasons why this is false.

1) There isn't enough money in Ultra Running warrant doping.

2) And who would pay for the drugs, or even make them accessible?

See this is where your ignorance shows.

1. Money is easier to make in Ultras than Marathons, much less competition. Yes there isn't as much, but its easier to get. There is enough money for at least the top guys to make it their career. See Walmsley- non factor in the marathon, full career in Ultras.

2. Doping when testing isn't rigorous is cheap, EPO and Steroids are prescription medications. So look at the opiod crisis in america and ask me again how one pays for or makes accessible prescription drugs. And people aren't abusing EPO so its even easier to get. Also, the dark web, is not some magical movie fantasy. Spend 15 minutes reading the page about the Silk Road and then ask how you would purchase doping drugs. Or hell, get your dad to go to the doctor and say he has low energy and they will give him testosterone! This is all in America too, go to another country and you may even be able to get some of these drugs OTC.

The argument of "I don't know how to get drugs, so nobody does and nobody dopes" is a very very tired argument.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

comedyrelief wrote:

I like how every ultra runners thinks that they are superior to every traditional runner and Kenyan out there. You act like other runners have never run on a trail in their lives. You act like Kenyans do all their training on concrete at low altitude. About 9% of the roads in Kenya are paved and they are not baby bottom smooth. Kaptagat, where they do most of their training is at about 7800 feet and is mostly rocky dirt roads.

I've never run an ultra or a fan of the sport, but there is not a direct correlation between the marathon and the WS 100. If there was, we would know that Kipchoge would hold off Bekele to win by 2 seconds in front of dozens of screaming fans.

Because the award for winning WS isn't $250,000 like it is for the marathon majors.

Kenyans run for a job and to support themselves and their families. Not for a hobby or fun.

Coconino Cowboy wrote:

No way. Jim is the best athlete of his generation, Rupp is a one event wonder. I'm outraged you even put the Nike athlete in the same conversation as the great Jim Walmsley.

You mean the guy who won SILVER in the 10,000, then bronze in the Marathon? That one event wonder?

bigmammashouse wrote:

Wildhorse wrote:

As he is vastly more talented, Rupp could probably spank Walmsley hard at Western States if he trained for it.

Jim owes his victories and PRs to his fitness, not his mental toughness. Rupp must have way better general fitness, he'd just need to dial in the specifics.

Jim is a big fish in a small pond.

All of these posts are qualified with "if he trained for it". I'd be curious to see how Rupp would do if he just dropped into the WS100 with his "normal" training. World class distance runner. Perhaps the best American distance runner of all time. How would it go?

I think there is a good chance Rupp would dnf in his first attempt at WS. There is definitely a learning curve to running a 100 mile trail race. It took Walmsley 3 tries to get it right. Trason dnf’d her first 2 attempts, it took Killian 2 tries, Carpenter completely blew up his first attempt at Leadville and came back the next year to smash the course record.

Long-time WS director Norm Klein once said that 80% of the dropouts are from the quad-killing downhills of the “canyons” section of the course. The other biggest problem is probably dehydration. Rupp’s speed does not neutralize those factors. Nor will it ensure he hydrates properly and is able to take in enough calories to prevent stomach issues over 14 hours in 100 degree heat.

The last 30 miles of a 100 mile trail run are mostly uncharted territory. Decisions made earlier in the course about how hard to attack the hills, how much to hydrate, etc. can play out to make the last 30 miles a death march if the runner miscalculates. The only way to really figure out what works is to actually run a few 100s.

I have no doubt that if Rupp had some experience and specific training he could destroy a lot of ultra records, but it would probably take him a few years. The idea that Rupp is not mentally tough enough is nonsense. This is a guy that has competed at the highest levels from high school to the Olympics.

I think it’s great that we are seeing some faster guys like Walmsley in the ultra scene. It ultras are ever added to the Olympics it would really encourage a lot more fast athletes to take a crack.

Yes Walmsley is a faster guy but not fastest guy. There are so many 27 and 28 minute 10k guys who train for marathons. 29 and 30 minute guys excel in ultras because the fastest guys don't bother with that distance because they are fast.

shootpost wrote:

I should add that me, "shootpost" who has been in this thread a huge supporter that Rupp would win, is myself an Ultra-runner.

Granted I have never done anything 50 miles+. But I have won enough 50k->50 mile ultras I have a pretty good idea of the challenges.

Rupp's fitness wins everytime.

So you use PEDs? Because if the top guys are all "soviet level dirty" and you're winning lower distance races that typically have much less elevation change (which means really fast runners)......

You should also add that you are a "clown"

I can't believe people on here are so stupid.

If it was a road 100, I'd bet on Rupp. He'd likely destroy Jim at COmrades.

But trail/technical running is way different.

How technical is it? If it's really technical and Rupp has bad ankles, then Jim wins all the time even if Rupp trained for it.

Not even knowing the answer to how technical it is, I do believe this. If at the start line of the Trials in Atlanta last weekend, if you had abducted Jim and Rupp and took them to a private plane and flew them out to either the top of the Grand Canyon or to the Western States and asked them race eeither Rim to Rim or Western States, I don't think it would be close. Jim would DESTROY Rupp.

Does anyone really think Rupp would be Kilian Jornet on a race this technical?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTJH9tTFghU

Running fast on super crazy downhills, trails is a talent. Jim is extremely good at it.

But I asked Walmsley about this just a few weeks ago. Go to the 31:45 minute of our podcast. Walmsley seemed confident to me he'd beat Rupp even if he trained for it.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/02/jim-walmsley-marathon-trials-debut/

You are running nowhere near that pace on the downhills in a 100 miler.

For a 30-50k or sky race yes, and is part of the reason while Killian is so dominant. His descending at Pikes Peak is part of the reason he won.

But in a 100 miler where you are descending nowhere near as fast that advantage becomes a lot less.

And you're surprised?? Stupid topics/threads tend to generate very stupid responses. I said earlier that it is beyond dumb to compare the two at a distance Rupp hasn't run. The logical common ground for both is the marathon. There is empirical evidence that Rupp is a far superior athlete on the track and roads; JW could't dream of achieving anywhere close to those times. He lacks the natural foot speed and raw talent. In theory, JW is a better ultra runner. This remains a theory until Rupp decides he wants to pursue that distance, which, in my humble opinion he should not.

100% likelihood that Rupp will not run an ultra.

It's likely that there are some elite marathoners that could beat Walmsley at the WS 100, but any one runner cannot be assumed to be capable of doing so.

You are forgetting to take into account the depth of the competition in the MUT community versus the marathon community or the track community. There are orders of magnitude less people competing in those events, so individuals who are not all that talented (at least on an elite level) are able to make a name for themselves. The truth is 700 individuals have run faster than Jim in the marathon this year (albeit Atlanta is likely a harder course than some of those times, although the conditions were pretty ideal). It reeks of pure egotism to jump to the conclusion that he would beat all of those individuals in a trail ultra. Running downhill is not all that hard a skill to learn (it's more of a pass/fail sort of thing), it just has fewer competitors.

My guess is if you were to take some of these 2:05 Kenyans and put them on trails for a couple months (which isn't all that different than what they grow up training on in Kenya), they would destroy a guy like Walmsley in any event. I have known two guys that were top 10 at Pikes Peak that couldn't make our college cross country team (despite multiple tryouts). Do I think they are somehow better suited to trail running than the guys on the team that were All Americans on the track? Not at all. Most of the guys that were All Americans on the track usually moved on to other things after college (wife, kids, job, etc.). Look at a guy like Canaday. He's a big name in the US MUT community, but lets be honest, the guy barely broke 30 minutes for 10K in college at Cornell, which wouldn't get him in the top 130 times in the NCAA each year. Walmsley has a little better track chops (his steeple time is legit at the NCAA level), but again, his 5K and 10K prs are run by about 50 collegians each year. Heck, when the fan boys are on here posting about his 6X mile workouts with 90 seconds rest, most of the time they are slower than what a number of Kenyans pace over the full 26.2. He's got a nice little niche in the ultra world, but a more talented runner with a little training on the trails would eat him up.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

nocomparison wrote:

And you're surprised?? Stupid topics/threads tend to generate very stupid responses. I said earlier that it is beyond dumb to compare the two at a distance Rupp hasn't run. The logical common ground for both is the marathon. There is empirical evidence that Rupp is a far superior athlete on the track and roads; JW could't dream of achieving anywhere close to those times. He lacks the natural foot speed and raw talent. In theory, JW is a better ultra runner. This remains a theory until Rupp decides he wants to pursue that distance, which, in my humble opinion he should not.

100% likelihood that Rupp will not run an ultra.

It's likely that there are some elite marathoners that could beat Walmsley at the WS 100, but any one runner cannot be assumed to be capable of doing so.

I agree with this. I hope Rupp doesn't. He has nothing to gain.

rojo wrote:

I can't believe people on here are so stupid.

If it was a road 100, I'd bet on Rupp. He'd likely destroy Jim at COmrades.

The problem is that most people in this forum are not ultrarunners.

Rupp might have a chance at a 100k road race. (But it's a lot smaller than people might think)

But I don't think he would have a chance at all at 100 mile road race not to mention a trail 100 miler.

The main reason is the time involved and the things needed to get through that time period.

Marathon: Just 130 minutes , a couple sips of water that's pretty much it

100k road race: 6:30-7 hours you need the right amount of nutrition and the right clothes for weather changes, possibility of blisters

100 mile road race 11:30 13 hours More nutrition, more clothing, possibility of blisters and other issues.

100 mile trail race: 14 + hours, Everything above plus heavy weather changes like heat, thunderstorms.... footing on the trail.

So, no Rupp won't have a chance beyond 100k at all.

Since last years Hoka 100k letsrun tries desperately to understand ultrarunning but so far it has failed to do so. The best thing to learn about is to run one.

Run races that take 6-14 hours to make decent money or run races that take under 2 hours to make great money. Tough choice...

Then... the training that goes into it... is Whalmsley married? Or any of these top guys? Do they have children?

Start talking about popularity, tv viewers (had an ultra even been on TV?), etc... tough choice!

More training, longer races, less money, less viewership, less free time... Tough choice!

What’s the benefit in doing ultras again? When tier 3 foreign runners and tier 2 domestic runners can get appearance fees or snag prize money at a smaller marathon or domestic marathon, what’s the point of trying to transition?

CU?

Rojo,

Western states is not a “technical”

Trail ultra! (In the realm of MUT

And what guys like Kilian Jornet does!)

. It is actually considered one of the “least-technical trail” races out there.

I’d bet there is a very high correlation between Road marathon times and the ability to do well at trail ultras on pretty smooth trails like WS100. Its all just distance running when the trails are mostly runnable and and there isnt that much climbing in the mountains. And for the record UTMB isnt “technical” either...but it has a crap ton more climbing than WS100. Its why 2:30 marathon guys can win there and 2:18 guys like Tim Tollefson can get top 3 consistently.

Fanboy Dot Com wrote:

Walmsley owns the CR at the oldest 100 miler in the world. Do you think Rupp could stand a chance?

Walmsley has the 50 Mile WR, would he have caught Rupp if they had 24 more miles on Saturday?

Editor's note. We asked Walmsley this very question a few weeks ago on our podcast. Walmsley seems confident he'd beat Rupp at Western States even if Rupp trained for it. Go to the 31:45 minute mark.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/02/jim-walmsley-marathon-trials-debut/

Wouldn't that be an interesting experiment! It would help settle the big debate. It might take away some of Rupp's Howdy Doody persona.

shootpost wrote:

You are running nowhere near that pace on the downhills in a 100 miler.

For a 30-50k or sky race yes, and is part of the reason while Killian is so dominant. His descending at Pikes Peak is part of the reason he won.

But in a 100 miler where you are descending nowhere near as fast that advantage becomes a lot less.

Except some people do. Wanna take an educated guess as to who?

Hint: it's not Rupp.