jobros wrote:
How competitive is Comrades?
I imagine Wamsley can run the ultra equivalent of a 2:09 or better there. Maybe even 2:07 equivalent since he has skill on technical downhills.
I never hear about it, except the year Salazar won, which does not give any information about how competitive the other runners were besides slower than him.
Must be lonely in that basement all the years. What you been up to there/
No one runs the '2:09 equivalent'...what the heck is that?
The 'up ' record (5:24) is held by tainted Olympian Leonid Schvetsov who has a 2;09 and 2:10 to his name.
His down record of 5:20 was broken by David Gatebe in 5:18 who has a marathon best of 'only' 2:15
The all time great, Bruce Fordyce who won 9 times (and who's 50M record Walmsley beat), had a marathon PB of 'only' 2:17
So 'what' is a 2:09 or 2:07. It always comes down to the person that has run the most strategic pace , hardly ever a leader at midway. If Walmsley goes with the lead pack, as he is accustomed to, then he is unlikely to win.
He is going to have 'name' runners around him ,some of whom will pick up/drop pace...what does he do? It is unlike running alone to a 50M record.
It is the biggest Ultra in the world, up to over 20,000 runners all of whom have a marathon qualifying time.
It is screened live on Youtube by the national broadcasters so even people in basements on the other side of world can see it.