Ultramarathon Daily News | Friday, Dec 20

Run Spirited: The top 20 most inspirational ultra runners of 2019. If I were voting for MIUOTY (?), I’d point directly to this interview with Carol Seppilu. You?

iRunFar: Great essay by Zach Miller and OCR’s Kimber Mattox about what’s in their toolbox. Do they know what to do with each “tool”? When to use it? And how to make a plan in the first place. Good read.

Check this out: An all women and girls trail and ultrarunning calendar for 2020. Limited quantity…better get on it!

Uhan: Joe Uhan offers up his alternate idea to “saving” the Western States Endurance Run and the lottery. What do you think?
I’ve got my own ideas and will publish something when I’m upright.

This is the beauty of running—to run is to risk failure. To dream and set big goals will not only ensure you risk failure but will also promise that at some point you fail to achieve those audacious goals. As runners we not only feel this during races but we also feel it every week in training, we feel the ebb and flow of strength and weakness, good training days and bad training days.

—To run is to risk failure. Excellent piece about taking on big goals and what it means when we fall short.

Irish Times: Who or what was the global sports star of 2019? Hard to argue with that answer. I think we’ll look back at pre-2019 the same we look at pre-Dick Fosbury or pre-tartan tracks…a monumental shift occurred and everything is different afterwards.

I was familiar with the name and a few accomplishments, but had no idea how deep Kevin Setnes went into ultrarunning history. He’s the latest inductee into the Ultrarunning Hall of Fame for 2019.

An end to North Face Endurance Championship as we know it? They just released this statement this morning:

To our Endurance Challenge Series family,
It’s with mixed emotions that after 13 incredible years, we will be breathing new life into this special event. Although it’s hard to see something you love change, we couldn’t be prouder and more excited to bring you new trail racing opportunities that push the boundaries of the sport and introduce even more runners to the community. 2020 will mark an exciting next chapter in our brand’s long history of trail running and we can’t wait to show you what’s to come.
Stay tuned for an update coming your way soon!
See you on the trail in 2020,
The North Face

Hope you caught our latest interview with Bethany Patterson. We talk about frozen eyeballs, Hellgate, Doc Horton, Western States, balancing kids and workouts, spouses, and a whole lot more.

Speaking of Hellgate, here’s Ryne Anderson’s report from the storied race in Virginia.

Runner’s World: How to run an ultramarathon.

Japan Running News: I’m fascinated by this iron-injection trend that’s going on in Japan. Can someone tell me what benefit it’s supposed to provide? Likewise, what are the drawbacks and side effects? And what are the USADA thresholds stateside? Has anyone been popped in the US for this? I’d never heard of anything like this prior to last week.

This guy is running every street in Vancouver. Oh, the draw to hit North Van would be too much for me!

Vinepair: The 35 most important breweries of the decade. Pretty good list.

Taking most of next week off. Have a wonderful holiday and very merry Christmas everyone.

7 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News | Friday, Dec 20"

Zach Hanna (@ZachHanna) says:

December 20, 2019 at 7:15 am

Uhan’s plan makes the numbers astronomical for everyone – not just new entrants as it is now. He’s asking a new 25-yr old runner to keep running qualifiers and keep entering for the next 25 years and accept a 1.4% chance each of those years if he really wants to enter. The “Never Started” group will have a near zero percent chance of being drawn, year after year, with no hope of that increasing. Seems to be a pretty crappy system to me.

With the current system, the number of people who re-apply year-over-year drops by 30-50%. Only 48% of the 2018 first year entrants turned into second year entrants in 2019. And of those, only 71% turned into third year entrants in 2020. That means only 34% of those 2018 first year entrants were still in for the 2020 lottery. (Note, these numbers are not adjusted to remove those who dropped from the pool due to being drawn.)

I like how the current lottery doesn’t feel like it’s 100% chance. It rewards persistence, and makes me feel like I at least have a hand in my fate. If I stay healthy and have the tenacity to keep running qualifiers each year, I will eventually get in. It may be another 5 years, but it’ll happen. That’s a whole lot better than being stuck in a pool with constant churn of new runners with the same odds as me.

I was optimistic, but thumbs down, Uhan.

Reply
Sean Ranney says:

December 20, 2019 at 11:01 am

Joe, thanks for pushing this discussion, and the point you made of people applying when they don’t really want to run just to accrue or hold on to their tickets is spot on. But the proposed solution seems to add a lot of judgement calls by the board, i.e. how many nevers, how many veterans, etc. It seems the board goes to great lengths to make things as universal and even as possible, and having a certain number of slots allotted to each group would add and require constant judgement calls as to which group is most deserving. The conversations would be endless. Additionally, I would suspect that the “everybody else” group would quickly balloon up so large that the number of people who would be added to the veteran group would be almost nil, as how long would it take to accrue 5 or 8 or even three finishes under any system?

It would seem that a simpler solution would be to keep the current system in place, which views everybody equally, and expand the bye system. I don’t think it would be reasonable to allow people unlimited byes, but maybe requiring a qualifier and lottery participation every other year instead of every year would help alleviate some of the stress?

Western States is the Super Bowl of ultrarunning, and as many people have pointed out, an elite race for many of the participants. The people who race or work their way in are the people who “deserve” to be able to run. Maybe we can look at the lottery as a way for the rest of us to get an opportunity to run with the elites, not as a spot we earned. Compare it to a random lottery to allow 25 sub 3 marathoners to run in the OT race, nobody would say they were “deserving” but rather that they were given an awesome opportunity that not many people get. I look at WS the same way.

Again, thanks for putting yourself out there on this, both as an athlete, coach, and person. It takes a lot of guts to be the flash point on something that drives passion in people.

Reply
Nicolas says:

December 20, 2019 at 1:00 pm

My unpopular opinion on WS and HR has absolutely zero chance of ever being taken seriously but it’s this: those who have never run should simply have priority over anyone else. Having run is a privilege, now enjoy watching others be as fortunate as you’ve been. You’re not entitled to anything. At the other hand of the spectrum, veterans and repeat participants should have the lowest odds of getting in. There is indeed no good reason for them to have priority over anyone.

The second best option, since my plan will arouse anger and scorn, is to stop caring about those races. Their lotteries value arbitrary privilege and unearned gains over giving everyone a fair chance, and their hype is out of proportion with the intrinsic quality of the experience. Don’t waste your money, time and emotional investment.

The slightly more popular option I have for you all is: 🤷🏼‍♂️

Reply
Dan F says:

December 20, 2019 at 1:13 pm

Glad to see Hellgate getting so much press! It was one tough year (last years’ conditions were nearly perfect) and I was just happy to finish myself.

Reply
Drew says:

December 20, 2019 at 1:40 pm

re: WSER lottery

I too appreciate Joe’s thoughtful analysis and the dialog it spawned. Interested parties engaging in rational, civil discourse is always a good thing.

I imagine the WSER board has considered nearly all conceivable proposals and adjustments over the years. In a recent podcast with Jason Koop with Crag T. & Tim T. (highly recommended), I believe Craig mentioned the possibility of moving to something along the lines of 3^(n-1) from the current 2^(n-1). That seems like the most reasonable choice if the primary goal is maintaining the spirit of WSER with continuous increased demand and a very limited, static supply.

My personal favorite idea (hey, everyone has one!) is to expand supply not by avoiding the GCW or wishing for a more relaxed permit but rather by adding additional races along the more amenable areas of the course such. Something along the lines of a running festival based in Auburn before / after the WSER event itself with two or three additional races of various distances. WSER isn’t UTMB or any of the other multi-event running festival style events but I don’t think adopting a similar model would harm WSER and it could be a way of lessening the pressure on the lottery, allowing more folks to participate and provide an overall economic benefit to the ‘endurance capital of the world’.

Everybody wins! Well, maybe not everyone, I’m sure some folks hate this idea as well 🙂

My one-ticket’s worth of opinion this year …

Reply
danny says:

December 20, 2019 at 3:16 pm

Happy Holidays Eric. Thanks for another year of providing interesting and informative content here and with the podcasts. On that note I gotta say I vote the Jared Beasley podcast on Al Howie my fav of the year. Keep up the good work! cheers.

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  December 20, 2019 at 3:45 pm
  
  Ah, good choice Danny. Jared is one heck of a great story teller, and Al Howie was the perfect subject.
  Enjoy 2020!
  
  Reply

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