Ultramarathon Daily News | Thurs, Feb 7
John Kelly finished Barkley in 2017. (Remember the orange hat?) How does that translate to a 200 miler? Follow along live as he’s leading the Lone Star 200 right now.
Take a minute to watch this breathtaking video about long distance open water swimmers.
Runner’s World asks whether the trail community will support large corporate races. If you recognize a name from the article, that’s Mike Strzelecki, who was on the show last year for an awesome interview about what he’s learned on the trails. I’d urge you to check it out.
My thoughts on the article:
- I’m running a small, grassroots event this year (Mendocino 50k), and I just signed up for a huge race (Ultra Trail Andorra) where I paid for medical insurance, cancellation insurance, a GPS tracker, and an expensive bib with a couple thousand others. I know what each race is about going into it and I’m cool with it. It’s simple: Don’t register for races you don’t want to run.
- In order for the market to work, communication is essential. Do we accept the event/product, or do we push back? I’ve pushed back at some of the aspects of Tough Mudder because I think it takes away from the ethos of the sport, that of mutual support. And I’ve embraced other aspects of huge races like North Face because I think it provides an excellent venue to showcase the talent and pay them for their hard work.
- We’ve seen it a little (most recently with Ironman’s acquisition of Tarawera), but I suspect when additional events are scooped up by big corporations, we’ll have more information to determine which make sense and are worthy of support and which are just money grabs.
Speaking of races, I added a list of events I’ll be at over in the right column. Hope to meet some of you in person.
How Liza Howard stays busy and gets it all done. But come on, Liza, ya gotta update your podcast list. 😉
Mike Wardian finished his World Marathon Challenge with an average time of just under three hours. Still not satisfied, he’s running another three marathons over the next three days while back home. #Relentless.
Read this: Excellent advice about being honest with yourself and present during a race.
Cool story about Canadian woman who’s found her place on the trails. I noticed in the article that she’s a letter carrier and I’ve often wondered if that would be a help or a hindrance to ultramarathon training.
Short news day. I’ll release a Week in Review episode for the Patron crowd later this morning. Stay tuned.
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