Ultramarathon Daily News | Thurs March 17

iRunFar: Another excellent essay by Sabrina Little, this about the the freedoms, “free of’s” and “free froms” when we race.

I understand why Buzz and Peter did it, but I can’t see how anyone would see the sale of fastestknowntime to Outside as a good thing. If you think there’ll be a net improvement, please let me know in the comments. Maybe I’m missing something.

Trailrunner Mag: The 25 best Rails to Trails in the US.

I believe most ultrarunners will improve and grow in their race performance and in their relationship to running via paying attention to the mindset and attitude they bring to the pursuit.

Ultrarunning Mag/Anton Krupicka: Main tenets of the ultra mindset.

Biel Rafols: Some serious downhill at Transgrancanaria Marathon this year. Loving the split screen….see it can be done!
And here’s Ian Corless’ writeup and photo montage from the event.

I know it’s not an ultra and it’s indoors, but dang, this HS senior is going all in and “eating Newbury Park smoothies for breakfast.”

“The first 200 I wanted to get out, I wanted to drag these guys into deep waters. I wanted to make it hurt the whole time, make them question why they’re in this event. I went out there with bad intentions.” 👀

– Cade Flatt (@FlattCade) after #3 all-time 800 to win #NBNationals pic.twitter.com/uUVG5JILMq

— Dave Devine (@PDX_devine) March 13, 2022

The Arms Race of the Feet: I don’t know if it’s the shoes or not, but dang, times are smoking fast this year.

Ultrarunning Mag/Stern: What’s up in ultramarathon and trail racing this weekend?

Really good–and short–post about a few methods of getting past the athletic blues/blahs/depression. I’m actually feeling pretty good athletically right now but will definitely use some of these ideas to improve myself.

Always a good thing to review, especially with people just starting out: Leave no Trace best practices.

15 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News | Thurs March 17"

Mark Witte says:

March 17, 2022 at 6:23 am

I share your concerns Eric regarding the sale of fastestknowntime.com. I listened to Buzz’s last podcast where they talked about Outside’s resources in helping the website itself with mapping and other things. I can also see where Buzz and Peter were happy to offload some of the work while also seeing more financial resources (presumably) put towards the website.

What concerns me, as I am figuring also concerns you and others, is what Outside will do to the very concept of FKT. Its one thing for them to own the website. That’s fine and all. But I think we’d all agree that FKTs don’t belong to anyone. They’re a concept and not a property. Hopefully Outside gets that. My prayer is Outside doesn’t step over the line in trying to monetize that site and possibly FKTs in the process.

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Terry Miller says:

March 17, 2022 at 8:05 am

I’m with you. Saw Buzz’s post on Facebook about the sale, and everyone was congratulating him, but given how Outside seems to care a great deal more about how enlightened they look or how controversial they can appear(get more clicks) by posting inflammatory content with no regard to its accuracy; I see no reason to have confidence they’ll be good stewards to such a great resource. A resource that depends on dispassionate concern for fairness and real and concrete metrics of accomplishment. I’m happy for Buzz and Peter but not optimistic for how Outside will run it going forward.

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Peter Andersson says:

March 17, 2022 at 8:31 am

You might know this already, but there’s a new podcast (meant to) dealing mainly with European ultrarunning (so of course they’re dipping into Barclay already in episode 4). Anyway, one of the hosts is a several years podcast veteran (and 6H Swedish record holder himself) so the quality is good right of the bat:

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/ultrarunning-news-christian-malmstr%C3%B6m-and-I1uiOVqchv6/

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Peter Andersson says:

March 17, 2022 at 8:33 am

I take part of that back, the Swedish 6H record holder is/will be the backup host, the Daniel Westergran has equal podcast production experience though.

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Jeffrey Stern says:

March 17, 2022 at 8:56 am

Really proud to work for the only independently owned remaining print publication in the running biz—and thanks Eric for including my WUIU articles each week! See you at Broken Arrow.

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 17, 2022 at 9:04 am
  
  Hell yes. Keep it up.
  
  Reply
Luke says:

March 17, 2022 at 11:28 am

Anyone know what happened to realendurance.com? Site went blank sometime in the past couple of months. There was a treasure trove of data there which I will miss deeply.

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 17, 2022 at 12:00 pm
  
  Oh I hadn’t noticed. You’re right, they had some great data and info on there.
  
  Reply
micahward says:

March 17, 2022 at 5:05 pm

Eric! Please don’t ever for any reason whatsoever under the sun or in any corner of creation sell Ultrarunnerpodcast to Outside.

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 17, 2022 at 9:11 pm
  
  Haha. Deal.
  
  Reply
Andrew says:

March 17, 2022 at 9:35 pm

You mean like how (it seems) every race is being sold to UTMB? No matter what anyone says, it’s always about the money. You flash enough cash in front of someone and they’d sell their own child.

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David says:

March 17, 2022 at 10:35 pm

One good reason for selling FKT: So it will continue to exist.

Neither of them is young.

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Philippe (Belgium) says:

March 18, 2022 at 1:39 am

I totally agree. For a while now I have found it really disturbing how Outside inc is buying up all the independent magazines / websites and then hide the content behind a paywall.
They are always yammering about inclusiveness but they fail to see that the most vulnerable people (who maybe need to be more in nature) are the ones that cannot afford to buy a subscription to Outside.
If this continues, in a few years there will be no more free interesting content on being outdoors.

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olgav100 says:

March 18, 2022 at 4:04 pm

I surely hope they don’t monetize the participation part of FKT/applying to start/applying to verify. The donation based idea was great, I am all in. The “don’t attempt unless submit”, the potential paywall, the “extra verifications” (extra gadgets? which will cost. extra people to “watch over?). The lack of original grass-roots might be really a sad thing. Yep, like UTMB buying old races…

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Pete says:

March 18, 2022 at 6:18 pm

For those lamenting the commercialism of the Outdoor FKT purchase, the groundwork was already laid over the past few years when corporate sponsorship moved in, funding and supplying FKT attempts like Salomon with Francois D’Haene on the John Muir trail, Adidas with the Timothy Olsen Pacific Crest Trail and Sabrina Stanley on Nolan’s 14, Brooks with Jurek AT attempts, Hoka with Meltzer on the AT, etc. FKTs were a charm story during Covid but their popularity is diminishing and it was a good time to sell. On the plus side, with their resources, Outdoor can do a lot of creative things to open up FKT opportunities to citizen runners, such as age groups and annual leaderboards.

Reply

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