Ultramarathon Daily News | Tue, Oct 2
Another excellent post about one of the toughest ultramarathons out there: Tor des Geants. In this report, Stephanie toes the line for her fourth start and experiences wild hallucinations, beautiful valleys and climbs, an astute crew, rude cougher, and more. She’s got a way of making 205 tough miles sound pretty appealing, doesn’t she?
Paddy gets some well-earned press from an outdoor mag in his native Ireland.
USA swimming bans tech suits in young swimmers. (Well, for regular meets, but Oly Trials are exempt and some other details.) I’m by no means an expert on that sport, but it seems like a similar situation with shoe regulations in our sport. Opening up for thought because I’d love to hear both sides: If it makes sense to ban performance enhancing suits, does the same logic apply to shoes? Does it come down to what can be proven?
“Warm up on the course and get to know its ups and downs; cross country is a great metaphor for life. You have to get out fast to avoid a collision and find your position, then relax and find a rhythm between your feet, breath and mind. And as soon as you do, you’ll be invited to change the beat, either floating or surging, to keep the momentum flowing.”
—Cross country as a metaphor for life. I’ll be taking my merry band of 1st-6th grade boys and girls to our first xc meet next Friday. 1800m of dirt, grass, hay bales, and hopefully some mud(!) and none of the kids (except mine) has pinned on a bib before. I’m so excited I can barely stand it.
Quick (and yeah, not very modest) excerpt from our interview with Sabrina Stanley. I’ll release it in full today:
Correction from yesterday: I’d reported that Camille Herron was a DNS at Overlook due to injury. I had faulty information. She was healthy at home, dealing with other unforeseen circumstances while boarding her dogs. She’s ready to go for the next big race.
Looking for a casual shoe that could help in recovery? Sarah’s been wearing these for a few weeks and is in love. Her review of the Topo Athletics Rekovr is right this way.
While this post by Uncle Larry seems to mainly focus on some personal animus with the current RD, the idea of a “solo runner’ division is intriguing. No crew, no pacer, no entourage. It’d level the playing field, reduce traffic on the trails, roads, and at aid stations, and seems like a good idea. Any other races have this division, and does it work?
Many of us take the trails for granted. How’d they get there? Who maintains them? How is maintenance and repair work paid for? Here’s an informative interview with a trail boss in the PNW.
A veterinarian writes about the dos and dont’s of running with your pooch.
Truly epic: Skiing down the 4th largest mountain in the world.
Mario’s got some salient points about Boston’s new time standards, including this:
Boston isn’t supposed to be an easy race to get into—its exclusivity has long been a part of its history, as well as its appeal. With some aforementioned exceptions, you have to earn your spot, which is what makes the pursuit meaningful in the first place. Complaining isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. So whether you’ve qualified multiple times, missed the mark by mere seconds, or aren’t even close to being in the ballpark: aim higher, work harder, and elevate everyone around you. That’s as much a lesson for life as it is qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
More on Boston: What happens when you miss the new cutoffs by 2.5 seconds? And what if that wasn’t because you were slow, but because the timing system at your qualifying race was faulty? Marathon investigations is on it.
Effective training and recovery depends not on how many miles you stack up, but how hard you push your body and its limits. And it has its limits. David Roche explores more right this way.
Anyone have a line on the Farah v Rupp showdown at Chicago this weekend?
As if you needed it: Justifications why you should pour yourself another cup of coffee.