Ultramarathon Daily News | Thurs, April 18

WTF: Indian ultrarunners stop for a vegetarian meal (in India), ask for the bill, and are beat up by the waitstaff.

Science: Too much red meat leads to earlier death, but we don’t know how much is too much.

Canada: First Canadian male at Boston was, of course, a trail runner.

Great shot of the “Golden Girls” after Lake Sonoma, and props to the photographer (RD Skip Brand) who captured it. I hesitate to break people down by groups, but with all the talk about inclusion and (lack of) diversity in the sport, it’s worth noting. First, I’d bet most MUT fans could tell you the top three women finishers, but could not name the top men. Next, check out those three ladies…YiOu is Chinese-American and Addie is a married lesbian. Seems that diversity crept in and no one noticed…very cool.

UTMB: Something changed with entries and qualifications and stones. Too complicated for me. My overly simplistic idea: Gimme a qualifying race and a signup sheet and let’s get boogyin’.

Doping: Drug testing technology stuck in the 70s.

Canadian Trail Running: Power lifting to help your trail running.

Geez: Triathletes have gone so agro that their governing body has created an abuse and harassment policy.

Short news day. Heading to the DMV for the ultimate endurance test…

9 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News | Thurs, April 18"

Andrew S says:

April 18, 2019 at 7:27 am

Today is Thursday! At least I hope it is…

Reply
SCottieB says:

April 18, 2019 at 7:40 am

Nice photo of three fit, intelligent athletes who seem pretty satisfied with their efforts on the day, happy for the experience and grateful for the opportunity. We should continue towards the day when all you pointed out is an unremarkable occurrence, but for now it’s worth remarking upon. Also, my goal for every race is to finish and feel/look like that (though more beardy and gray with a bit more cushioning and obviously not as quickly).

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Duke Hong says:

April 18, 2019 at 9:01 am

So if you’re rich enough to travel to these byUTMB races, and it helps to live in Europe, then it’s nearly automatic to get into UTMB? Or lucky enough to finish WSER 3 times. Seems fair.

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Raymond Wright says:

April 18, 2019 at 11:05 am

I think you mean inclusion not incision in the writeup on the awesome women of Sonoma.

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  April 18, 2019 at 11:14 am
  
  Ack! Yes, just fixed it. Thanks.
  
  Reply
trailrunninghd says:

April 19, 2019 at 5:48 am

What we see here with the new UTMB qualification standards is a sign of increasing commercialization in our sports.
That they did reduce the number of necessary ITRA points is fair enough – at present in my opinion they have set the bar too high for qualification. But there will be more applicants in the lottery, so the chances go down. What people then will do: They will switch to the second leg of qualification, the “running stones”.
But there is a delicate thing: The Poletti family is not only involved in the UTMB, but also in the UTWT – and of course in all “UTMB franchise events” (by UTMB). So it becomes a closed loop …

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Ryan Goodman (@beefrunner) says:

April 19, 2019 at 8:06 am

RE: red meat story. Key word being *observational* studies. Correlation is not causation. It’s important to keep this in mind when we start pointing to one food as an assumed cause of a health risk. There are so many more factors at play in our environment (i.e. everything else on the plate, cooking methods, fitness and activity levels, etc.). I’m not advocating for carnivorism (rather it should be balance and variety).

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Traci says:

April 20, 2019 at 12:46 pm

I wanted to comment really quickly, that i find diversity assessments to be kinda weird and old school. (I am the same age as as you, eric, and i remember when it was commonly thought that it would be such a delightful step forward, when everyone was “better represented”, so we started doing diversity assessments in our minds)

Strangely, i believe it cheapens the uniqueness of a person, to think that they are “only” an upper middle class engineer. And i believe it flattens the uniqueness of another person, to think that they can “represent” a certain perspective, like a skin color, or a leg amputation, or whatever.

I call it “checking boxes” when we frame what someone has to offer, as though it were quantifiable through how many pieces of flair are represented through their native language spoken, or through their asthma inhalers. Those pieces of flair just arent what makes people fun and cool and valuable. I think we should just table the diversity assessments, as an idea that didnt go anyplace that good. 🙂

Slight rant, but gettin it off my chest anyways!

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Jon Gaus says:

April 22, 2019 at 5:51 am

Agree that we need more scientific research and cold hard facts before we make major dietary decision on red meat, especially as lean athletes…so keep the stories, info and links coming URP!

Reply

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