Ultramarathon Daily News, Wed, Mar 29

Chase offers up some opinions on the future of ultramarathons. Is the sport heading towards B-level marathoners jumping over to 50ks, or should the community focus on “true” mountain ultramarathon runners like Anton? Some compelling ideas mixed with some feather ruffling. What do you think?

Trail runner allegedly assaults MTB on Denver trails.

This week’s Mountain Outhouse. Lots of great stuff in there: Bandits, cleansport, Grand Slam, and more. Salomon’s clean sport initiative is great: I love the idea of companies policing themselves with transparency. I just wish the group leading this charge wasn’t run by a guy who’d served a ban for PEDs himself. Ya know?

Fourteen ways being a runner is like working in tech. Techies?

How to stay awesome on the trails after fifty. Richtman, Bon, Pommier, Hanna, Arbogast: This silly sport is full of athletes pushing the limits of what should be possible.

Lots of great nuggets in here from one of my favorite runners to watch: The “Japanese Mike Wardian” Yuki Kawauchi. (Or is Wardian the “American Kawauchi”?)

This guy hates IPAs.

Cool: What’s it like training with Koop?

This week in science: Running marathons is bad for you. And it’s bad for your kidneys too. Don’t do it. (Here’s my story. Come for the science, stay for the shower scene.)

The North Face adds Zach Miller and Andrew Miller to the team. As Ben pointed out yesterday, with only two exceptions, every male winner of Western States since 2007 has joined TNF. Add 2x runner-up Seth Swanson to the list too.

Seriously? The Most Exciting Ultramarathon Runners in the World Today?

Releasing podcast today where we discuss the differences between “loss of mojo” and burnout. Talk was yesterday and it was a good one. Dr Drew offers up methods to avoid these situations and what to do when we’re amidst their throes.

39 Responses to "Ultramarathon Daily News, Wed, Mar 29"

Tim Tollefson says:

March 29, 2017 at 7:22 am

Love Wardian but he’s definitely the American Kawauchi. Kawauchi single handily dominates the US yearly performance list after a few months of marathoning. If and when he decides to embrace ultra racing, events like Comrades, IAU champs, and Western are in for a treat.

And totally agree with Salomon. Ironic no?

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 7:26 am
  
  Agreed and agreed. What’ll it take to get Kawauchi over here? There’s a list I’ve seen of his performances last year versus ALL OF THE US performances and it’s incredible. Can’t find it though.
  
  Reply
  1. Tim Tollefson says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 7:46 am
    
    I think he has 50 sub 2:16s, 40 sub 2:14s, 34 sub 213s, and broke 2:10 twice within 2 weeks…
    
    Here’s an old link but highlights his 2014 vs the US list. http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/01/wtw-2015-year-bernard-lagat-shannon-rowbury-cas-loxsom-moses-mosop-off-good-starts-kawauchi-triumphs-us/
    
    Reply
    1. SteelTownRunner says:
      
      March 29, 2017 at 8:02 am
      
      A better comparison to Wardian would be former 100K world champ Giorgio Calcaterra. He’s run dozens of 2:20s and would race them with ferocious frequency. There were also some runners in the 90s who would race sub 7 hour 100Ks almost weekly.
      
      [btw, not one American ran under 2:10 last year]
      Kawauchi is one of 15 (one of three non African) men to have broken 2:10 in the marathon 11 or more times, and his pb is the slowest by close to a minute. I believe his current count is (strictly counting marathons, not the 50K or two he has run: pb 2:44:07):
      
      66 < 2'25,
      65 < 2'23,
      64 < 2'20,
      63 < 2'19,
      60 < 2'18,
      55 < 2'17,
      50 < 2'16,
      45 < 2'15,
      41 < 2'14,
      35 < 2'13,
      21 < 2'12,
      16 < 2'11,
      11 < 2'10,
      3 < 2'09
      
      Reply
  2. Rob says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 8:13 am
    
    http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/02/week-womens-800m-madness-one-runner-japan-better-american-men-combined-marathon-last-6-years-collegiate-miling/
    
    he has 11 sub 2:10’s – more than all of US this decade
    
    Reply
2. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 9:01 am
  
  Good call! I’d love to see him at the 100k road Champs. Yuki would crush those loops!
  
  Reply
Jeremy says:

March 29, 2017 at 7:40 am

Chase clearly doesn’t “get it”. He seems to presume some ulterior motive (guys who can’t hack it in the elite distance world) – money and wins – that I just don’t think is there.

Example one – Hayden Hawkes. Pretty clear to me from his podcast here and elsewhere that he is in this sport because he loves the sport. Seemed like a pretty humble down to earth dude to me. Jumps into Speedgoat and WINS, and finds in that a desire to push harder and do more.

Example two – Sage. I think Sage is a big time tool in terms of how he portrays himself online, and he would certainly meet the B level marathoner jumping over criteria coming from Hansons. BUT you know what – he clearly loves this sport (hell, his over the top exuberance is probably what I find so annoying about him!). Not only that, he has been willing to line up at those technical euro races Chase mentions and get his ass handed to him time and time again. Is that not exactly the kind of tenacity that Chase demands from our sport!?

When people want to start defining what “true” ultra running is, it seems to me those people are the most lost and confused of all.

I don’t know anyone that is willing to grind out the kind of training weeks the best in our sport do if they didn’t LOVE it through and through.

Honestly, what more criteria do we need than that!? I think this is exactly why the elites in our sport are able to so closely relate to the mid and back packers (as opposed to say elite road runners view the back of the pack). The common theme is passion and love for what we do.

If there is a threat to our sport, I suggest it would be wasting precious time on the trails in favor of proselytizing about what it is and isn’t.Reference

Reply
1. Mic Med says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 8:32 am
  
  Agreed. He seems to give Walmsley credit for a willingness to put in miles, but a paragraph before contradicts himself by criticizing people if they’re “fast”. I guess I get the point he’s trying to make, but he is sucking at making it. He then goes on to praise the coverage of the Mt Marathon race and wish we had the same for Western. Mt Marathon is 40 minutes with a start and finish in one spot, we can hold people’s attention for 40 minutes AND can afford to wait to see a close race. We’re never going to get live tv of a 100 mile race, and certainly when there’s a possibility the gap between the 1st finisher and 2nd could be an hour! So if he wants a recap, no tv network is going to bother devoting 3 hours to a recap. The races that he’s crapping on, the FAST races with close finishes, are actually the best races for a TV audience. Predictable finish times, finishers bunched together, and balls to the wall running.
  
  Reply
2. Nelson says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 9:20 am
  
  His ass handed to him? What is it, three podium finishes at Transvulcania? You may want to consider that.
  
  Reply
  1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 10:09 am
    
    That’s a fair point Nelson. 3rd at a race like TV (and when Luis Alberto races there everyone is fighting for second anyways) is a really amazing result. I suspect many non-Europeans don’t understand the depth of races like TV, UTMB, Sierre-Zinal, etc.
    
    Reply
    1. Nelson says:
      
      March 29, 2017 at 1:28 pm
      
      I hope we’ll see Walmsley at Transvulcania at some point. I imagine he could do really well there.
      
      Reply
      1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
        
        March 30, 2017 at 8:31 am
        
        That would be awesome. I heard he might do Sierre-Zinal this year. So we’ll get to see him and Kilian race each other twice at least this summer it appears.
SteelTownRunner says:

March 29, 2017 at 8:07 am

Why should the “community” focus on anything? People will drift where they might. Anton wasn’t a pure alpine guy until injury forced him to do something other than run (Leadville and WS were more his thing until then). After spending all that time scrambling, he came to view UTMB as an “honest” course that would bridge runners with different specialties. Of course, a guy like Kouros would not excel there like he would on roads or the track.Reference

Reply
Ian McD says:

March 29, 2017 at 8:08 am

Is that you at 6:30 in the red hat?Reference

Reply
Mark says:

March 29, 2017 at 8:29 am

The Salomon’s guy past is still an issue and that’s fair enough but you don’t see a problem with posting a link about Jason Koop.

Reply
1. Mic Med says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 8:47 am
  
  Nice!
  
  Reply
2. eric schranz says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 9:06 am
  
  Koop’s company isn’t spearheading a cleansport campaign.
  
  Reply
  1. George says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 10:13 am
    
    Sure, but by linking to this article, you may be implicitly endorsing CTS.
    
    Reply
    1. eric schranz says:
      
      March 29, 2017 at 10:20 am
      
      You’re kidding, right?
      
      Reply
Chris says:

March 29, 2017 at 8:51 am

The problem isn’t that he prefers mountain ultras it is that he somehow equates mountain ultras with “true” ultra running.

I live and train in the mountains, but also enjoy timed ultras and even dream of running a road ultra like the Keys.

Ultrarunning would be boring without the track, road, and flatter trail ultras.Reference

Reply
ALY says:

March 29, 2017 at 9:16 am

I think if Chase wants to be taken seriously, he can start with spelling athlete’s names correctly. Who’s Magdalina Bowlett????

Reply
1. Chase says:
  
  March 30, 2017 at 2:01 am
  
  Corrected…writing this while in a camper van in UK. Wifi spotty for spellchecks. Thanks
  
  Reply
Julie says:

March 29, 2017 at 9:26 am

I like that Wardian commented to the actual article that he might add some other men and women to the list.Reference

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Nelson says:

March 29, 2017 at 9:30 am

Eric, there’s no making you happy when it comes to PEDs, is there? Salomon does exactly what a lot of people in the community have been asking for, and you find fault in the fact that the dude running the company has a past? That’s irrelevant. The transparency is there. The measures are reasonable and rather strict. An independent lab will take care of the tests. It’s not irony, maybe just someone who’s learned a lesson. Which is supposed to be a good thing.

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 9:40 am
  
  I think the program is fantastic. I’ve been hoping companies would police this problem by themselves with appropriate oversight and transparency for years and this new Salomon program seems to do just that. However…Spearheading a cleansport program while your Team Manager has been busted for PEDs does seem a bizarre, wouldn’t you agree?
  
  Reply
  1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 10:25 am
    
    I think ‘ironic’ as you said first is the best word.
    I appreciate what Salomon is trying to do here and I applaud them for it. If the intentions are pure, and they appear to be here, this is a good step in the right direction. I hope other companies follow their lead now.
    
    Reply
  2. Nelson says:
    
    March 29, 2017 at 12:46 pm
    
    I wouldn’t, no. Everyone has a right to leave their past behind, or to correct their mistakes.
    
    What would be the alternative? Should Salomon give up on fighting doping, or should the Team Manager quit his job? Should lifetime bans include any job that has to do with sport and not just competing?
    
    It’s a reasonable and transparent program, and whoever is the team manager doesn’t change that. Actually, the fact that Salomon has taken this initiative now puts the other brands and teams in a position to follow suit or be called out. It’s a great first step in the right direction, and questioning the motives or people behind it is counterproductive, imo.
    
    Reply
    1. eric schranz says:
      
      March 29, 2017 at 1:35 pm
      
      Should the Team Manager quit his job? He should definitely not be in a position to represent the brand–especially when the brand is launching this campaign. Associating with someone with a conviction like that is s black mark that diminishes credibility. Salomon is a great brand, but the relationship with Vollet hurts them. Same for Koop. Great coach, but his relationship with CTS will always be–and is–questioned by nearly everyone who cares about this stuff.
      You and I agree on the program, and again, I commend Salomon for spearheading it. Like you, I wish others would follow suit. Do I think they will? Unfortunately not.
      
      Reply
      1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
        
        March 29, 2017 at 2:25 pm
        
        For full transparency Greg was also still racing last year at The Rut and taking away a podium position from others there. Similarly he raced at a 50 miler last weekend and was third overall. Make of that what you will.
      2. Nelson says:
        
        March 29, 2017 at 2:39 pm
        
        I’m hopeful that some brands will. I expect Hoka will, although several of their athletes get tested regularly because of the races they enter and maybe the federation regulating them. Caroline Chaverot was tested 13 times in 2016, according to an interview.
        
        I think we agree on most things, other than second chances. Regards.
      3. Nelson says:
        
        March 29, 2017 at 3:23 pm
        
        @Ben, I doubt Greg took a podium position from others there, more likely he earned it. The fact he was guilty of using unauthorized stimulants years ago, for which he served a ban of three months, means nothing to his current performance. He wasn’t boosting his training with EPO or HGH. Not all doping carries over. He did wrong, whether he was aware or not, and paid for it.
        
        Dopers aren’t lepers, just cheats.
      4. koop says:
        
        April 4, 2017 at 9:12 am
        
        Eric, you have always been welcome to have me on the podcast and ask me anything you want. I am an open book.
David Roche says:

March 29, 2017 at 9:53 am

No need to go into all of Chase’s points, but my favorite is definitely the assertion that Galen Rupp wouldn’t win Sierre-Zinal. The best runner wins as long as the best runner is strong enough to get to the finish line. Some races require more strength than others, but a runner with sub-27 10k fitness would blow away just about any race under 100 miles (if they cared about it).

Reply
1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 10:17 am
  
  I definitely agree with your main point David, speed kills. I often make this argument that if you took 5-10 of the sub 2:10 type marathon guys and had them train specifically for some of the key US ultras like Lake Sonoma, TNF, etc. (basically anything under 100k that’s not super technical) the majority of these kinds of guys would win just about every time.
  
  However, in a race like Sierre-Zinal I think things could play out differently purely because of the technicality of the course. Racing fast on terrain like that is a skill that will take at least a few years to master I think. Look at a race like Mt. Marathon for example, the runner with the fastest flat PRs (Allie) didn’t beat the superior technical runner (Emelie). I’d have to look up the men’s results more closely but I’m betting there are flatter and faster guys than Kilian behind him the results there as well. But as we know that argument is a little irrelevant since Kilian has never run a flat race to my knowledge!
  
  Reply
2. eric schranz says:
  
  March 29, 2017 at 4:18 pm
  
  But we were just talking about clean athletes, right?
  
  Reply
  1. Mic Med says:
    
    March 30, 2017 at 4:56 am
    
    Are you suggesting Rupp isn’t clean? Proof? No, of course not. Just because Salazar takes full advantage of everything LEGAL in a sport and pushes it straight up to the limit, does not make you illegal. If you just barely sneak under a yellow light while driving, you’re not breaking any law.
    
    Reply
    1. Ben Zuehlsdorf says:
      
      March 30, 2017 at 8:35 am
      
      I like Rupp and I hope nothing is wrong but where there is smoke there is often fire.
      
      And let’s just remember the facts on Farah. He was an also ran in world meets until his mid to late 20s. Then he suddenly crushes everyone. He also spends a large chunk of his yearly training cycle in rural places with limited out of competition testing. I’m not suggesting anything only pointing out the facts.
      We’ve been let down by too many athletes in the last 10 years to believe anymore and that’s really sad.
      
      Reply
scott says:

March 29, 2017 at 11:07 am

Mountain = ultra seems to be the main misconception.
And somehow misappropriating the amount of the country that even has mountains like the Euro races he’s quoting.
He doesn’t seem happy with Chuckanut’s 250+ft/gain in the middle 18 (and that’s counting the final 3 which is just decent).
Dude is well-spoken but just kinda silly.Reference

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Mike says:

March 29, 2017 at 1:31 pm

I feel Chases’ passion for the mountains, but he seems to have forgotten that most of that technical mountain terrain is covered in snow in the spring. All of European races he refers to are in August or later, same with The Rut. How many spring mountain foot races are there in the northern hemisphere?Reference

Reply

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