URP MUT Daily News | Friday, Mar 29

You’ve read a lot of Matt Fitzgerald’s articles on these pages and heard him in 2017 as he prepared for his first ultramarathon. Now read this. It’s taken from his memoir that really shows two things: We don’t know what each other is going through. And how damn important running can be to one’s mental health. In it, Matt deals with some heavy sh*t like the love of his life–his wife–trying to kill him during a bipolar episode.

I mentioned the incredible course/format for IAAF World XC champs back in November and attempted to convince my wife to let me go. (I’ll be doing my best to catch a glimpse of it online this weekend. From California.) Let’s Run’s Jonathan Gault does an excellent job of analyzing the importance and crazy course format that just may help save the sport.

Shoes: Brett checks out the new NIKE Zoom Terra Kiger 5 and loves it. Yep, that looks like a pretty sweet trail shoe with some nice details. That tongue!

Also this weekend: Barkley. I don’t know. It’ll be neat to see Nicky Spinks make an attempt at it, but I’m just not very excited about this year it.

Shoes: The Salomon Speedcross goes high fashion.

Amy writes about mapping out a training and racing calendar when she’s unable to focus on long, short, trail, and road at the same time.

Short news day. What did I miss?

17 Responses to "URP MUT Daily News | Friday, Mar 29"

Craig Randall says:

March 29, 2019 at 6:44 am

Wardian talks about the Israel National Trail and encourages people to travel there and see it for themselves:

https://fastestknowntime.com/podcast/27-mike-wardian-israel-national-trail

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Ed says:

March 29, 2019 at 8:27 am

The Fitzgerald book is very good. The man behind the science…

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tmfjones says:

March 29, 2019 at 9:52 am

ok ill bite– why are you not excited about barkley?

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  March 29, 2019 at 9:55 am
  
  Not trying to be like that.
  I think I’m just hyped out.
  
  Reply
tmfjones says:

March 29, 2019 at 9:58 am

yeah i hear ya. have to admit im one of those types who probably root for the course to win a little too much.

this year though i had the pleasure of meeting Guillaume Calmettes in person– dude is straight up inspirational and i hope he takes it all and proves Gary wrong . Calmettes has trained like crazy for it!

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Alex Parker says:

March 29, 2019 at 10:32 am

It’s pretty funny to read the article about the viciousness of that Worlds XC course – some of the smooth grassy hills actually reach 10% grades, and you then have to run DOWNHILL too. Oh the humanity. They ought to send the whole crew of XC runners and Let’s Run pundits out to any Beast Coast trail race to get a re-set on what “hard” is.

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Ben says:

March 29, 2019 at 10:37 am

Alex, have you ever tried to run up a 10% grade, or on sand, at 4:20-4:30 pace? Yeah, me neither 😉

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Peter Andersson says:

March 29, 2019 at 11:34 am

In response to your Willie Nelson link yesterday, here’s a “pick me up” for later in a race:

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Jason Baker says:

March 29, 2019 at 5:03 pm

Barkley might be the most overrated race. Until we see a field of elite runners, I am not going to recognize this as an upper echelon race. It’s easier to keep it mysterious when you have a field of essentially average to above average ultra runners. There. Said it.

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tmfjones says:

March 29, 2019 at 5:10 pm

not sure i understand your comment. who are these elite runners, like marathoners? one of those guys is going to break Brett Maune’s record? Its an offtrail fatass in a state park that has no means of having hundreds of runners on the course….? Sounds like you don’t actually know that much about it.

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Alex Parker says:

March 29, 2019 at 5:54 pm

Well, Ben, I suspect all of those folks are going to run a bit slower up that 10% mowed, grassy pitch than the 4:30 they’d be running on a flatter golf course. The comment stands – it’s the same course for all of them, and yes it has some little hills, but it’s not a difficult course – there doesn’t appear to be anything technical about it that could challenge a runner’s “cross-country” skills. Heck, the high school cross-country courses we had in New Mexico when I was a kid were at least legit little 5K trail races…

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Jon Gaus says:

March 29, 2019 at 10:04 pm

Worth watching if you haven’t seen it, the documentary “The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats it’s Young.” Earned my respect…

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Andrew says:

April 1, 2019 at 8:06 am

Barkley wins again. Big shocker. So much for the Nicky Spinks hype. If Jared Kelly is dropping out, I just think it’s ridiculous to hype up a woman finishing. It’s just not going to happen.

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tmfjones says:

April 1, 2019 at 9:41 am

hey man, since you’re so down on women, please link to your ultrasignup page and here’s Beverly Abbs’:

https://ultrasignup.com/results_participant.aspx?fname=Beverley&lname=Anderson-Abbs

lets compare seriously shall we?

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1. eric schranz says:
  
  April 1, 2019 at 9:58 am
  
  I’ve said for years…If Bev can’t finish Barkley, I can’t imagine any other woman completing it.
  (Of course I’ll be proven wrong at some point, but Bev was/is the real deal.)
  
  Reply
Andrew says:

April 1, 2019 at 10:47 am

There is a huge difference between being “down on women” and not being delusional. What I I said no woman will break 2 hours in a road marathon in our lifetime? Is that being down on women or simply being realistic? We set up people to fail with totally unreasonable expectations that the person in question didn’t even ask for. Get a grip dude.

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Andrew says:

April 1, 2019 at 11:01 am

I’ll change my statement to a 2:04 marathon since about the same number of people have run that as have finished Barkley. I realized it wasn’t fair to say 2 hours since no one has done that. However, it still illustrates my point about unrealistic expectations.

Reply

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