Thursday, December 25, 2008

"Someone Else" Poll

It appears that the category "someone else" is now ahead of Scott Jurek in my little, totally unscientific WS Poll. So, I think it's time to set up an accompanying poll of "Someone Else's". Please respond with a comment and the name of who else you think will win at the Big Dance and I'll set up a new poll tomorrow. In addition, I plan to do polls on the Women's and Masters' Races over the next couple of months.

And, Merry Christmas everyone!

10 comments:

Paul DeWitt said...

One of the up to 9 runners not yet on the entrants list.

Geoff said...

great idea for a poll andy. from the names on the current roster i think you should add jorge and jasper to that list. after that i can only presume that the "others" must be as paul said, people who might qualify in one of the 3 remaining races... and even then there are only a few guys that come to mind who aren't on the roster who would legitimately have a shot at winning. it certainly does seem a bit odd to me that more people so far have voted for someone not in this poll to win than for scott to win. it's kind of like betting against lance armstrong to win the tour this year. in either case someone else might win but it would seem pretty odd for scott (and lance) not to be considered the guy to beat. anton is no doubt a ridiculously talented runner but his injury history shouldn't even give him a 50% of being in the race, let alone the 50% chance that he's currently polling for winning the race. i guess the point that many would make is that if he's healthy he will win, but i'd like to think that against this level of competition he would still need to have a good day to win, especially considering the disparity in experience in this race between him and scott (and others).

AJW said...

Geoff,

Good points all. And, I certainly could have added quite a few other names to the poll.

Experienced WS guys like Olsen, Pacheco, etc...

Fast guys who've run a 100 miler but who haven't run WS like Wardian, Halekas, Brimhall, Wolfe, Braje, etc...

Fast guys who are running their first 100 miler like Olmstead, Buchanan, etc...

And then, of course, the superfast guys who are not on the list yet but should be like Roes, Steidl, Skaggs and Carpenter...

Going to be an interesting spring!

AJW

Anonymous said...

The one thing about Jurek is .... if you give him enough time to focus on ONE race.... he will kill it. He will train specific for it and get the job done. If the temps stay "cool" I would think the course record will fall.
I also think AJW will easily go under 17hrs...

GO WS2009!!

Ted

Craig Thornley said...

AJizzleWizzle,

This is fun. Will you reveal all the votes at the end of the poll? That could be interesting.

I think we'll have a first-time winner this year. Not necessarily a first-time WS runner, but someone who doesn't have a cougar at home or at their store (sorry, Hal).

Paul Charteris said...

AJW, Great list. I think Jez Bragg and Jean Pommier deserve to be on the list also. Two super-talented runners to add depth to what is probably already the best field of ultrarunners ever assembled in the United States.

Cheers, Paul

Paul Charteris said...

Oh, and add Marco Olmo to the list also.

Cheers, Paul

Anonymous said...

I think it's also worth noting that Tsuyoshi Kaburaki from Japan--3rd at TNF50 and beating Kyle Skaggs--is on the WS100 list. At the very least, he should be in serious contention for the Masters title.

Brett said...

Geoff:

You are right about Scott's focus...but the same can actually be said about a few other people, like Matt Carpenter. Although with Matt it seems that the second time is the charm in every event.

Scott has had injury problems too if I recall right.

I think what people are focusing on is the most difficult part of the poll - we're not voting for the top 10...if we did we would probably almost pick the identical people. We're picking a single winner. This is very tough since any one of 10 people could probably win.

I voted for Tony K simply because he's never lost a single race. He tapered (a strange thing for him) for this years WS100 and was ready to go at it. So I think its an important race for him.

But voting against Scott J at WS100 is like voting against Matt C at Pikes Peak...so you make an excellent point.

Carson said...

nice pic andy you and shelly PARTY!!!