Ran the Baldy Hill Climb on Saturday. 1.86 miles and 3200 ft of climb. Finished 15th in 47:12. That's 25 something a mile. Hardrock stuff, for sure. And, I managed to improve my time from last year by a whopping 32 seconds.
Geoff Roes gets my vote for Ultrarunner of the Year. Three races, three course records. I hope he can get to Squaw in June. The dude can walk the walk.
And, a follow up on my post about 100's. I must say I apologize for offending people with my remarks about the 100 mile distance. Truly, I meant it as a joke and probably should have put a :) after it. I know that the guys who go all out at the 50k's, 50 milers and 100k's are truly outstanding athletes. In fact, it's likely that they are much better athletically than the 100 mile guys. It's just that I am, as Tim said, biased toward the events I tend to do well in and those are 100 milers.
So, here's my next poll. See the sidebar to vote for the best sub-100 mile run this year by a male (so far).
11 comments:
sarcasm in writing can be so hard to pick up on sometimes. i was pretty sure you were making sarcastic banter in your last post (so i played along with my comment) and then i began to wonder when no one else seemed to be reading it that way. i thought for sure my comment about the hunreds vs. shorter races would be taken as a joke since i've run more shorter races in the past few years than i have hundreds. i guess my mistake was in expecting people to realize that without pointing it out. all in good fun.
anyway, i think if karl goes out to virginia this weekend and takes care of business he still should have a leg up on me. basically his hardrock and my wasatch cancel each other. his bighorn and my bear cancel each other. my hurt probably gives me a slight edge vs. his masanutten but then he gains that back, and more, with his wasatch and grindstone (if he does what he's likely to do out there).
I think a lot of folks are touchy when someone says (sarcastically or not) that a certain distance is more important than another distance. If you ever read letsrun.com, you get an eyeful of hatred towards ultra running in general. Until I actually run a 100 miler, I'm very envious of those who do, especially the ones who do it really well.
Speaking of different distances, I assume that Geoff is planning on the North Face Championships? That could easily put him over the edge in the runner of the year. Right now I'm impressed with both those guys, no, not impressed, more like amazed. Since ties in races seemed so popular last year, they should allow ties in this standing too.
AJW,
In regards to your poll, I think you inadvertently left off an entire slew of notable sub-100mile performances. If you ask me, Usain Bolt's Berlin 100M and 200M World Records take the cake. By a LOOOOONG shot.
Tony
Vote early and often kids.
I guess I will go with Ritz's 5K AR if we are going to limit to the US (and stealing Anton's idea).
Now you say that shorter ultra guys are better athletes than 100 mile guys? Enough of the generalizations already!
Andy,
Absolutely no apology needed. This is your blog! And since Mr. Koerner was so quick to pull a circa 1990's reference from his bag, let me just add "Whoa...Let's keep this sophisticated."
Hard to pick what is the best sub 100 miler performance. Looking at all of the choices, it's like splitting hairs. All these performances are admirable.
Jeff Kozak's 7:06 at the Bishop 50 miler on 5-16-09, breaking the previous record by 23 minutes on a hot day in the upper 90's, should be included.
always worth a chuckle when ultra runners consider "runners of the year" and such... yes, some awesome running performances are had each year... but honestly there are so many great runners out there. Training for a sub 2:30 marathon this year was equally if not harder than training for a 50 or 100. i feel fortunate enough to train with two guys who are sub 2:20, that is some serious speed. And to think of the hundreds of B level Kenyans that don't even make the A team, and would easily be our country's best. it's fun to honor awesome performances in the niche of ultras, but there is a bigger overall picture out there in the grand world of running.
One thing that should be worth noting about those bias toward 100s versus sub 100 distances is the excellent and rare well-roundness that some of those runners have and very few who exclusively favor the 100mile distance have. Max King.. here is someone that ran a solid American River and the next week runs a sub 50minute 10mile. My good friend Patrick Russell, fast ultra speed and fast short speed (Minnesota runner of the year 2006) 24:10 8km while mixing ultras. Then of course there is our local and world legend Barney Klecker who shred plenty of American track records, world 50mile record, a couple hand fulls of sub 3:00 50km's and wins at Grandmas, Twin Cities.
Chippewa,
Good points all and more proof that when you get into 100 mile racing pretty much everything else goes out the window.
AJW
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