We took a day off at the bottom - soaked in the creek (138 in the sun!) The next day, we got up at 5 for breakfast, to beat the heat in the gorge. At breakfast we met a guy who had started at the N Rim at 2 a.m. that a.m., and was continuing up to the S. Mind boggling.
Yeah - S K down, B A up. Just an amazing experience. Words fail. And it kinda ruins you for other experiences. After, we drove to Sedona and were like, “Yeah, those are some attractive little rocks!”
But I gotta say, in my late 50s, w/ my history of knee/ankle/foot fractures/surgeries, I think I pretty much hit my limit. Especially in that heat. Down was MUCH tougher for me than up.
Of course, idiot that I am, my sister and I are biking a century at the end of the month…
I was a mediocre hurdler in HS. Think my fastest mile was around 5:20. And my sole marathon was 4:00:50 (after a 13 minute elbow-to asshole 1st mile!) The pace worldclass marathoners run is mindboggling. A couple of years ago after watching Chicago on TV, I decided to go for a 26 mile bike ride. I was impressed at how hard I had to push it to BIKE the 26 miles in 2 hrs!
Telemark - you sound like some ultramarathoner friends I’ve known. They repeatedly told me their toughest challenge was boredom. Not sure my pins ever would have stood that, but they sure couldn’t now. At this point, my main goal is to keep the old carcass moving… So I’ll see you in the pool!
I don’t know if I have much by the way of ultramarathoning left in me, but I’ve still got a few deathmarches to go. Slow and steady, that’s more my pace.
My best half marathon is still ahead of the new marathon WR, but my marathon time (I’ve only done one) is more than double.
There is a thread on the Track and Field News site that covered all of the 2.0 wind readings. It looked like the guy recording the wind readings just put down the first digit. Thus anything from 2.0 to 2.9 was entered as 2, which was later transcribed as 2.0. It is most likely that Beamon’s (and most others) jump was above the 2.0 m/s legal wind.
There were gaps in the single digit recordings, likely due to the main guy taking a break. The other guy recorded the wind readings correctly to one digit after the decimal point. I took a look over there, but I can’t find the thread.
I hiked down South Kaibab in one day, spent the night at Phantom Ranch, and hiked up North Kaibab the next. Same as you, I was on the trail at about 6 to beat the heat. Got to the North Rim about midnight. So maybe this was your limit, but you made it. I tip my cap to you.
I’ve ridden centuries and hiking the Canyon was much tougher. That could just be me; I rode my bike everywhere when I was a kid so maybe I just have the body for that more than for hiking.
Having experienced the Grand Canyon from side-to-side, I think about going from end-to-end someday. That would be a heck of a rafting trip.
I’m hoping the century is easier. Doing my last 65 mile training ride today - then taper. Feel I haven’t been putting enough miles in as I did before my marathon.
Talked to some rafters on the river. They said 7 days was $2500 (IIRC). But if you had flexibility, near the departure dates they sell extra seats for as low as 50%.
Saw a Nat Geo presentation of some guys who HIKED the canyon end to end (NOT in 1 go.). THAT did not look like fun! No trails, no water. Whether true or not, they said more people had walked on the moon than had completed the trek.
Walmsley is a beast. I wouldn’t call him the Eliud Kipchoge of ultrarunning - that’d have to be Kilian Jornet - but he broke the course record at the Western States Endurance Run this year. Despite losing about ten minutes to a mother bear with cubs, near the end of the race.
But if it’s badass runners you want, Kilian Jornet’s 2017 Hardrock 100 has to be up among the most amazing feats I’ve ever heard of. He fell around mile 13 and dislocated his shoulder. Got up, wrapped the arm in his race pack, then ran nine miles to the next aid station.
Where he got the shoulder taped up, and ran the last 87 miles to finish the race. And by “finish the race”, I mean of course, “before anyone else did”. He ran 87 miles with a dislocated shoulder and won the race.
Not to mention that Kipchoge et al were getting their nutrition and hydration from crew on bicycle, sparing them from having to break formation for an aid station. The Breaking 2 project was primarily about marketing the shoes Nike made for the athletes - a general release version of them went on sale soon after the race.
Which is not to take anything at all away from Eliud Kipchoge. No question he’s the greatest marathoner in the world right now. But I find his win at Berlin to be more impressive than his run in Italy.
As for me, I’m patting my back that my half marathon PR is still less than his marathon record. By almost 15 minutes!
I just can’t imagine running sub-five minute miles 26 times in a row. My marathon PR is 3:49:50, and I thought I was going to lay down and die at the end. 2:01:39 is just beyond comprehension.
I’ve done most of a century (got > 80 twice but my bike broke down both times), and just this May I ran to Plateau Point and back in 4 hours and change, and for difficulty I’d have to give it to … whichever is hotter. I could have gone to the river and back the same day had it not been unusually hot for May. I was exhausted at the end but that was all due to the heat. I was powerwalking up the trail for 4/5ths of it and even then I was keeping up with everyone else.
Well, if you want to get pedantic, I can’t imagine me running sub-7:00 miles for in any race; 7:10 is my road PR for a mile. (Set last night, as it happens…). I could have kept it up for maybe another half-mile.
26.2 at sub-4:40? It’s like we’re different species.
The Boston Marathon released their cut off for the 2019 race, 4:52 under BQ. This meant that many thousands of runners who met their BQ times weren’t fast enough to gain a bib. As a result, they’re dropping qualifying times across the board by 5 minutes for 2020.
I’m not sure if this means that times are getting faster across the board or just that more people want to run Boston so the fast people are applying. Either way, it’s getting tougher to qualify each year. Since 2013 the qualifying times (which don’t guarantee you a spot) have come down 11 minutes.
I had no idea this was a thing - for the London marathon (and I think most races in the UK), you have to meet strict standards to qualify for an elite spot, but it’s open season for everyone else, whether they are aiming for 2:30 or 6:30. Of course, for really popular races like London that means you are at the mercy of the ballot, and you might apply several times without getting a spot (and they don’t refund your entry fee!), for most it’s just first-come-first-served until they reach capacity (if they do).
I was also amazed at the 2020 qualifying times - sub 3 hours for males aged 18-34. No fun runners welcome, it seems!
NYC has a lottery system so a limited number of non-qualifying runners can get in. Boston also has 3000 charity runners who raise $35+ million dollars total for many local charities. You need to get a bib from one of the official charities and raise a minimum of $7500, some have higher amounts. Those bibs are still quite competitive and difficult to get.
Boston also can only have 30000 runners for a variety of logistical reasons, NYC has more than 50000 IIRC.
I hiked the Inca Trail in Peru a few years back: four days and it was fairly strenuous (one day was a nightmare, the rest were just good workouts). There’s a marathon on the same route, and people have run it in like six and a half hours. Totally mind-blowing to me.
Boston has a long rich history, having started in 1897. Prior to the 1970s, it was a relatively small race by modern standards. In the early 1970s, the number of entries was around 1000. As the race was getting bigger, Boston chose to require a qualifying time. The initial qualifying time for men under 40 was 2:50. I believe (but have no supporting info) that the race could only keep roads closed so long due to the noon start, so they probably didn’t want recreational 5+ hour runners. The qualifying times have changed over the years, and charity runners have also been included, in order to fit a field size that is manageable. Current qualifying time for under 35 men is 3:05, though the accepted time is around 3:00.
New York has qualifying time for “elites”, but probably only a few thousand enter that way (I’m guessing on the number). The huge majority of runners in the NY Marathon enter through a lottery, with no qualifying requirements. There are also charity runners, who raise money for certain charities to gain entry. The time qualifiers for elites allows the faster runners to gain entry without going through the lottery. If this didn’t exist, the world class men would finish between 2:05 and 2:25, then there would be a trickle of runners for the next half hour. Not good for spectators.
The reason that NYC and Boston have different entry caps has to do with logistics. NYC starts on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge that separates Staten Island from Brooklyn. It has two levels of about 10 lanes for runners to start. Boston starts on a two lane road in Hopkinton, which is a relatively small town west of Boston. Both races have three waves of starts (I think), so the total number of runners can get quite large. For Boston, since the majority of runners have a qualifying time, the corrals in the starting waves are ordered by qualifying time. This makes the start relatively orderly. NYC puts the elite qualified runners at the front of the first wave.
The Tokyo Marathon also has a lottery system, with well over 300,000 people entering for one of the 30,000 slots. I missed out this year (my first year to apply). I have friends that have missed out seven times in a row. One of my wife’s friends is 0-for-6 while her husband has gotten in three times in a row.
The Fuji Marathon in late November appears in many ways to be a nicer (if slightly less-flat) marathon that was very easy to enter.
