AthletesOnTrack wrote:
I don't get ultra-endurance snobs, especially slow ones. People who think they're awesome because they did some really long race, but think that short events aren't real.
I can't be the only one who gets tired of this, right? Here's the gist of the rant:
Race whatever distance and whatever sport make you happy, but don’t ask me to respect the fact that you can shuffle along for a long time, barely breaking a sweat, chatting with your friends and treating aid stations as a buffet table.
And you can read the rest of it here:
http://www.athletesontrack.com/?p=583 Good topic AthletesOnTrack....
I like to still think that an Iron distance race is a huge accomplishment but since
thousands and thousands of people have done them it's watered down much like
a marathon finish used to be or even doing Boston.
Iron distance events are actually "ultra" as well just not as ultra as some of the other
stuff out there. Ultraman events don't stretch to more than a 12-hour deadline each
day so if you just take one day of an UM an Iron event can stretch to much longer ;)
Ultraman is the most fun and certainly falls into being more unique and warrants the most
bragging rights IMO.
What is super long or ultra is relative to the crowd you're in as well. A half iron race
is pretty hard no matter what depending on what you put into it that day. Same for
a straight marathon. FYI a 26.2 mile run for a P.R. used take more time for me to
recover from that anything. My achilles tendon starts aching just at the thought of
some of those training miles back in college.
When it comes to Ultra snobs though I've been in that world for a long time and when
people say something like "XXX event is just a warm up" it's not meant to be taken
seriously or not by anyone I know and I really know a lot of em.
The longer and more ultra the events are the more friendly the people tend to get. It's
just the nature of that tribe. BTW a general guideline to what is ultra is something
lasting into the dark hours of night and likely to continue into the next day.
Events such as solo RAAM, DecaTri's, Vendee Globe, any of the 3-6-day run's....
it's an endless list... all have back of the packers but to finish these non.stop format's
as an official finisher puts these people into a different club all together. I've not
heard once any of these people say "XXX is just a warm up" without it being totally
tongue in cheek.
As far as I can see Army Ranger School, BUDS course in Navy Seals & British SAS
training make our little piddly ultra thingies look like kindergarten. To be an official finisher
how about a 6 month deadline and all hell along the way. If one of those guys said "that's
just a warm up" with a cocky attitude I'd go along with that ;)
A fantastic book to motivate for how to never quit:
Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of
SEAL Team 10 written by Marcus Luttrell
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Rick
Austin