Catching up on vids from the weekend Pre meet. 4:13 for Cranny in a 1500 that was way over her head (4 women under 4, and going out in 62, 65). Good on her for that experience though. Got to figure most of the ladies she will be running with at Stanford won’t have that sort of exposure.
At the other end of the spectrum …
I dig what they are doing at Barkley even if I have no desire to do it. I am not sure I agree that it requires something like that to “find your limit.” I think you can find your limits pretty quick in 2 laps around a track, if you pour yourself into it. I am not saying that to short change the ultra thing or Barkley. Having had the privilege of seeing HR a few years ago up close (thanks Tim L), I get the allure, and the challenge of that. I see in other races the possibility of failure, and the mind being the issue in the race over the body. That could be getting yourself down some road, over some hill or around a track. Yes, completion is the goal at the Barkley and failure is short of that. While completion is usually not the concern at the local 10k, you can find a limit and point of failure too.
Interesting read on hyperthyroidism in sport.
10.2, easy cruising in the wind and heat of the afternoon. It is green now in Colorado, but another week of this and everything will start to brown.
Great video. With you 100% on Barkley. Glad it exists, glad people like it, and it's certainly entertaining and interesting. Would love to see part of it and feel a little bit of the terrain. But ultimately it or any other challenge requires "buy-in" to the challenge, whether it's a shorter, intense pain against the clock, distance/vertical, or some other construct of orienteering and sleep deprivation. Sometimes silly arguments compare Barkley, HR, etc. as far as being "tough" but it's apples and oranges: I think running/walking on a treadmill for days would be "tough" in a different sort of way because you have to buy into the meaning the entire time. Not even all cultures historically "bought into" the meaning of reaching mountain summits, so it's up to us to decide what has personal meaning.
ReplyDeletegood point on the whole barkley/HR deal. I don't think you are short changing the ultra thing... I usually tell people it doesn't matter if I run my heart out over 7000' and 50k or if I run my heart out in a 5k down at the park-- if done correctly I end up feeling about the same... that strange combination of defeat and content. Maybe it's just the media I gravitate towards but frankly, I get kind of tired of all the marathon and ultra running limelight... for people of all abilities it's as if "farther"/"longer"/"steeper"/"harder" is the only way to challenge one's self as a distance runner. what happened to "faster"? there is room for both in the limelight but maybe the challenge to finish type has more mass appeal?
ReplyDeleteI think I get what the interviewees are saying about testing their limits via Barkley. There are different kinds of limits. You can test your limits in a 100 meter dash but the experience will be entirely different from say a marathon or an ultra-marathon. There is something very unique about a prolonged contest. An epic (by the true definition of the word) of sorts. You suffer in an 800 meter run and you can reach your limit (they are insanely painful). But the experience is different and the limits you are testing are different. For the interviewees (several of whom indicated they had raced different distances, even 5Ks) they wanted to test those different limits in ways other races could not.
ReplyDeleteRight. I get it. Well I get it as much as a guy who has not done Barkley and has done a very tame 100 once can. I get the spirit of it. I am not questioning that desire to go there and look for that in going to Barkley (or whatever ultra).
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, I wonder less about the 50 something that is going to crack himself against that after a career of running than the 20 something who took up running 3 years ago and has never trained outright for say a 10k. Of course it is their trip, but I will admit that based on my perspective, I get that less. Generally I think your days you can do a 100 or a loop at Barkley are greater than your days you have where you can PR at the mile. I might be wrong on that though.
But the number of days where you can fail are probably equivalent to the days you live ... regardless of the distance.