UltraRunning February 2020
- 2019: The Year In Review by John Medinger
- Ultrarunners Of The Year
- 2019 Top Times
- Ones to Watch in 2020
- Winning Nutrition at Big’s
- Fastest Known Times Of The Year
- Biggest North American Ultras
- Performances Of The Year
Participation levels in ultrarunning continue to trend upwards, as well as the number of opportunities around North America for runners to experience their first ultramarathon.
The unseasonable heat was gone in mid-January and subsequently, over 50 runners toed the line for the sixth annual Hellcat 50K race at the Military Museum of North Florida in Green Cove Springs.
Although the Nike Pegasus 36 Trail isn’t a brand new release (it debuted in summer 2019), it’s new for our testers. The shoe also represents a new design approach for a model that has been around since before some of you were born.
There’s almost nothing that makes a long winter run more miserable than having freezing cold fingers. We’ve tested a variety of styles of mittens and gloves designed for the cold weather runner that will keep your hands comfortable so your feet can keep moving.
Ruthie Loffi hung up her bib at mile 50 of the Rocky Raccoon 100 in 2018. Amid tears and disappointment, Ruthie had an epiphany about a nagging worry that had consumed her most of her life. It took this DNF (which Ruthie loves to refer to as Did Not Fail) to realize that not trying was far worse than failure itself.
In a world of conveniences, why take on hard challenges? Perhaps because in the pain, misery and torture that we face in these abbreviated and self-imposed adventures, we grow empathetic and remember that we are all in it together, from the first person to the last person crossing the finish line.
I’ve had some personal experiences running an ultramarathon with a spouse. I ran every step of a 100-miler with my wife, Mel. I also DNF’d a 100-miler with her. During both experiences, the miles tried to kill us. And at some point (okay, multiple points) during each race, we wanted to kill each other.
In November 2019, the Lawrence Trail Hawks dedicated Sanders Saunter, their annual charity event, to 22BuddyCheck, a veteran suicide awareness organization, in honor of Colonel Christopher J. Wilson, USAR retired, who collapsed from a heart attack 2.6 miles from the 2018 Hawk Marathon finish line.
In the summer of 2018, ultrarunner Harvey Lewis attempted to run the Appalachian Trail faster than anyone in history. With his 78-year-old father as crew chief, Lewis raced across 14 different states and more than 2,100 miles in his quest to reach a new record. He fell short of the FKT, but what developed was a father-son story for the ages.
Each year a few races attract a large number of elite runners. In this analysis, we have examined the races…
Spring 2020 offers a fresh take on two established road models in the HOKA ONE ONE lineup: the Elevon 2 and Mach 3. Both pairs are road and track models that have similar geometry, but otherwise are significantly different in their build and the athletes they will likely appeal to.
This race tested me like no other. A perfect storm of being undertrained, recovering from an injury, my own ignorance of the course and a little too much confidence in my abilities, left me a complete mess as I finally crossed the finish line 21 minutes before the cutoff.
The Plain Endurance Runs require that participants be self-sufficient for their chosen distance (100-mile or 100k)—there are no aid stations. The event is held on standard mountain trails with typical trail junction signs, but the course is not marked, requiring the runner to simply follow a map and associated directions.
This product is a new take on the traditional puffy jacket, using hybrid insulating material in a body-mapped approach, with large ventilation channels in the back. It’s suitable as an outer layer for a cold winter run or hike, but equally as capable for everyday use.
We all face villains in both life and running, and we all have those climatic moments when it would be easier to quit than to keep moving forward. But we all have the ability to be heroes if we work hard, believe in ourselves and help out others along the way. So in 2020, be sure to write your own story and help someone else write theirs.
Camille Herron’s 24-hour world record and Jim Walmsley’s Western States course record are the 2019 UltraRunning Performances of the Year
As 2020 begins, I look back with gratitude to the year 2010—a decade that began with darkness and confusion, and ended with hope.
Jim Walmsley is the Ultrarunner of the Year for 2019. This is the fourth year in a row that he has won the men’s honor, a feat only previously accomplished by Tom Johnson (1992-1995). Walmsley’s year was topped by a 14:09:28 course record at the venerable Western States 100 and a world record 50-mile time of 4:50:08 at the Project X Invitational. He also won the Santa Barbara Nine Trails 35 Mile in course record time, Norway’s Ultravasan 90k, and the inaugural Fast 50 (Mile) in Hong Kong. Walmsley lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, with his girlfriend, Jessica.
What initially drew Chattanooga, TN, ultrarunner Seth Ruhling into the ultrarunning community nearly a decade ago, was the allure of a finisher’s sweatshirt that told the world he ran 40 miles in one day.