A historic run that shatters Walmsley's course record by 15 minutes and breaks the 14 hour barrier!!!
....the only problem is he finished third :lambie:
UTMB champ Vincent Bouillard and Francesco Poopy were slightly historic-er in 13:46 and 13:51 respectively. Plus a record 8 men under 15 hours. Meanwhile Jennifer Lichter is 3 minutes under the pace of Courtney Dauwalter's untouchable 15:29 course record with 6 miles to go. What a stupid day.
Alas, it wasn't god mode for everyone as Kilian and Walmsley face the bugle and go home devastated. Kind of hard when you're nursing injuries and everyone else takes off at BQ speed.
On these unicorn condition days it's the calculated gamble of do you YOLO it and risk blowing up or hang back and gamble on the YOLOs blowing up? It worked out for some better than others!
And she struggled a bit on the last stretch but still beat the course record by ~90 seconds with an epic haul on the streets!
Meanwhile John Kelly has faded to 34th after misplacing some book pages and making it to the flat/boring part of the course :d ....still hanging on for what should be a solid finish somewhere in the 17 hour range.
The title of this thread should be "The Euros take it to the Americans and the Kenyan goes home devasted!"
and
They do a good job with the streaming. For the past two years and I checked in off and on through the day. They kept saying poopy!
There was much hype about first timer Molly Seidel, Olympic bronze medalist, who should finish soon and get the silver belt buckle.
Fun to watch, would never want to this event. Maybe could manage 50K or so.
Americans are obviously superior at everything, but it's a testament to our superior sportsmanship that we let others have the victory sometimes. :-*
Bhearn just nailed down a golden hour finish!
I think the Euros are going to be more of a factor going forward.
Had not heard of Jenn Lichter before this, amazing back story. Basically orphaned as a child in Columbia (father dead) mother a drug addict. Her and her brother adopted in the US (Wisconsin), where she took up running and eventually wins Western States. In record time.
The historical progression is remarkable. I was an OG Scott Jurek stan back when 17 hour finishing range was often good enough to win. For his 6th straight win in 2004 he ran 15:36 for a course record, which people thought was insanely fast and cemented his GOAT status at the time. This year he would've placed 12th and been beaten by F1. The first year he won he ran 17:34, which would've been good for 33rd this year and outside the top 10 for women.
Granted this year was off the charts good due to conditions and competitive races up front down to the wire, but nonetheless the needle has sharply moved over the last decade plus. Obviously popularity/PR/marketing/social media plays a big role. In the 90s these were such below the radar fringe events that nobody knew how to run. You plodded along on your flats, walked your uphills, chugged your chicken/beer/soda at the aid stations and had a merry ol' time. Jurker really become one of the first specialists (and Ann Trason before him) who made a real racing event out of it, focused on nailing effective fueling strategies and relentlessly attacking the course.
Now you've got a whole market around fueling, gear, fast shoes, GPS/racing technology, running influencers etc., leading an influx of specialists from all over the world who are taking this on as a career in their youth. I think the change has been mostly good and makes for compelling race atmospheres, but there has definitely been change.
The long-running debate on whether some random Kenyan runners could fly over and dominate Western States is bubbling up on Letsrun again. It's kind of like where (men's) marathoning was in the early 70s, women's in the early 80s when better athletes with a track background started taking over and running around 2:10 and 2:30 respectively. Ex college athletes like Walmsley and Lichter are breaking through and we're going to see more of that. Although trail running as a phenomenon seemed to start in the US, the Europeans are upstaging us at the world events like UTMB. I think it's only a matter of time before some Africans also start breaking in.
But at the same time we have seen that just because someone is fast at track or cross country, or even marathons, it doesn't automatically translate to running ultras well.