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| Hairy ultrarunner? |
There are some pretty exciting things happening in ultrarunning right now. In 2014 race director Candice Burt created the first ever single-lap 200 mile foot race in the western hemisphere, the Tahoe 200 Mile Endurance Run. Now with the help of a couple of other race directors, she has come up with something even crazier for 2015: The Grand Slam of 200s. This race series includes all 4 of the North American non-repetitive 200 mile races that are happening in 2015:
My wife Tawnya and I were immediately inspired to go tackle this challenge. We were already signed up to run Bigfoot, which (along with the other 2 besides Tahoe) are brand new races in 2015. In fact 30 of the 90 runners of Tahoe 200 signed up for Bigfoot, a testament to Candice's success at the inaugural Tahoe 200. Candice shared this photo of that list on Facebook:
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| "The List" of 30 die hard 200 mile runners |
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| Ed the Jester |
While thinking about taking up this challenge, I wondered how many races of this distance anyone has ever done in a year. I asked around on FB, posted to the Ultralist, and scoured the internet trying to find the answer. So far, the most official 200 mile (or longer) races done by any one person in a year is ... the same number as the Grand Slam. 4. Yes, just 4.
Many runners have done far more difficult challenges. Every single finisher of the Self Transcendence 3100 Mile, for example. Ed Ettinghausen is about to break the world record for most 100 mile races in a year, hitting 37 in early December. That's a 100 mile race every 9 days, all year long, and he does it wearing a Jester costume. You can't miss Ed when he's out there, because he's not just running. He's constantly high fiving and encouraging everyone else before, during, and after his races. To the right is a shot of him running at Across the Years 6-Day, where he came in 3rd place by running over 476 miles in 6 days.
The amazing athletes who came in first and second at the 2013-2014 ATY race were Joe Fejes and Yiannis Kouros, both living legends in running. While I'll never measure up to their speed and prowess, I might be able to do something they never did: split up those crazy miles into a higher number of smaller (200 mile) races and get the somewhat meaningless record of most 200+ mile races in a year. Meaningless, that is, to some.
To others, perhaps I can be an inspiration. Maybe raise awareness for foster parenting along the way.
So I continued my search for the current unofficial record. There are a few folks who have done 4 including (in no particular order):
- John Price (251 miles, 860 miles, 314 miles, 218 miles)
- Michele Notarangelo (669 km, 677 km, 710 km, 702 km)
- Bill Heldenbrand (315 miles, 393 miles, 298 miles, 304 miles) - not a single calendar year
- Yiannis Kouros (320 km, 1023 km, 1023 km, 177* miles) - technically only 3 over 300 km but impressive nonetheless
These feats are incredible. Look at some of those mileages! Also, these guys tend to run them fast. Yiannis ran 320km in under 24 hours. I expect that distance to take me a minimum of 60 hours.
Still, not one of them ever did a fifth race of 200+ miles in a single year. So there you go, to get a world record you're going to need 5.
Except, there's other folks out there who are going to run the grand slam plus other long races in 2015. So I'm going to need more. How many more? Who knows!
I'm not sure which is more fun, planning a race calendar or actually running the races.
Probably the planning.
Running 200 miles is hard.
Finishing is the fun part.
I came up with a reasonable list of 9 that can be done (the orange-ish and green ones above), while always having a 3+ week break inbetween. If I find something to run in February, March, and October, it'll bring it up to 12, which I think is a good number. Something incredibly challenging that I just might be able to accomplish.
The green ones in the list are ones I have already registered to run. I have some work to do.
Two more possible 200 milers have been added:
ReplyDelete1/22/2015 Icarus Florida UltraFest FL 72 hour
3/21/2015 4mph Challenge Redding, CA 50 hour cutoff