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I run ultras and mountain races. I ran one this Friday night into Saturday morning - a 12 hour overnight trail race where I managed 100K (62mi) in 11 hours and
by ErikAugust 9y ago
I run ultras and mountain races. I ran one this Friday night into Saturday morning - a 12 hour overnight trail race where I managed 100K (62mi) in 11 hours and 23 minutes.
Anyway, let's throw out willpower and even genetics for a second so I can bring up something: In today's age, virtually no one is even remotely close to their physiological limits.
Literally, hundreds of people (elite marathoners, a few ultra marathoners, cross country skiiers) out of billions of people are bumping up against physiology. These people will do anything for the smallest performance gains (1%).
Really, if you have not achieved a level where you are ~5-8% body fat and run consistently at 100 miles (or more) a week, you are not anywhere that close. Trust me. This is kind of even standard for competitive college distance runners - and even they are likely making mistakes that hold back their development (diet, drinking, running too many miles at too fast of a pace, etc.)
Yet we can take someone who is 20% body fat, and runs 10 miles a week. You will find this person finishing an 100 mile ultramarathon. It's not that uncommon, if the time cutoffs are liberal. 18 minute miles is walking pace.
The author even mentions he didn't think he was obese. He just didn't know the reality of things, I'd argue. He had to have this concept of willpower (concentration) to learn. And to change his diet and training habits. And even his understanding of what is possible.
It's magical to chalk things up to grit - but there is so much process of knowing how the lows feel during a race, what to eat while training, how fast to do each run while training, how much to run while training, how to stay hydrated while racing, how to get nutrition while racing, etc.
"Tough" or "in control of self" to me is too emotionally loaded.
Edit: I almost feel bad writing this because it takes some of the magic that gets marketed about it. But this is a science-oriented crowd and should be exciting to know there is more of an opportunity for the objective than a lot of people believe.
- ErikAugust 9y agoLook at the consistently great 100 mile trail runners in the US - Ian Sharman, or Jeff Browning. Year after year. Look at how thorough they are. They are coaches because they know what to do and then they execute.
- kentt 9y ago> 18 minute miles is walking pace. Thank you for pointing this out. I'm so sick if people telling me they ran a marathon only to find out they walked. I'm totally fine with that being an accomplishment to finish, but it's entirely dissimilar to those who were racing.
- atom-morgan 9y agoMarathons? I have people tell me this for 5ks.
- rickpmg 9y agoWhat an elitist comment. People do marathons for different reasons. Time is just one factor. Some people actually (gasp) do marathons to prove something to _themselves_. It's one thing to be proud of your own time, it's entirely unsportsmanlike to criticize someone not as good as you.
- kentt 9y agoI understand what you're getting at but I think you may have misunderstood me. Being able to run a marathon in 3 hours probably meant you set aside a hour or two, 5 times a week for years. Walking a marathon in 7 hours means that your in the sort of shape that is required to not die early from being sedentary. If you tell me you RAN a marathon, I'll think that you RAN a marathon. If you walked a marathon and you think that's a great accomplishment (and it very well may be), I'm also very happy for you. But it's not the same thing. Conflating the two is dishonest and devalues what others are doing. It's the difference between building a website as a fullstack dev vs building one using Square Space. It's not that there's anything wrong with Square Space, but if you tell me your a software engineer afterwards, I'll think of you the same way I think of marathon walkers who tell me they ran a marathon.
- tedmc 9y agoIt is racing for them.
- sushisource 9y agoYeah, it's a little frustrating to have some person say to me "Oh yeah, I ran a marathon too!". Ok, yeah, you completed it... six hours slower than I did. You walked a marathon. I'd disagree though that the grit/toughness thing to me is too emotional. My marathon time is 3:38 - reasonably fast for an amateur, but nothing blazing. ~8 minute pace. I know that getting that time faster is 100% about my commitment level. I know I could be faster, but I just don't want to invest the time and pain in it. I enjoy running, but I'm not trying to be super competitive. So I think it is emotional for 99.9% of people. Only those .1% of people you mentioned are hitting the physical limits, as you said. In other words, I agree with your facts, but I think the interpretation is wrong (or I'm misunderstanding). The key ingredient is the willpower, the consistency, and that comes from an emotional place.
- ErikAugust 9y agoIt may be semantics - I think I agree with your statement. The desire to not only know what it takes to be great, but to execute on that has its origins in emotion, at least. There has to be motivation for it as it's obviously not necessary to survive, haha.
- rimliu 9y agoI walk a marathon in about 6 hours and 12 minutes. Do you run it in 12 minutes?
- proee 9y agoWell then I'm sure it's frustrating when a professional who runs a Marathon in close to 2 hours, hears you say the same thing.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoI'm no 2-hour-marathon pro, just a has-been mediocre collegiate runner, but there's some understanding of the effort levels and dedication that are required, no matter the accomplishments. But there are runners, and there are joggers, and there are joggers that call themselves runners and post "26.2" stickers on their cars. By analogy, there's a difference between an HN celebrity, someone who does programming for a living at a typical skill level, and someone who claims to be an engineer - but cannot complete FizzBuzz.
- logicallee 9y ago>Literally, hundreds of people (elite marathoners, a few ultra marathoners, cross country skiiers) out of billions of people are bumping up against physiology The human race didn't fight tooth and nail for 40,000 years to give everyone education, a code of laws and civilization, safe lives that include both work and leisure, so that I could bump into the limits of my physiology. How is that a normative goal? There are no mountain lions chasing me whose escape pushes me to the limits of human physiology - and I for one prefer to keep it that way!
- nicky0 9y agoYou're probably one of those people who would happily exist as a brain in a jar wired directly to the internet.
- logicallee 9y agonah, exercises 2-3 days per week is great. Not going to bring me to the limits of my physiology though :)
- gaius 9y agofight tooth and nail for 40,000 years to give everyone education On the one hand that's true but on the other hand, the vast majority of people aren't operating at their theoretical mental limit either, either way a vast amount of wasted potential.
- steaknsteak 9y agoI don't think very many people are interested in achieving their theoretical mental limit any more than their physical limit. What would be the purpose of that? Diminishing returns applies to nearly every endeavor. Unless you are so preoccupied with a single goal that practically nothing else matters, you will always sacrifice some potential improvement on any goal to make room for the other important aspects of your life.
- gaius 9y agohundreds of people (elite marathoners, a few ultra marathoners, cross country skiiers) I'd add elite soldiers to that list, which would take it up to tens of thousands maybe.
- ErikAugust 9y agoSure - I could go with thousands... and maybe tens of thousands.
- gaius 9y agoSAS, SEALs, Spetsnaz... it wouldn't be a long list!
- kamaal 9y agoAll this ultramarathon running looks like a cake walk when compared to the "Hell week" in Navy SEALs training.
- gaius 9y agoOr SAS Test Week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Special_Forces_Selection#Aptitude_Phase_.28hill_phase.29_.284.C2.A0weeks.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Special_Forces_...
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoThere's a significant distinction between racing at the limits of your physiology and the limits of your commitment to the sport and your training going into the race. I think the latter may be more interesting and useful: not many can afford the time commitment to eating, sleeping, and training to the max. But when a high-school kid takes 30 seconds off his 1600m PR in the meet with the rival school? That's just because he didn't know he had more available.
- ErikAugust 9y agoCertainly a fascinating component. There is also the case of the people who can rise above what their physiological markers predict, somewhat consistently - and then conversely, people who are strikingly under performing.
- tbenst 9y agoI ran at an elite D1 collegiate program. The vast majority of runners will get injured at 100 miles per week, assuming a reasonable pace no slower than 7 min / mile. Slower than that is not useful training for Olympic events. Our top runner was a 13:30 5k and 29:20 10k at 70-80 miles per week. Ultras are a different beast entirely, as its more of a "survival" test of muscles, ligaments, and bones than that of sustained running performance--even top ultramarathoners will walk during races. Ultras are about physiological limits of our bodies to handle stress; the 2-hour marathon is about the physiological limits of running.
- ErikAugust 9y ago"Slower than that is not useful training for Olympic events." Lydiard-ians would disagree - at least for a base phase. But I will agree that if you are running even 7min/miles for your easy and recovery runs, many get injured at 100 miles a week. Many do. And that disrupts their development in the worst way possible! Interesting article on that: http://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/ http://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked... But sure, I also agree - ultras versus marathons are different types of limits. Or mountain races versus marathons versus something like an ultra like Badwater.
- juli1pb 9y agoI agreed with your argumentation... until you linked letsrun :)
- ErikAugust 9y agoHahha oh come on - Weldon makes a strong case.
- tedmc 9y agoSure, experience is a factor (and GMA helps with this), but training when you're tired, but need to, when you don't want to, or when you're sore from the speedwork or doing a b2b run takes self control. Not putting the wrong things in your mouth, takes self control. In a race, it takes self control to not go out too fast, to eat when nothing looks appetizing, and to keep moving when aid stations look like bombs went off from all the people laying down. Badwater is (more) brutal now that it has a night start, and experience only counts for so much...
- runamok 9y ago100 miles a week will tax the bio-mechanics of most people in the first world. Granted doing those 100 miles at 10 min/mile is far, far easier than doing it at 6:00 to 7:00 pace. And doing lots of LSD (long slow distance) DOES have proven physiological effects. But please don't treat 100 mile weeks as some trivial task. I have been running for > 25 years and have run from a 4:40 mile to a 2:44 marathon and 1:15 half and my max week was 84. I was doing consistent 70 mile weeks in college for a while and finally couldn't continue due to injury. I do agree with your core point that most people have no idea what their true limits are. I have seen friends who hated to lose pass out at the finish line of a race. I find I don't even improve until I hit about 40 miles a week with at least one LT run of 4 to 6 miles and a >= 13 mile long run. That only takes about 4 to 5 hours a week (not including extra showers, drives to runs, necessary strength work, etc.) I guarantee most spend far more than that on Netflix et al. P.S. Congrats on your race!