Ultra Discussion Thread

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

I think you need to re-read what the 24 A and B standards are. They are standards for funding athletes who compete at the world champs. In simpler terms, they determine how much cash the IAU will hand over to the NGB to financially assist the NGB in sending athletes to the championship. They are NOT international qualifications standards.

However in Ireland we have chosen to use the B standards as our own qualification standards. The idea behind this is that (1) it has some meaning and relevance as an international standard, even if it isn't an actual qualification standard in and of itself and (2) they happen to be set at a level that would seem to suit Irish ultrarunning well.

Before they were brought in there was no standard. We now have a well defined standard which is broadly known, and gives anyone interested a target to aim for. Unfortunately ultrarunning tends to attract a lot of people who think they just need to turn up and they'll be handed and Irish vest.

It would seem that the standard is set at a pretty good level. We've yet to face an issue of having more people qualified than there are places on the team, but we are still have some athletes who can achieve the standard. So it would seem that the standard on the ground in reality is less soft than the current olympic marathon standard, from a usefulness point of view in an Irish context.

Or the marathon attracts a significant proportion of distance running talent, while 24 hour running certainly does not.

It's very hard to argue that this B standard target is anything but soft. Assuming the 24h record is of the same level as 8.90m for the long jump (which it most certainly is not), this results in the B standard equating to 6.44m, which would not come close to qualifying you for an Olympic Games in the WOMEN's long jump, not to mention the men's. Adjust for the fact that the depth in long jumping is far stronger than 24h running (a common sense assumption) and the equivalent mark drops down closer to 6 metres. Imagine if you only had to jump not far over 6 metres as a man to make it to a major championships.

Enduro

RacoonQueen wrote: »

I'm not sure what that proves Thomas? Other than not many Irish women / talented women / fast women target 24 hour / ultra running. There are dozens of Irish women who would have the ability to do well (by Irish standards) in ultramarathons (based on their marathon times) but they wouldn't touch ultras.

The fact you don't even have to hit the B-standard to get selected is even worse. If people aren't up to standard, they shouldn't be sent to world champs!

Ruthann has twice exceeded 200km and then some
http://www.ultrarunning.ie/live/records/

What are the A standards?

See that bit in bold! that's where you reasoning is completely and utterly out of whack. A 24 hour race isn't just a bit longer than a marathon. It isn't just a multiple of a marathon. It is an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer than the marathon. How you can think someone's marathon time is in any way relevant is bizarre to me. Do you think that we should judge how many Irish people could qualify for the 1500m by looking at how many Irish people can qualify for the 200m?

ultrapercy

Chivito550 wrote: »

Or the marathon attracts a significant proportion of distance running talent, while 24 hour running certainly does not.

It's very hard to argue that this B standard target is anything but soft. Assuming the 24h record is of the same level as 8.90m for the long jump (which it most certainly is not), this results in the B standard equating to 6.44m, which would not come close to qualifying you for an Olympic Games in the WOMEN's long jump, not to mention the men's. Adjust for the fact that the depth in long jumping is far stronger than 24h running (a common sense assumption) and the equivalent mark drops down closer to 6 metres. Imagine if you only had to jump not far over 6 metres as a man to make it to a major championships.

While your point may be valid your comparisons are daft. What you are doing is comparing a 50 year old long jump to a retired ultra runners world record to establish the qualifying standard for present day 24 hour champs. Why not use fly fishing or snooker because they are closer in that they are not Olympic sports either. Month pythons method of determining a witch makes more sense.

Chivito550

ultrapercy wrote: »

While your point may be valid your comparisons are daft. What you are doing is comparing a 50 year old long jump to a retired ultra runners world record to establish the qualifying standard for present day 24 hour champs. Why not use fly fishing or snooker because they are closer in that they are not Olympic sports either. Month pythons method of determining a witch makes more sense.

No, I am using Bob Beamon simply because Enduro compared Kouros to Beamon in terms of being an outlier. In my earlier post (which you may have missed) I mentioned that never in history has such a low mark qualified a male long jumper for the Olympics, so I'm not just talking about the modern day. I could take Mike Powell's 8.95m if you prefer?

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

See that bit in bold! that's where you reasoning is completely and utterly out of whack. A 24 hour race isn't just a bit longer than a marathon. It isn't just a multiple of a marathon. It is an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer than the marathon. How you can think someone's marathon time is in any way relevant is bizarre to me. Do you think that we should judge how many Irish people could qualify for the 1500m by looking at how many Irish people can qualify for the 200m?

It doesn't quite work like that though. Both the 200m and 1500m are Olympic events. An athlete will gravitate to the one that suits them best, knowing that they have an opportunity to reach the pinnacle in either.

Only one of the marathon and 24h running is an Olympic event. Athletes may gravitate to what they are better at, but in this instance there is the added extra incentive to target the marathon as there is the carrot of Olympic representation on the line. So anybody capable of running around 2:20 or better will not bother with 24 hour running.

ultrapercy

Chivito550 wrote: »

No, I am using Bob Beamon simply because Enduro compared Kouros to Beamon in terms of being an outlier. In my earlier post (which you may have missed) I mentioned that never in history has such a low mark qualified a male long jumper for the Olympics, so I'm not just talking about the modern day. I could take Mike Powell's 8.95m if you prefer?

He didn't use it as a literal comparison though, it was a figurative comparison because both records seemed so out there in terms of achievability and duration. There is no way to construct any kind of comparison calculator from the 2 but in fairness your giving it a good go. I can see it now the Chivito calculator, key in your highest break in snooker to find out what time you can run for a marathon.

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

Or the marathon attracts a significant proportion of distance running talent, while 24 hour running certainly does not.

Again, you seem to be operating on the assumption that a race which is AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer should attract the same people. Again, try and apply this logical meltdown to shorter distances and see how it sounds.

It would be utterly utterly bizarre if 24 hour running was drawing from the same top level talent pool as marathon running.

Chivito550 wrote: »

It's very hard to argue that this B standard target is anything but soft. Assuming the 24h record is of the same level as 8.90m for the long jump (which it most certainly is not), this results in the B standard equating to 6.44m, which would not come close to qualifying you for an Olympic Games in the WOMEN's long jump, not to mention the men's. Adjust for the fact that the depth in long jumping is far stronger than 24h running (a common sense assumption) and the equivalent mark drops down closer to 6 metres. Imagine if you only had to jump not far over 6 metres as a man to make it to a major championships.

Try to take this in again:

(1) it is not an international qualification standard. It is an Irish standard.

(2) It appears to nicely balanced, as it is doing an effective job of doing what it is intended to do.

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

Again, you seem to be operating on the assumption that a race which is AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer should attract the same people. Again, try and apply this logical meltdown to shorter distances and see how it sounds.

It would be utterly utterly bizarre if 24 hour running was drawing from the same top level talent pool as marathon running.



Try to take this in again:

(1) it is not an international qualification standard. It is an Irish standard.

(2) It appears to nicely balanced, as it is doing an effective job of doing what it is intended to do.

It's irrelevant whether it is an Irish standard or not. The bottom line is that people get to represent Ireland in international competition with this relatively soft mark.

Dig up the results from the last World 24h, and the last Olympic Marathon. Take 10th place in each for example, and work out the percentage of the 10th place time back to the winner, and notice the difference. That will tell you all you need to know about the relative depth of each event.

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

Only one of the marathon and 24h running is an Olympic event. Athletes may gravitate to what they are better at, but in this instance there is the added extra incentive to target the marathon as there is the carrot of Olympic representation on the line. So anybody capable of running around 2:20 or better will not bother with 24 hour running.

If they can run 2:20 or better then the probability is they won't be particularly brilliant at 24 hours, for the same reason they won't be particulary brilliant at 1500m. Sure they'll be better than average, but they are unlikely to be better than people who's natural talent is at the distances which differ by a full order of magnitude.

Would a sub 10 second sprinter be the be a top marathoner runner if he ran one? Presumably, at minumum he would find the marathon qualification times to be soft? (This is your logic moved down distances).

Chivito550

ultrapercy wrote: »

He didn't use it as a literal comparison though, it was a figurative comparison because both records seemed so out there in terms of achievability and duration. There is no way to construct any kind of comparison calculator from the 2 but in fairness your giving it a good go. I can see it now the Chivito calculator, key in your highest break in snooker to find out what time you can run for a marathon.

You are being ridiculous. Both the long jump and 24h are won by a measure of distance in metres. Each person thereafter has completed a certain % of the winners distance. So it actually is quite a simple and reasonable comparison, which highlights the level of strength (or lack there of) in 24h running.

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

You are being ridiculous. Both the long jump and 24h are won by a measure of distance in metres. Each person thereafter has completed a certain % of the winners distance. So it actually is quite a simple and reasonable comparison, which highlights the level of strength (or lack there of) in 24h running.

No it doesn't. It highlights the performance of everyone else to the performance of one person (the winner). That measure is easily thrown off by having one outlier as the winner. That's just extremely basic remedial level statistics.

Enduro

Djoucer wrote: »

Looks like Scott Jurek et al have decided to give the Wicklow Round a miss this time round.

Oh man, I'm really looking forward to one these guys give the round a go. I just hope they do it one a weekend (and on a weekend when I'm not travelling!), so that we can get out and see them in action.

RacoonQueen

Enduro wrote: »

See that bit in bold! that's where you reasoning is completely and utterly out of whack. A 24 hour race isn't just a bit longer than a marathon. It isn't just a multiple of a marathon. It is an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer than the marathon. How you can think someone's marathon time is in any way relevant is bizarre to me. Do you think that we should judge how many Irish people could qualify for the 1500m by looking at how many Irish people can qualify for the 200m?

I was specifying in ultramarathons in general in that (you know the word just before the part you've nitpicked on), not in a 24 hour race. For example, we do not in anyway have our best 50k runners running 50k races and other races of shorter duration than 24 hours, to suggest otherwise is delusional.

Enduro

RacoonQueen wrote: »

I was specifying in ultramarathons in general in that (you know the word just before the part you've nitpicked on), not in a 24 hour race. For example, we do not in anyway have our best 50k runners running 50k races and other races of shorter duration than 24 hours, to suggest otherwise is delusional.

I'll agree on the 50km bit, as its almost exactly the same distance as the marathon (In fact I'd argue that 50km should really be classified out of being an ultra, and just call the damn thing the metric marathon! It's kind of an orphaned distance).

For 100km or 24 hours, well that's just rubbish. You could equally argue that we don't have our best runners at any athletics distance because the best athletes in the country end up in various GAA/Hurling/Soccer/Rugby... to suggest otherwise would be delusional.

The only way we can know who is best at ANY athletics distance is by judging based on who turns up to compete.

ThebitterLemon

Enduro wrote: »

See that bit in bold! that's where you reasoning is completely and utterly out of whack. A 24 hour race isn't just a bit longer than a marathon. It isn't just a multiple of a marathon. It is an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE longer than the marathon. How you can think someone's marathon time is in any way relevant is bizarre to me. Do you think that we should judge how many Irish people could qualify for the 1500m by looking at how many Irish people can qualify for the 200m?

But my understanding is that the training for a marathon and ultras isn't radically different, sure, longer and maybe back to backs but not fundamentally different.

I know NOTHING about sprinting but I would have assumed that training for 100m is radically different to training for 5000m or even 1500m?

By the way I agree with your point directionally I just think your explanation is too narrow focused.

For me cast iron mental toughness or plain auld "thickness" is a vital attribute to be an ultra runner.

I know many people that I'd beat handily at the marathon but they'd leave me for dead on anything "ultra" and off not too dissimilar training blocks.

You must be as thick as a plank Enduro

TbL

Chivito550

A quick study to compare the relative strength of World marathon running with World 100km running.

Men's 2014 World 100km Championships (Results seem to not be available for 2015)

Winning time = 6:27:43
10th Place = 6:55:31 (7.1% slower)
25th Place = 7:18:07 (13.0% slower)

2012 Men's Olympic Marathon

Winning time = 2:08:01
10th Place = 2:12:45 (3.7% slower)
25th Place = 2:16:25 (6.6% slower)

The gap between the percentage differences gets wider and wider as you go further down the list. It is obvious that the level of depth is poor.

The men's 400m was won in 43.4 in Beijing last year. 24 athletes make the semi final. To make it into the last 24 in the world a low 45 was required. Now lets take the 13% differential for 25th place from the World 100km above and apply it to 43.4 and it gives us 49.0. Imagine running 49.0 and just missing out on the world top 24. Wouldn't happen. In fact it would struggle to beat Allyson Felix for gold in the women's.

davedanon

Enduro wrote: »

You could equally argue that we don't have our best runners at any athletics distance because the best athletes in the country end up in various GAA/Hurling/Soccer/Rugby... to suggest otherwise would be delusional.

Actually. That is the case. Athletics is a niche sport, and it's a 'lonely' pursuit, compared to soccer, GAA, rugby, so it's very much the case.

And ultra is a niche sport within athletics, so....

Krusty_Clown

Chivito550 wrote: »

A quick study to compare the relative strength of World marathon running with World 24 hour running.

Men's 2014 World 24H Championships (Results seem to not be available for 2015)

Winning time = 6:27:43
10th Place = 6:55:31 (7.1% slower)
25th Place = 7:18:07 (13.0% slower)

2012 Men's Olympic Marathon

Winning time = 2:08:01
10th Place = 2:12:45 (3.7% slower)
25th Place = 2:16:25 (6.6% slower)

The gap between the percentage differences gets wider and wider as you go further down the list. It is obvious that the level of depth is poor.

I'm not entirely sure if it's so black and white when you get to those extremely long distances. Perhaps it's not relevant to perform a comparative place/time analysis. A marathon is to all intents and purposes, just a long road race. A 24 hour race (I'd imagine), has a lot of other variables, that could impact one's time relative to the winner. In other words you may not have the same linear pattern of 'decay' in a 24 hour race, as you would have in a marathon.

Interestingly, the IAAF scoring tables do include an ultra distance event - the 100km. Is 100km an ultra distance that is frequently run/raced?

runnter

Enduro. I hear you are doing Spartathlon this year. I assume if you are a world class ultra runner you will finish within 5-10% of the winner at worst. At the very least you will be ahead of the 1st female no? Best of luck with it.

Chivito550

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure if it's so black and white when you get to those extremely long distances. Perhaps it's not relevant to perform a comparative place/time analysis. A marathon is to all intents and purposes, just a long road race. A 24 hour race (I'd imagine), has a lot of other variables, that could impact one's time relative to the winner. In other words you may not have the same linear pattern of 'decay' in a 24 hour race, as you would have in a marathon.

Interestingly, the IAAF scoring tables do include an ultra distance event - the 100km. Is 100km an ultra distance that is frequently run/raced?

That's actually 100km I used to compare against the marathon. I just typed 24h as I must have 24h on the brain after this discussion. Will edit now.

Enduro

davedanon wrote: »

Actually. That is the case. Athletics is a niche sport, and it's a 'lonely' pursuit, compared to soccer, GAA, rugby, so it's very much the case.

And ultra is a niche sport within athletics, so....

To be clear, I completely agree. I'm just trying to point out to the deluded who seem to think that this only applies to ultras and couldn't possibly apply to any events in the Olympics.

Enduro

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

But my understanding is that the training for a marathon and ultras isn't radically different, sure, longer and maybe back to backs but not fundamentally different.

There's no real received wisdom on it, or standard way of training for ultras. I've heard lots of wild variations, even amongst the top end guys. My own personal opinion is that all running training is fundamentally quite similar, but to be good at a specific distance then there is likely to be a way to optimise your training for that distance, whether it be 100m or 6 days or anywhere in between. Things get trickier for a lot of people when you move beyond the marathon because a lot of the conventional advice doesn't scale well to edurance ultras in particular.

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

I know NOTHING about sprinting but I would have assumed that training for 100m is radically different to training for 5000m or even 1500m?

yeah, it's crossing a division between sprinting and middle distance. From my experience (And it would seem from the experience of everyone else who has actually done it on this thread) it seems like there is a similar division to be crossed somewhere between marathons and 24 hours (And my own opinion is that it is generally somewhere after 100km).

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

By the way I agree with your point directionally I just think your explanation is too narrow focused.

For me cast iron mental toughness or plain auld "thickness" is a vital attribute to be an ultra runner.

I know many people that I'd beat handily at the marathon but they'd leave me for dead on anything "ultra" and off not too dissimilar training blocks.

You must be as thick as a plank Enduro

TbL

Thanks very much!

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

There's no real received wisdom on it, or standard way of training for ultras. I've heard lots of wild variations, even amongst the top end guys. My own personal opinion is that all running training is fundamentally quite similar, but to be good at a specific distance then there is likely to be a way to optimise your training for that distance, whether it be 100m or 6 days or anywhere in between. Things get trickier for a lot of people when you move beyond the marathon because a lot of the conventional advice doesn't scale well to edurance ultras in particular.



yeah, it's crossing a division between sprinting and middle distance. From my experience (And it would seem from the experience of everyone else who has actually done it on this thread) it seems like there is a similar division to be crossed somewhere between marathons and 24 hours (And my own opinion is that it is generally somewhere after 100km).



Thanks very much!

So if you believe this change happens after 100km, then you acknowledge that the marathon and 100km are reasonably similar disciplines. So can you explain the enormous percentage difference for 10th and 25th placers versus the winner in the World 100km and Olympic Marathon (as detailed in a separate post above)?

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

A quick study to compare the relative strength of World marathon running with World 100km running.

Men's 2014 World 100km Championships (Results seem to not be available for 2015)

Winning time = 6:27:43
10th Place = 6:55:31 (7.1% slower)
25th Place = 7:18:07 (13.0% slower)

2012 Men's Olympic Marathon

Winning time = 2:08:01
10th Place = 2:12:45 (3.7% slower)
25th Place = 2:16:25 (6.6% slower)

The gap between the percentage differences gets wider and wider as you go further down the list. It is obvious that the level of depth is poor.

The men's 400m was won in 43.4 in Beijing last year. 24 athletes make the semi final. To make it into the last 24 in the world a low 45 was required. Now lets take the 13% differential for 25th place from the World 100km above and apply it to 43.4 and it gives us 49.0. Imagine running 49.0 and just missing out on the world top 24. Wouldn't happen. In fact it would struggle to beat Allyson Felix for gold in the women's.

(1) I don't disagree with the assertion that the depth of participation (and as a result strenght) of marathon running will be more than 100km. And 100km will be deeper than 24 hours. And 24 hours will be deeper than 6 days. That's perfectly natural.

(2) If you want to find any ultra results/stats DUV is the go-to resource. You would expect the IAU to be the go-to site for international championships, but they couldn't organise a p-up in a brewery, and that is well reflected by the standard of info on their website. 2015 100km WC results are here.

(3) Would you be able to run similar analysis on the 50km walk. Would be interested to see how it compares.

Enduro

runnter wrote: »

Enduro. I hear you are doing Spartathlon this year. I assume if you are a world class ultra runner you will finish within 5-10% of the winner at worst. At the very least you will be ahead of the 1st female no? Best of luck with it.

I couldn't care less what your assumptions are, to be clear. I certainly won't be using makey-upy percentages that some randomer on the internet pulls out of the top of their head (to be kind) to assess whether my race is Spartathlon is "world class" or not.

davedanon

Enduro wrote: »

To be clear, I completely agree. I'm just trying to point out to the deluded who seem to think that this only applies to ultras and couldn't possibly apply to any events in the Olympics.

Ok, but we weren't talking about Olympic events. We were specifically talking about sport in Ireland, as I recall.

Enduro

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure if it's so black and white when you get to those extremely long distances. Perhaps it's not relevant to perform a comparative place/time analysis. A marathon is to all intents and purposes, just a long road race. A 24 hour race (I'd imagine), has a lot of other variables, that could impact one's time relative to the winner. In other words you may not have the same linear pattern of 'decay' in a 24 hour race, as you would have in a marathon.

In my own case I tend to push up to the "red line" when I'm racing 24 hours, so it's kind of an all or nothing approach. You can't DNF a 24 hours, since you'll be credited with whatever you ran anyway. But probably more than half of the 24 hours I run I count as effective "DNFs", as I basically either got my strategy so wrong that I couldn't finish out the 24 hours, or injury/medical issues caused me to pull out. In those cases I'd still be on the list of finishers with some fairly pathetic looking distances. So you can see from that alone that there can be some significant decay, even from this n=1 sample. And if you watch any 24 hour race you'll probably see that this happens a lot.

In my experience longer ultras are more likely to induce catastophic blow-outs. I can usually finish sub-ultra races with a reasonable time, even on a bad day. That's definitely not the case with Endurance ultras though.

So, with nothing my than my own experience and my observations of others, I'd definitely say you're on to something there!

Enduro

davedanon wrote: »

Ok, but we weren't talking about Olympic events. We were specifically talking about sport in Ireland, as I recall.

I was replying to Chivitos post where he was saying that the best 24 hour runners couldn't be actually running in 24 hour races, as they would instead be attracted to the marathon etc because they are olympic events. He's too myopic to see that the same logic can be applied to any athletics event... why race 100 meters when you could instead race up and down a 100 meter field with a ball earning a fortune and the adulation of half the world!

As I said, I'm in complete agreement with your point. Athletics is a minority sport. The best that can be said about any champion in any athletics event is that they are the best of all the people who they competed against. Whether that's 100 meters, marathon, 24 hours or anything is irrelevant. It's the same.

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

(1) I don't disagree with the assertion that the depth of participation (and as a result strenght) of marathon running will be more than 100km. And 100km will be deeper than 24 hours. And 24 hours will be deeper than 6 days. That's perfectly natural.

(2) If you want to find any ultra results/stats DUV is the go-to resource. You would expect the IAU to be the go-to site for international championships, but they couldn't organise a p-up in a brewery, and that is well reflected by the standard of info on their website. 2015 100km WC results are here.

(3) Would you be able to run similar analysis on the 50km walk. Would be interested to see how it compares.

I picked the 2013 World Championship 50k simply because it is the one Rob Heffernan won:

Winning time: 3:37:56
10th Place: 3:45:18 (3.4% slower)
25th Place: 3:54:24 (7.6% slower)

That pretty much mirrors the results from the 2012 Olympic Marathon but with a slight drop off for the 25th placer. Certainly far more depth than in the 100km, but you’d expect this given the race walk is an Olympic event.

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

So if you believe this change happens after 100km, then you acknowledge that the marathon and 100km are reasonably similar disciplines. So can you explain the enormous percentage difference for 10th and 25th placers versus the winner in the World 100km and Olympic Marathon (as detailed in a separate post above)?

Because marathon has a much bigger number of participants, so the it would be expected, all things being equal, that to take the top 100 (say) of 1000000 runners you would find there is a smaller spread than the top 100 of 10000 runners. One would expect, in general, that to apply to almost any human activity. Much more people race marathons than 100Ks, so of course the depth should be correspondingly deeper.

That's even before any other factors such as the fact there are a large number of marathon runners who are professionals, whereas there are very few, if any, 100km runners who are.

It could be argued that there is likely to be a higher level of PED abuse going on because of the money/career aspect as well. But my own personal view on that is not to discount the level of PED abuse that takes place amongst amatuer racing of all sorts. That's another discussion, but an interesting one.