The World's Toughest Footrace?

RoyNeary

The World's toughest footrace
There seems to be quite a few races claiming this title including the Marathon DES Sables and Badwater ultra. Is it a matter of opinion or are they equally as tough?
Anyone here done both of them?

RodSteel

I somehow doubt the marathon des sables is the toughest. A distant relation of mine did it a couple of years ago. He was 2 stone overweight and his times for various distances were mediocre to poor.
It is the type of race that you can run/walk to complete it so I dont see it as an athletic achievement.
It's an event some people can do who don't have to have high standard of athleticism and slog it out in the heat for 5 days.
Some people claim its the toughest, I cant see how.
Dont get me wrong I have no personal experience of it and I certainly would not do it for love or money, whatever floats you boat though

d-sher

Check out the Barkley Ultra Marathon as the toughest foot race on earth...

http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/

Damn it looks inviting! Damn you and your thread RoyNeary

Im probably a few years away from this at the moment but DAMN!!

thirtyfoot

Has to be The Man Killer. Held in various places but follows the same rules roughly in each one. Think the last big one was in Spain recently and two Welshmen were first and second.

sarsfieldsrock

Read about that in the book "Running Through The Wall, Personal Encounters with the Ultramarathon".
100 miles with a 60hr cutoff doesn't sound too bad. But with 54000 feet up and down over it.
To be honest it sounded almost impossible and the fact that only 9 people have completed it out of almost 1000 attempts over the years would make it pointless to me.
What is the point in attempting something impossible? This is not a race in the proper sense is it?

d-sher

sarsfieldsrock wrote: »

To be honest it sounded almost impossible and the fact that only 9 people have completed it out of almost 1000 attempts over the years would make it pointless to me.
What is the point in attempting something impossible? This is not a race in the proper sense is it?

Simply because it is exactly that - Almost Impossible

And also for the very slim possibility to belong to a very small but privileged group of Nut Jobs...

sarsfieldsrock

d-sher wrote: »

Simply because it is exactly that - Almost Impossible

And also for the very slim possibility to belong to a very small but privileged group of Nut Jobs...

But a race is against other competitors. You win by beating them.
The Barkley is more like the Bob Graham round where you have to get a certain distance, get pages from books, within a certain time.
You don't mind races with time limits but usually the time limit is to prevent unrealistic expectations.

d-sher

yeah you have a point alright but from what I have read about the barkley, I would consider the race to be a race against the 60hr cut off...
For me personally, beating the clock in something like the Barkley would be the huge win as apposed to beating other competitors. You win by completing it.

Enduro

How about this

TFBubendorfer

As some have pointed out, things like the Barkley are not really races in the usual sense of the word.

It's a subjective thing, of course. HardRock 100 is generally thought of as the toughest "proper" 100 mile trail race in the states. Badwater could make the claim for a road roace. It obviously depends on the runner. If you don't work well in heat, Badwater will be worse. If, on the other hand, you struggle at altitude, HardRock may well be harder.

If you move away from "running" races to adventure races, well, you can move up another level in toughness, as Enduro undoubtedly can testify.

RoyMcC

Some good contenders above. However I love the story of the Bunion Derby held in 1928 from Los Angeles to New York; promoted as a commercial event by CC Pyle it was won by Oklahoman Andy Payne. 3,422 miles in 573 hours.

shels4ever

I'd have to say the 800m

ocnoc

Enduro... you have one sick sadistic view on life