Sunday Times Article on Irish Ultra Running Hitting the Wall: Limited

uvox

Purely FYI:

You may need to register, but worth a read. Quotes from Frank Greally and others you may recognise:

Will Ireland’s ultra runners hit the wall?

The article does conflate a number of different race types and unfortunately doesn't, IMO, do enough to mention the "spiritual" or mental reasons people like to run long distances.

It also, IMO, misses the point that it is exactly because shorter events, including marathons, are now mass participation events that longer runs - ultras, and the running parts of some of the other events mentioned - are becoming popular with both men and women.

Who cares what your time is on a 100 mile run, whether it's 22 hours or 23 really. Did you finish?

Interesting that Pavel Barter also misses calling out glaring issue of the age of participants (old). As I pointed out previously, millennials don't want to know about these organized, expensive-to-enter races of any distance and those goodie bags bereft of craft beer and toasted avocado sandwiches, preferring the non-competitive, social-driven, music and exercise mashup events held by urban running "crews" as London's Midnight Runners, Berlin's Runpack Berlin, etc.

Still, at least it sparks thought and debate.

Oryx

Is there an non login version anywhere?

UM1

Bit of a myrh that ultra running has gained in popularity,going by recent ultra running events
Longford ultra..15 entrants
Achill ultra. Bout 12 (over the 3 days)
Portumna 100k ..20
Portumna 50k..bit more than 20
Donadea 100k .15 entrants
Donadea 50k(july)15
Conn 100 ..19
Conn ultra 39.3 ..lowezt entry in yrs
Vartry.50k/50 mile/100mile ..bout 50 all in
Stone mad ultra ..very few did ultra
Obviously a few outliers like energia 24hrs/don50k but on the whole its the same few people doin races,havent seen a whole lot of millennials or watever the fock dat is,

Tombo2001

Bit of a white elephant as far as debates go.

The big challenge for me is how to take the vast masses of people who do a 5k run or indeed a marathon as a way of keeping fit, and convert that into serious participants in serious competitions.

E.g. the Leinster Senior Cross country attracting less than 50 entrants for both men and women.

That goes whether the serious competition is ultra running, cross country or 400m hurdles.

It annoys me no end that you see all these races being run by soccer clubs, GAA, clubs, charities, schools and the one organisation that seems to get no benefit is the local athletics club.

average_runner

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Bit of a white elephant as far as debates go.

The big challenge for me is how to take the vast masses of people who do a 5k run or indeed a marathon as a way of keeping fit, and convert that into serious participants in serious competitions.

E.g. the Leinster Senior Cross country attracting less than 50 entrants for both men and women.

That goes whether the serious competition is ultra running, cross country or 400m hurdles.

It annoys me no end that you see all these races being run by soccer clubs, GAA, clubs, charities, schools and the one organisation that seems to get no benefit is the local athletics club.

Well maybe there is a lesson to learn from that. Are they doing it better than you or are they getting themselves known better in the community.

Running clubs and community knowing about them seems to be a disease to the clubs!

Enduro

uvox wrote: »

Purely FYI:

You may need to register, but worth a read. Quotes from Frank Greally and others you may recognise:

Will Ireland’s ultra runners hit the wall?

The article does conflate a number of different race types and unfortunately doesn't, IMO, do enough to mention the "spiritual" or mental reasons people like to run long distances.

Jesus H. Christ... so much nonsense gathered in one place its unbelievable. And I'm not talking about the ST article. At least that's got some degree of expertise and coherence in it, despite its flaws.

What the actual feck are you talking about with your "spiritual" reasons "people" like to run long distances? What exactly is spiritual about running 42.3km that is not spiritual about running 42.2km?

uvox wrote: »

It also, IMO, misses the point that it is exactly because shorter events, including marathons, are now mass participation events that longer runs - ultras, and the running parts of some of the other events mentioned - are becoming popular with both men and women.

That entire paragraph is a perfect example of an oxymoron.

uvox wrote: »

Who cares what your time is on a 100 mile run, whether it's 22 hours or 23 really. Did you finish?

I'll tell you who cares: Real runners who actually go out and race, who aim to do the best they can in any given event. Not dilettantes effing about with their boomboxes, prancing about so that they can tell the world that they are now ultrarunners, after crawling around at a pace that a decent power walker would annihilate.

Are you for real? Do you have no idea of the concept of racing? Are you that removed from the basics of running performance?

uvox wrote: »

Interesting that Pavel Barter also misses calling out glaring issue of the age of participants (old). As I pointed out previously, millennials don't want to know about these organized, expensive-to-enter races of any distance and those goodie bags bereft of craft beer and toasted avocado sandwiches, preferring the non-competitive, social-driven, music and exercise mashup events held by urban running "crews" as London's Midnight Runners, Berlin's Runpack Berlin, etc.

Still, at least it sparks thought and debate.

I gotta thank you for that paragraph. I've read a lot of nonsense on boards over the years, but you've got real talent that other would kill for. I was giggling for ages after reading that. Nice one!

Enduro

UM1 wrote: »

Bit of a myrh that ultra running has gained in popularity,going by recent ultra running events
Longford ultra..15 entrants
Achill ultra. Bout 12 (over the 3 days)
Portumna 100k ..20
Portumna 50k..bit more than 20
Donadea 100k .15 entrants
Donadea 50k(july)15
Conn 100 ..19
Conn ultra 39.3 ..lowezt entry in yrs
Vartry.50k/50 mile/100mile ..bout 50 all in
Stone mad ultra ..very few did ultra
Obviously a few outliers like energia 24hrs/don50k but on the whole its the same few people doin races,havent seen a whole lot of millennials or watever the fock dat is,

I'm gonna pull age on you, young fella! It actually has become a lot more popular. When I first got into ultras there was only one ultra in Ireland (which is currently called the Maurice Mullins Ultra), generally with around 20 participants. We've come a long way from there. I think we had nearly 300 entrants for the MMU this year... an order of magnitude in growth for that race alone.

From my POV its good that the most popular races seem to be standard distance events, like 24hours and 50km. Twould be good to get a championship standard 100km going too.

UM1

Enduro wrote: »

I'm gonna pull age on you, young fella! It actually has become a lot more popular. When I first got into ultras there was only one ultra in Ireland (which is currently called the Maurice Mullins Ultra), generally with around 20 participants. We've come a long way from there. I think we had nearly 300 entrants for the MMU this year... an order of magnitude in growth for that race alone.

From my POV its good that the most popular races seem to be standard distance events, like 24hours and 50km. Twould be good to get a championship standard 100km going too.

Forgot about that one bang that one in the outliers with AON also.

ger664

UM1 wrote: »

Bit of a myrh that ultra running has gained in popularity,going by recent ultra running events
Longford ultra..15 entrants
Achill ultra. Bout 12 (over the 3 days)
Portumna 100k ..20
Portumna 50k..bit more than 20
Donadea 100k .15 entrants
Donadea 50k(july)15
Conn 100 ..19
Conn ultra 39.3 ..lowezt entry in yrs
Vartry.50k/50 mile/100mile ..bout 50 all in
Stone mad ultra ..very few did ultra
Obviously a few outliers like energia 24hrs/don50k but on the whole its the same few people doin races,havent seen a whole lot of millennials or watever the fock dat is,

Portumna 50K had 95 Finishers and 100K had 29. 3 DNFs across both races.

jamule

Enduro wrote: »

I'm gonna pull age on you, young fella! It actually has become a lot more popular. When I first got into ultras there was only one ultra in Ireland (which is currently called the Maurice Mullins Ultra), generally with around 20 participants. We've come a long way from there. I think we had nearly 300 entrants for the MMU this year... an order of magnitude in growth for that race alone.

From my POV its good that the most popular races seem to be standard distance events, like 24hours and 50km. Twould be good to get a championship standard 100km going too.

The mention of Maurice Mullins names brings back good memories. We used to have a Maurice maths marathon on a Monday morning in the tech in Balbriggan. Was there anybody else in the country doing ultras back then?

UM1

ger664 wrote: »

Portumna 50K had 95 Finishers and 100K had 29. 3 DNFs across both races.

Im must be blind

nhunter100

ger664 wrote:

Portumna 50K had 95 Finishers and 100K had 29. 3 DNFs across both races.

Tralee 100km 44 finishers out of 53 registered. Youngest finisher 19 years old.

Ed Mc Groarty

Enduro wrote:

Twould be good to get a championship standard 100km going too.

@um1

Would you have any plans for this?
I don't know anything about the work involved but figure you'd be in a good position to host it.

UM1

Ed Mc Groarty wrote: »

@um1

Would you have any plans for this?
I don't know anything about the work involved but figure you'd be in a good position to host it.

Have thought about it and chatted to a few about it,but i dont have the time to organise.was talk of it being in phenix park durin the period when they close chesterfield,but havent heard anything since..plus findin the right time to do it so the winners can go to the the world champs properly rested/trained etc..

Enduro

jamule wrote: »

The mention of Maurice Mullins names brings back good memories. We used to have a Maurice maths marathon on a Monday morning in the tech in Balbriggan. Was there anybody else in the country doing ultras back then?

Back then there was only one ultra, and only one marathon (IIRC) in Ireland! You could literally fit all the people interested in being on the Irish Ultrarunning Union commmittee in a telephone box