First off...I've been MIA for the past two months. I do budget for the government (insert shutdown joke here) so I've been swamped with end of year close-out and start-up.
Anyway, I stumbled across this from a few "cross-fitters" at my work and remembered we had a heated conversation about it a few months ago. The World's Toughest Mudder is the world series of Tough Mudders you could say. It is a 24 hour Tough Mudder every November. The goal is to complete the course (approximately 10ish miles) as many times as possible in the 24 hours. You can go over 24 hours but you have to start a new lap prior to the 24 hour mark. The kicker here is the cash prizes. $10,000 for first male, female, and $12,000 for team (there are also 2nd and 3rd place in each category cash prizes).
The winner last year did 9 laps in 25:21. I checked the guys blog and he has run a 2:37 marathon but never run ultra races (he did a 30 miler in training). Even better...the best team (of 4) only completed 6 laps in the time allowed.
So on to the question/debate...do you think a group of solid 100 mile runners (20-24 hour 100 mile times) could compete and win this thing?
I would think minimal "obstacle" training would be required in addition to regular 100 miler training. Seems like pretty legit cash prizes. I think I could get a few ultra-friends and cash that 12,000 check. 100K in 24 hours seems doable.
http://toughmudder.com/worlds-toughest-mudder-series-finals/
Hmmm. That is an interesting question. I have no idea.
LB2
Refurbished Hip
I think Kelly should do it. He loves these things.
Running is dumb.
Uh oh... now what?
I think the Kenyans would dominate it if only there were sufficient prize money.
rgot
Occasional Runner
Not a chance in hell...
Le professeur de trail
Didn't you say that about running Boston too???
My favorite day of the week is RUNday
Kelly, I think the 10,000 prize money would be worth it. With your skills you would easily beat the 90 miles the winner did in 25:21.
I wasn't as affirmative about Boston. I just sorta waved it off. But you need to remember this...nothing I do or say within 48 hours of finishing a hard race can be held against me in the future.
How about a 666 mile Spartan thing?
https://www.facebook.com/spartanrace/posts/10151674609076861
2/17/24 - Forgotten Florida 100 Mile, Christmas, FL
I need someone to go with me to remove a tree from the road in the park.
Rain is horizontal, wind is steady at 37, gusts to mach 2... not an
organized event. It is a government (state) tree.
I need someone to go with me to remove a tree from the road in the park. Rain is horizontal, wind is steady at 37, gusts to mach 2... not an organized event. It is a government (state) tree.
Up here, we just let the wind blow all the trees down, THEN the crew - if any - go out and remove the downed trees at one time. Sometimes the trail angels get to them before the official crew does. Actually, state parks has no winter trail crew and borough has a couple people, but spread across an area the size of state of West Virginia. Our popular trails tend to be near town and are sufficiently heavily used, that people will report the downed trees and officials will remove them after the wind stops. A couple years ago, I think there were 30 downed trees after one storm - on about 10 miles of trails.
Oh, I just realized you said "road" in the park. We don't have any of those. State Parks have some, but some of those roads are maintained by Dept of Transportation and much is in shrublands or higher.
We have a severe shortage of resources (labor is only one thing) for the extent of land up here. The feds are the only ones that are close to having some manpower, and most of that may be in national parks.
John, if your local trail users don't thank you for all you do, I say "Thank You" - not fun going out in that weather, esp. with chain saw. And your trees are bigger than ours.
I think how well an ultra runner would do would depend on the number of obstacles and distance between as well as strength and skill sets involved. I think I saw something recently (last 6 months) where one of the series (not sure if Tough Mudder or Spartan) was looking at shorter race distances with more obstacles, so the runners wouldn't have an advantage.
One of the extremely fit guys (not just running) from up here showed up at Virginia Super and won it with no prior entries in Spartan Races. His brother bought him an entry, so he did it. He didn't do that well in the Vermont race, but just finished something down in Mexico. Both he and his wife have been doing reasonably well in them. I think Ben Nephew did the Vermont race also.
Since this is a 24 hour event I don't think the obstacles would make that much of a difference. 9 Laps (90 miles) was what the winner did last year (6 laps 60 miles for the 1st team). Even if there are 10 obstacles each loop, it makes up a very small distance portion of the 10 miles. You still need to run/walk the distance over the 24 hours and that is where I think an ultra runners strength would come in.
I know many of us are against these types of runs (myself included) but I don't think I'd be able to pass us the 10K prize money (12K for a team). I would think Kelly would dominate at this...worst case him and a 3 buddies would eclipse the 60 miles that the first place team did last year and win the 12K.
I think how well an ultra runner would do would depend on the number of obstacles and distance between as well as strength and skill sets involved. I think I saw something recently (last 6 months) where one of the series (not sure if Tough Mudder or Spartan) was looking at shorter race distances with more obstacles, so the runners wouldn't have an advantage. One of the extremely fit guys (not just running) from up here showed up at Virginia Super and won it with no prior entries in Spartan Races. His brother bought him an entry, so he did it. He didn't do that well in the Vermont race, but just finished something down in Mexico. Both he and his wife have been doing reasonably well in them. I think Ben Nephew did the Vermont race also.
Faster Than Your Couch!
Despite the respectable distance, I think the obstacles would throw an ultra runner off. The obstacles require a lot of strength in a short time, which is not exactly what ultra running does. Ultra runners try to run efficiently, while obstacles destroy that plan. On top of this, I'd think upper body and arm strength both are needed for the obstacles, which is not what ultra runners (usually) work out for.
Maybe a triathlete would have good chances?
It does not surprise me that the guy who won the race could run 90 miles in 24 hours with no significant distance running experience. In my training for the OC100, I never ran more than marathon distance, hardly any B2B's, just a lot of quality miles (hard effort on tough terrain) every week, pretty consistently. I had the experience with long runs, though, from previous training cycles for other ultras.
The obstacles provide breaks from running, so I can imagine that many of the issues of ultra running (nausea, GI trouble, blisters) don't play as much a role as in 100-mile ultramarathon runs.
Run for fun.
Junyong Pak, the man who won in 2011 and 2012, effectively IS an ultrarunner, and you won't ever be able to convince me he isn't.
Here's an article from Men's Fitness about his training. http://www.mensfitness.com/training/endurance/train-like-the-worlds-toughest-mudder
But better, a blog post about his training from HIM:https://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&¬e_id=10150462199448089