Crossed online paths with a guy, Malachi O'Brien (https://twitter.com/malachiobrien), who is going for the Guinness consecutive day marathon record, which is 61 for men, although several women have done 106 and other men have claimed non-Guinness certified up to 607. He's a few days short of 61 as I write this.

The marathon attempt is legit and he's documenting it. Most are over 5 hours, but he's doing it. Seems like a lot of guys could have done it, but "could have" and "did" are very different things.

He calls himself a "semi-pro ultramarathon runner". One 50k is the only ultra he's done. A bunch of marathons in a row is certainly more "ultra" than say one 50 miler, but does it deserve the "ultra" moniker? I inquired about the "pro" part and he says he has sponsors, which makes him a pro.

Seems like an upstanding, transparent guy. Don't want to blow him up. Not going to put this on letsrun.

I'm just honestly curious if it's too pedantic to be uncomfortable apply "semi-pro ultramarathon runner" to him.

Why do I care? I don't. Just curious about what y'all think.

I will never be confused as someone who is semi-pro, elite or even good at running. I personally don't consider anything less a 50K as an ultra but if people want to call 26.3 an ultra, more power to them.  I'm actually surprised Dean Karnazes doesn't have this record.  It would seem like it would totally be in his wheel box.

I recently ran the NYC marathon and on the bus ride to the start, I sat with two guys in the 50-54 age group bracket.  They were discussing the abbott world marathon majors portal (six stars).  I found the discussion fastinating as I didn't know anything about the six star process and more so the age group rankings.  They were running majors to improve their age group rankings and the better the ranking, the more likely they would get entry to hard to enter/sold out races like London.  It appears they save spots for these people and give them out based on their rankings.  These people would be what I would describe as semi-elite.  They are elite enough in their age group rankings to earn a status that gets them into something I couldn't get into.

Once I was home from NYC, I of course created my own abbott profile.  My age group ranking was 1,377.  Sadly I don't see any invitations in my future 

I agree that it's a bit misleading, but:

 

(1) He's more legit than someone who has done one 50k, period, and claims to be semi-pro because they're a brand ambassador for Billy Bob's House of Running.

 

(2) People who give themselves titles like that seem to need attention.  Why give it to them?

 

(3) It doesn't affect me in the slightest.

Agree with all that. On (2), this guy has "Dr." twice in his twitter name. His first name for ultrasignup is "Dr". He really really wants you to know he has a doctorate. His doctorate is in "digital marketing & storytelling", btw. I get called "doctor" every day at work but have never once introduced myself as "doctor" or used the "Dr" title unless it was in a context where someone would use "Mr". Seems off-putting.

But, again, the guy seems like a stand-up guy, is legitimately doing what he claims, and is transparent about it. It doesn't affect me at all, I just wonder how others react to it.

It's impressive.  Some people have too much time on their hands.

I enjoy running streaks.  I have a 4 month 10k streak going on right now.  If it gets to the point of injury or me disliking running, then I will stop.

As for the title?  Doesn't matter.  Kind of self promotion,  that fine.  My friends give themselves funny middle names on Strava.  Kind of an inside joke.

Best of luck on your streak. I did "at least a mile a day" for 365 days. Fevers were miserable to run with. Even when it was warm out.