Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

  This is totally legit. Let's say you're a Niche Insta Personality, and seemingly out of nowhere, because you have amazing insights into uric scald, you announce that you have attained 150k followers. Of course, you Praise The Universe. Because the Universe is a giver, right? Probably not. There are dead planets and dying stars to infinity. Let's look closer to home. CUE UP THE BONER-KILLERS   This will hurt me more than you, promise . I cut to the chase to save you the heavy lifting. "...In short, a fake Instagram account is one that's not actually run by an individual human being. Some of these accounts are mass-created by people; others are mass-created by bots. Some are used to spam comments, likes, etc., while others are left dormant. Every social media provider is plagued by these fake accounts." [SFX: LAUGHTER] This isn't new. Sitcom laugh tracks for example, which had their origin in radio. Details here :  [SFX: APPLAUSE] Clackers: Hired applaude...

This is not a pipe either Everyone is mystified why modern ultra Bobs & Betties burn out after 3 years. Every new crop of young champions rise, burn brightly, then fall out of the heavens back into darkness, as everyone stares at their phones. Jason Koop has some sharp observations on this. It boils down to race proliferation, #FOMO, social media, and sponsors wanting max exposure.  If you look at Ann Trason’s peak career , or Tim Twietmeyer you’ll see they didn’t race all the time. Or maybe some races didn’t make it into the database. Ultras have changed mightily in thirty years. What used to be low-rent is now high dollar on both ends of the spectrum. We’ve gone from aluminum lawn chairs and a stopwatch to blowup arches and timing chips. Here’s the arc: hot young Bob or Betty wins a name ultra. They become a social-media influencer. Winning is a stoke, kid you not. And they race. And race. The season never stops. Eventually exhaustion sets in. The runner...

You're drunk, fuck off. There's been an upsurge in recent years of running/drinking pairings. First Beer-Miles. Now this one Javelina 100 dip-shit has taken it to a hole-new level. Yeah, I wrote "hole". This is not cute, he is not cute, he's a drunken asshole. And he wants you to know it, as this was wild-posted on Facebook this past weekend. Think about it. Eighteen beers at 33 miles, in daytime temps in the high 90s. A race-director's nightmare. Dumbfuck codes out, and guess who gets sued? Three guesses, first two don't count. You're welcome. Don't say you weren't warned of oncoming attractions.

RD Ken Hamada has made clear that the AC100 is a "man's race". A sufficient number of men and women disagree. The 2016 AC100 is bearing down on us less than 8 weeks out, and there are interesting scenarios building in three areas: procedural, legal, and 2017 entries. The Procedural DIY The Race was recently looking for qualified medical team. This used to be handled by Nick Nudell’s Ultra-Medical Team . Nick had begun to retool his business model to move in a different direction earlier this year .   T he tim ing of Nudell's withdrawal, notification were not known to me at the time of writing. The well-regarded John Emmons stepped up, and that problem has been solved .  When Hamada fired Lambert Timmermans and Jean Ho as Assistant RDs [Oct 2015], he evidently deleted Negative Split Running’s timing service as well. The Race will supposedly be timed from Kenny’s phone w a scanner that will read the chip on the bib.  It's a flying start alrea...

Uplifting Social Media Meme An essential part of learning is finding shit out. Seems pretty obvious, but WTF—its not quite like getting married or invading Iraq. I did my first 50mi 90 days after my first 50k—and had my head handed to me on a plate. I finished, but holy hell. My advice on when and how to do a 50miler is given with this knowledge. Your mileage may vary. Just one of my control issues, but you'll figure your own shit out. Or not. All this is a different order of business than charging people money to run 25 miles per week and drag a tire while telling them its gonna get them to the finish line in an ultra, especially a 100-mile. There are people who do that, and should be flogged. Pinoy fun-hogs running the Hollywood Half with a surfboard and climbing rack, plus the Lunas. Somebody's gotta do it. I'd gotten marathons cold-wired well before I even considered a 50k. My then-training level gave me 3-4 marathons a year. But I was getting ...

A typical bogus candidate profile. [revised Jan 30, 2015] When I first wrote this, I was coming to grips with the staggering number of fake profiles in Facebook Landia applying to the ultrarunning Facebook group. Note lower-case U. Since this, I've become ruthless in dealing with this problem. My first line of inquiry into an ultra-candidate is UltraSignUp.com, a great bullshit detector. And if there's any further doubt, I'll look on RealEndurance.com . Here's the current ABOUT. It's edited down from the original, and still nobody reads it. Too bad. This non-commercial site is about ultrarunning only. This growing group of informed ultrarunners is an excellent knowledge base. Please share your ultrarunning stories, adventures, goals, race reports, and questions. Nothing focuses the mind like a cut-off. Everyone here has passed that simple test. 1] MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS, in effect since April 2013 verified completion of at least one [1] 50k via Ult...

Raymond Chandler needed Scotch to write a dope report. What's holding you back? You're stuck with writing a Race Report that will stun even the most clueless at how fucking Awesome You Really Are.  Here at D&L Industries, we have vast experience in these matters. So go ahead, jump in, and bust a literary nut. You'll be done before lunch.  THE STANDARD NARRATIVE STARTS HERE: I arrived at [race] I met [folks] I ate the big pasta dinner at [locale]  I got up the next morning and took a good long [euphemism]. But this is really not all about you. You're running this to raise awareness for*: a Special Cause a disenfranchised group a donations page astro-turfed altruism #orphaned hash-tags The race began. Things were looking pretty good.  My splits were pretty near the [lotto numbers] I had planned. my iPods weren't in the drop-bags, but I was upbeat At about mile [tbd] I began to  barf blister heat chill hallucinate ...