Five Steps to Becoming an Ultrarunner

1.  DENIAL -- It's easy to pretend that life ends at 26.2 miles.  
How often do you see articles on ultramarathons in the mainstream
running publications?  You've heard of great runners like Shorter,
Barrios, Salazar, but do you know who won the Western States 100?
What do you mean you never heard of the Western States 100?

2.  RIDICULE -- Anyone who would run 50 or 100 miles is missing a few
screws.  It's bad enough at sea level, but then they do it up and down 
Pike's Peak.*  Then they have races like the Badwater 146 from Death 
Valley (-282 ft, 125 F) to Mt. Whitney (14,494 ft, below freezing).  
But even that isn't hard enough, so they add an out-and-back version.  
And what kind of lunatic would dream up the Sri Chinmoy race, 2700 laps
around a one-mile loop with a 62 day time limit?**  If you have 
half a mind to run ultras, you're over-qualified.

3.  ANGER -- There's NO way in HELL you'll ever get me to run an
ultra!  After my last marathon, I hurt for weeks.  I couldn't
have run another mile if my life depended on it.  In fact, that's
what I said about marathons after my first 5K.

4.  JUSTIFICATION -- Big deal.  They run so slow, anyone could run 
an ultra if they wanted to.  Just look at V. Churro, the Tarahumara
indian from Mexico who won the Leadville 100 last year in 20:04.***
That's over 12 minutes per mile.  What a wimp!  And he beat 300 
other runners, half of whom missed the 30 hour cutoff.  That's 
18:00/mile.  My grandmother could WALK faster than that.****  (Never 
mind that Leadville has 16,000 feet of climbing at 9200-12,600 ft. 
altitude).

5.  ACCEPTANCE -- Now that Salazar became the first American to win 
the Comrades Marathon (that's 12,000 runners going 54 miles), maybe 
we'll see a paragraph or two in Runner's World.  Hmm... you say they 
have hamburgers and beer at the aid stations?  Just how do you train 
for one of these?

* The inaugural Pikes Peak quadruple marathon was held June 4.  
Runners were supplied with instep crampons and ice axes for each 
of the four ascents to the snow-covered peak.

** Starts Sept. 4 in Wards Island NY.  Fun runs of 700, 1000, and
1300 miles are also available.  See race calendar for details.

*** Churro wore home-made sandals cut from old tires, as did other 
Tarahumaras who finished second and fifth.

**** And so could Helen Klein, who ran 102 miles in a 24 hour track run,
setting a world record for 70-74 women.  Now don't you feel ashamed?