Welcome back to Elevation Trail. On this week’s episode of the FM Show, Matt and I discuss his first 50k. Find out if Matt’s nipples made it to the finish. We also talk about the insanely deep field of runners at Lake Sonoma 50 mile coming up this weekend and give our uneducated predictions. Of, course, 5 mins after I edited the show, Leor Pantilat wrote me back saying he won’t be in LS50 due to a slight injury. We look forward to your comments and feedback!
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So you got the benefit of immediate confirmation of how poor your prediction was.
Runs one 50k and now he’s a big shot.
Whatever you say, FF. Oh, and Cameron Clayton, now with Salomon (fyi), will be Miguel’s domestique for the day. You’re on fire.
I mean: Miguel es en fuego!
The only thing on fire will be Clayton’s cheap Salomon shoes. There are teams that grow good runners and then there are those that buy them. Salomon’s army of 800 sponsored runners doesn’t impress me anymore. “He won a race? Oh, my God, go give him some shoes and ill-fitting shirt! He’s on our team!” Whatever.
Note: I have a dry sense of humor that is usually taken the wrong way (typically my fault). Salomon’s team is impressive and I admire them. There’s your disclaimer for the day. PS. I still think their clothes fit weird.
Matt, congrats on finishing your first 50k! Looking forward to getting in another run with you. Have you signed up or thought about what your next race will be?
And congrats to everyone that raced, finished, and PR’d at their races over the weekend.
As far as Sonoma goes, I’m hoping that the front runners go out hard and whoever doesn’t blow up gets their spot on the podium.
I love my Salomon shirt. It’s probably the only running shirt I have that fits properly.
I agree on your sonoma hopes – run hard and hang on. And stop calling people on your cell phone in races, Tan.
Tan, thanks. I’ll run a couple this summer. Looking forward to running with you next week.
Congrats on your weekend run!
How has LS become so popular and competitive, other than Tropical John being involved?
That’s a good question. Certainly, the RD is a factor, drawing a certain ultra celebrity contingent; but other factors have to include recent history, location (bay area, tough course), distance and timing (nice build-up for summer 100 racing). Good wine and beer nearby, perhaps.
The development of a significant event amongst that culture’s participants is no doubt an interesting topic.
Thanks Matt. Agreed on all those points, but w/o a prize purse or major sponsor, I still feel like I’m missing something about the race that makes it so attractive that Heras is coming, for example.
My votes for Devon to place in top 3 for women; she doesn’t seem to race unless she’s fully committed to a podium finish.
The way it seems to work is the RD invites certain folks to run and most of the top folks really enjoy the chance to race against other elites, since it’s not terribly common in all ultras, so it’s like a wave, “He’s running it and she’s running it?! I need to race them!” That’s sort of what we see with the tide of elite competition flowing over to chuckanut instead of way too cool. Krissy invites top people and they (most of them) love racing with top competition. Elites run races for different reasons than we normal folks. As we see in the ultra survey we’ve been discussing, almost no one chooses races for competition (location and ease of getting to it). I know personally through “elite” friends that they thrive on racing strong competition. Plus, LS 50 is a perfect set up for Western States.
“we normal folks”…nice try.
You know what’s really weird is the word weird. What ever happened to ‘i before e, except after c’?
Heras is going to need all the EPO he can get from his brother if he’s going to hang in this one.
Shamefully w[c]eird comment, Brett. All ultrarunners are clean.
Well I was trying to be funny – meaning King and Sage will giveHeras a run for his money. But you do realize several ultra runners have been busted for doping don’t you? Doping of African runners will especially continue to be a growing story the next 1-2 years.
Matt, I don’t even know what to make of that vomit.
Brett, STFUP.
I was still running while on the phone, if that makes a difference. And people chat during races. Same thing.
There aren’t any banned substances in ultras are there? Dope away.
Only illegal if the race is sanctioned by like the usatf
I’m calling you when I’m on top of hope pass at Leadville.
Brett, that’s not funny or smart. Sorry to break it to you. We welcome fireworks, but fire-off a little more of that brain power. Heras and his bro: tired. And thanks for the update on drugs in ultra. My vomit? Again (and I refer to the top of this site that FF and I conceptualized), STFUP.
Yea, yawn.
Congrats Matt!
Thanks, bud.
For the record, I’ve got to clarify something we brought-up in the podcast regarding the men’s field: Tim Olson could actually make a big statement here. I think he might be of the longer legs at this point (the fact that he was closing pretty hard on Sage in New Zealand and his 100 mile prowess kinda illustrates this), but tis the season to build for the June fireworks and he has a victory to defend in Squaw Valley. So, who knows how the training’s been going or his health, but given his strong finish at the NZ 100k and his chances to back-up the game-changing performance at WS100 in June, Olson could just dominate the lake.