The Future of Course Records: Part 2

In 2012, I first wrote about the future of ultramarathon course records. Just nine years later several of my predictions came true, including breaking 22:30 at Hardrock, sub 14:30 at Western States, and a sub 5:30 at the JFK 50. At the time, I had in mind the names of runners who I thought could break these records, and while some did, they were ultimately lowered more by someone else. Many of the current records, if mentioned a decade ago, would have been shrugged off as silly impossible notions. However, here we are and in another decade, I believe these times will continue to drop, even more so if lucrative prize money and incentives continue to draw faster talent. And trust me, much faster talent is out there, it just needs the proper financial motivation to venture into ultras. Currently, few would debate that Jim Walmsley is the best all around ultrarunner in the US, and yet his marathon personal best is a 2:15. Maybe on a good day and faster course, Jim runs a 2:13, which is certainly blazing fast, until you consider that recently 40 Japanese runners broke 2:10....all on in the same race on the same day. If you factor in the global running community, you literally have hundreds of runners who are faster marathoners than Jim, which means they mostly all have the potential to break his course records and others. The key word here is potential, which you will see a lot. No, not every 2:10, or even 2:05, marathoner is capable of running fast over 50-100+ miles, or on technical mountain terrain, but it's a great starting point for lowering those times. The reality is all our super fast ultra legends and course records, on an international scale, aren't as great as we thought. Mathematically, if someone can run 5 minutes faster than you for 26.2 miles, then over double the distance, with relatively similar pacing and training, they should be able to double that time gap to 10 minutes. In essence, a 2:10 marathoner has the potential to run 10 minutes faster than Mr. Walmsley over 52.4 miles, or about 9.5 minutes over 50 miles. That means all those sub 2:10 marathoners have the potential of lowering the 50 mile world record of 4:50 to the very minimum 4:41:30. That figure drops closer to 4:30, when you figure in the potential for sub 2:05 marathoners. Now, while this is all cute daydreaming, I do believe if you put the money out there, maybe in the $100,000+ range, or $1M just for fun conversation, I see EVERY ultra record getting destroyed. So, here are my new predictions for what the fastest marathoners on earth have the potential to do if they specifically trained for their ultra course and distance for, let's say, a year, the financial incentive was there, and weather conditions are ideal. I say Western States, in a cool year like 2012, would see times around 13:30. The JFK 50 would be sub 5 hours, the 100 mile world record could go under 10 hours, 20 hours for Hardrock, 5:45 for 100k, and 4:25 for 50 miles, and sub 2:30 for 50k. So, while these will likely never happen because of lack of money, I do think in the real world, within the next decade, we'll see a 13:45 at Western States, sub 5:15 at JFK, a sub 6 hour 100k.