ultraRUNNING

I was under impression that the world beyond 26.2 marathon miles is limited to Iron Man triathlon competitions and very few enthusiasts like Dean Karnazes.

I was wrong. Although there are fewer people that got bored with marathon than the number of people still working towards their first marathon ever, I nevertheless was quite impressed by the number of ultra-running competitions.

The best resource I found on this topic is the ‘ultraRUNNING’ magazine: www.ultrarunning.com

Here are a couple of distinguishing features of ultra-running races:

-- Longer than marathon, 50km, 50 miles, 100km and 100 miles being the most common distances.

-- Usually off-road trail races, more often than not in some mountain areas – add crazy course elevations to crazy course length in other words.

Running 100km smells like some people are in urgent need for some professional psychological help. On the other hand it is just two and a half times marathon race – which sounds a bit better and less insane.

In any case it is quite challenging, or even ultraCHALLENGING, but at the same time not as out-of-reach as the Badwater 136-mile race through the red-hot Death Valley in July :-)

If anyone got interested, ultraRUNNING Online provides a list of upcoming ultra-race events in your area: www.ultrarunning.com/ultra/calendar