The week in ultramarathon and trail results, compiled by Justin Mock at iRunFar.  Special attention to Sophia Laukli for that performance at Sierra Zinal. Wow! I watched her kill it at Broken Arrow last year and see that she’s on the list for the Mammoth Trail Fest next month. Ooooooh, that’ll be good. More analysis from Brian Metzler right this way. Also a shoutout to Bev Abbs (ahem, 59 years young) who finished 1st female and 2nd overall (8:31)at the Headlands 50 miler this past weekend. (Official results not posted yet.) Simply astonishing. Want to know her secret? Follow along on Stra ..read more

From Old Dominion to a race across Connecticut, Justin has all the results from trail and ultramarathon races from the past seven days. Did Camille really win a marathon by 50 minutes? (Results page seems to be buggy and won’t open.) Geez. Help! I’m looking for a few volunteers to help out in the announcing booth during Broken Arrow Skyrace June 16-18. Have a few hours to spare? It’s a fun, fast-paced job with the best seats in the house. Shoot me an email if you can help out. Thanks! Might be weird looking, but it’s an incredible impact-free workout. (Just imagine an SUP breeding with a Stair ..read more

Kilian survives an avalanche during an Everest attempt. Have a tissue ready: Former IRF Editor Alex Potter remembers her late husband and expert crew member Pete Reed. Candice Burt gets a full writeup in the WSJ for her World Record 50k streak. (Paywalled.) Speaking of writing, Steph Cutadel–Tommy Rivs’ wife–has written a book about not just Tommy’s journey with cancer, but also about her own grief after losing her dad as a teen. The book comes out today. More books! Doug Mayer writes about the history of UTMB–apparently the good and the bad–from in insider’s perspective. More on UTMB: Matt Wa ..read more

Justin Mock reports on all the trail and ultramarathon results from this past weekend. Big races overseas, a new World Record,, smaller races stateside, and everything else. Only addition to the above rundown for Paiute Meadows is some old washed up podcaster taking 3rd AG in the half and a spunky 13yo taking the win for the females. Biel Rafols was at the start of Zegama and caught the exciting start. Eleven grand for an ultramarathon, but hey, you get a butler? How do you feel about some trail rocks being painted bright orange for increased visibility? I assume it violates #leavenotrace p ..read more

CTS/Koop: Pre-race and do’s and don’ts for ultramarathon runners. Colleges have T&F teams and XC teams and now at least one college has a trail running team.  Seems like there’s some drama in the pack burro/ass/trail racing world and John Paul LaCroix is naturally involved. Don’t worry, this stuff never happens, and if it does, who cares, right? They’re just women. Let the men have their opportunities and glory for once. The crowd at Zegama is hype, but I just barfed from the motion sickness. The importance of standing on one leg if you are a runner. Trailrunner/Outside: How live ..read more

Koop’s hierarchy of ultramarathon training needs, from total volume to taper. Sabrina Little/IRF: The ethics of running contracts. Excellent essay that allows us to peak behind the curtain a little bit while we consider ethical questions about the transaction. Hell yes: Born2Adapt is a new MUT race (run in conjunction with Born to Run) specifically for runners with physical disabilities. Hollie reviews a running shoe with a negative drop.  This is basically urban trail running in Barcelona, right? Scottish doctor attempt to identify as a Vauxhall at an ultramarathon, comes in third and ge ..read more

Ultrarunning Magazine: What to do when the fun meter taps out during a race. …and if the fun is gone and a DNF is afoot, Sarah Lavender Smith has some advice on how to look back at what TF happened. But what’s the point of being able to run up a mountain if you can’t stay grounded in what really matters? –Excellent piece on FreeTrail about What it Really Means to be a Trail Runner. Run Spirited: Meg Morgan sounds like she’s got a good focus not only training (she snagged a Golden Ticket at Black Canyon), but also for recognizing the importance of youth running programs. Still no MUT events i ..read more

Justin at iRunFar had his work cut out for him this morning! So many results from so many ultramarathon and trail (and road!) races this past weekend. Impressive to me was Allie Ostrander’s second place at perhaps the most competitive 5k in the country–Carlsbad 5000. Allie isn’t a road runner who’s jumping over to the trails….she’s a mountain runner who happens to be really fast on the track and road and that’s a differentiation that’ll be apparent when she lines up for trail races this year. I’ll add that equally impressive was Arlen Glick’s dismantling of Mike Morton’s CR at Umstead. I get t ..read more

If you’re training for MdS but living in Hong Kong, you run dozens and dozens and dozens of laps on the local sandy beach to recreate the conditions you’ll face in the desert. This all makes sense right? Speaking of extremes, are you a better fit for hot and dry or freezing and wet? Is having one dominant athlete good for a sport? Usain at track? Tiger at golf? Courtney at ultras? One of those athletes thinks sports needs stars to “keep it exciting” but I think others–including me–appreciate the standouts but also like it when the outcome is still a mystery. You? Tyler Andrews adds a few Kili ..read more

Big news yesterday when World Athletics ruled that starting March 31, athletes who have gone through male puberty must compete in the male category at Track and Field events. Trans athletes are still allowed and encouraged to compete, but WA’s decision mandates they must do so according to their sex.  The decision also tightens up the testosterone levels for DSD athletes like Caster Semenya in both saturation and length of T levels and will apply to all distances and events. This decision only applies to elite runners/races, but I suspect and hope other races/federations/sports will adopt ..read more