Monday, January 5, 2009

Thoughts on ultra endurance events.

I was reading in one of my Tri magazines today about the UltraMan World Championships held in Nov 2008 in Hawaii. This was the 24th year for the event, but I had never heard of it prior to this. I thought IM was the ultimate ultra endurance event out there (or just about the ultimate, at least!), and one that I hope to be able to include on my life list one day, god willing.

But, the UltraMan is run over three consecutive days, and I cannot believe what the event entails. Here it is:

Stage One: 6.2 mile swim, followed by a 90 mile bike leg with 7,600 feet of climbing.
Stage Two: 171.4 mile bike with 8,600 feet climbing.
Stage Three: 52.4 mile run (back to back marathons).

The winner, a guy by the name of Alexandre Ribeiro, from Brazil, took top spot in 21h 49m 38s. I just sit here and think of the distances covered each day, and what an accomplishment any one of them by themselves would be. And to do them all together over three days, well, that blows my mind.

I an off to swim a few laps in the pool now. I'll be thinking of this UltraMan while I struggle to finish my short swim.

2 comments:

  1. Yea the double IM's are really hard to believe. as much as we have to struggle with the small distances we go by comparrison it makes those guys seem nuts. of course, you have to be just the right kind of crazy to try those distances.

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  2. Wow, you would have to do that fulll time. I wonder if they sleep.

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