Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Excited for the sport

Man today I just saw that they updated the Western States 100 list and a fellow by the name of Kilian Jornet was listed on it !! People who follow my blog would have seen by now that I am a big fan of this 22 year old trail runner. He is the type of runner with talent who can change the sport. Kind of like Lance and the Tour for example. In fact there are many runners on the men's and women's side of the sport right now who are doing this. Now if we can continue to get them on our biggest stages to race each other that will be great. With Kilian added to the list of great runners already in the race, and many more to be added via top 2 in each of the next few Montrail Ultra Cup races this will be epic !!! Enjoy this last behind the scenes video from the last Kilian's Quest. Snow run today !!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

He should do well, not only due to his ability at the ultra distances, but the fact that he probably will have the freedom and means to get out on the WS trail with plenty of time to train and acquire intimate course knowledge on it, which is key in any race especially for someone racing it for the first time. Should be exciting.

-wynn

SteveQ said...

I looked through the entrants twice and missed his name both times! Thanks for the catch - wonder how Tony Kocanda will do.

Anonymous said...

All the rage a new runner. There certainly are a new breed that is moving fast on these trails and will break a course record. I will love to see how these folks fair over a 25 year period such as Twietmeyer running 25 sub 24's on the WS..I just can't see it happening in many of these instances..only time will tell but I suspect that attention spans are short lived..its kinda reminds me of the dean karnazes syndrom..

Kurt said...

Steve- I think Tony will do great. While training togeather I can see how strong and smart he is. I know it will be fun getting ready with him over the winter and spring. I would think if he ran 21 hours at Leadville he could maybe crack 20 hours at WS100 ? We will see

Anonymous-Yea I guess we will have to see where people are in 25 years. While Tweet is one good runner and someone I am very happy to have talked with in the past, He is about the only one I can think of like that from the early days of ultra running in the states.

As our sports gets more like other sports with "pro" athletes in it and not just dominated by people where it is more like a hobbie as it is for most of us. I would think we are looking at like 10-13 years windows with the top people.

Either way I love how the sport is growing and how we all are able to compete in all the races togeather. That will always be what makes running so great. Thanks for the comments !!! I love to talk running.

P.S. one big difference between Dean and Kilian is that Kilian wins big races year after year. 3x skyrunner world champ, 2x UTMB champ

Helen said...

I watched about 6 of those you tube videos - I love them! Thanks for sharing. The Corsica record was awesome. No comparison to DK - you can just see how this guy lives and breathes the trail. It's fascinating to watch someone so young doing what he's doing.