Tag Archives: Uli Steidl

I have to start by saying that I am quite shocked that Geoff Roes won Western States. I shouldn’t be shocked. Roes was last year’s “ultra-runner of the year” according to Ultrarunning magazine. And, Geoff has continued to run great in 2010 as well. All one has to do is look at his races/results from the past two years to get a sense of how good Geoff Roes really is:

2009 Race Results

• 1/17 – HURT 100 miles – 20:28 (1st Place & Course Record)
  
• 7/18 – Crow Pass 25 miles – 2:57:12 (1st Place & Course Record)
  
• 9/11 – Wasatch 100 miles – 18:30 (1st Place & Course Record)
  
• 9/25 – Bear 100 miles – 18:43 (1st Place & Course Record)
  
• 11/7 – Mountain Masochist 50 miles – 6:27:55 (1st Place & Course Record)
  
• 12/5 – North Face Endurance Challenge 50 miles – (2nd Place & 2nd fastest in course history)
  

2010 Race Results

• 3/13 – Way Too Cool 50k – 3:51 (3rd)
  
• 4/10 – American River 50 – 5:49 (1st Place)
  
• 5/8 – Bear Mountain 50 – 7:06 (1st Place)
  
• 6/26 – Western States 100 – 15:07:00 (1st Place & course record)
  

Additionally, I know that Roes’ is one tough cookie, as he battled it out tete-a-la-tete with Uli Steidl at last December’s North Face Endurance Challenge. The race was fast…very fast. Check out this video of Roes & Uli battling it out at Mile 34 of that race.

I believe Uli to be the toughest runner since Matt Carpenter (12X winner of the Pike’s Peak marathon & course record-holder at the Leadville 100) was in his prime. So, this win by Roes shouldn’t surprise me. It was a close race, with Roes winning by just ~6 minutes…which is nothing in a 100 mile race:

But, it does surprise me that Roes won.

Why?

Because Anton Krupicka didn’t win.

I don’t think Krupicka is unbeatable. I think he is a great, great runner…but, he’s certainly human. It’s just that in following his training this year (as he posts great details on his blog “Riding the Wind” a few times each week), he just seemed to be primed and ready to go. [Note: Roes publishes his training logs online as well, but it's a bit more difficult to ascertain just how well things are going (the quantitative data is there, but not much color commentary as with Anton)].

In general, Krupicka logs more miles than Roes does, as evidenced by their logs. Both have been very consistent throughout the year. Roes had raced a bit more….but, Krupicka just seems to be training at an insanely high level…such a high level that I expected him to win. I expected him to really open things up from Auburn Lake onward. But, that didn’t happen. And, I’m still trying to figure out why.

My inclination is to thing that somehow, the fact that Anton logged so many miles the week heading into Western hurt him. When you compare the time spent running of Roes vs. Krupicka the week before Western, there is a stark difference:

Krupicka ran nearly 70% longer than Roes. Was this the difference?

I thought so, and said as much on a letsrun.com post earlier today. But now, I am not so sure given the commentary of both Roes & Krupicka following the race. Both seem very pleased with the run…which leads me to believe that both were feeling good.

Roes published a short post on his blog about Western States, promising to offer more race details soon. It’s titled “It doesn’t get much better than that.” But the post is short. It doesn’t provide many details other than to say that:

Today, Krupicka also posted a bit about Western States, but he didn’t say much. He did offer the following:

Another short post…that offers little detail. I guess I’ll be left to wonder. Who knows, maybe I’m overcomplicating this entire thing. Maybe Roes was just the better runner on that day. Maybe he’s the better runner overall (credentials may imply this). Maybe he’s just a bit tougher than Anton. We may never know…but, I can’t wait to see the race reports from each of them.