Aleksandr Sorokin smashes 24-hour world record with 198.6 mile run | Hacker News Reader

Aleksandr Sorokin smashes 24-hour world record with 198.6 mile run

irunfar.com

386 pointsthm284 comments

Another incredible ultra-runner from Lithuania is Aidas Ardzijauskas who last year completed his 444 day run covering 30303 km, which is on average 68km every day for almost 1.5 years! His plan originally was to run around the world, but during the pandemic it wasn't possible to do that so he just ran it all in Lithuania. Unfortunately there isn't much English-language coverage about the monumental feat, but this is readable with Google translate: https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/sportas/10/1568074/finisas-pasi...

And he tracked everything on Strava too - https://www.strava.com/athletes/16416410

That’s an amazing feat. Goes to show we once were predators who weren’t fast but had the stamina to outrun most of our prey.

> Goes to show…

Let's think about that for a moment.

No, it does not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

Non-sequitur.

spiderfarmer claimed — Aidas Ardzijauskas's amazing feat "Goes to show" blah blah.

No, it does not.

You won't find anyone running 200 miles in descriptions of persistence hunting ;-)

I'm not sure why you're attempting to call out non-existent fallacies and having so much difficulty accepting the hypothesis.

The person in question averaged roughly 40 miles per day. The specific example provided in the wikipedia article - full of citations to supplementary materials - detail a group running up to 35 miles per day.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Neither Aleksandr Sorokin's 24-hour world record or Aidas Ardzijauskas's daily run have anything to say about persistence hunting.

Sorokin's run is way too fast. Aidas Ardzijauskas's run is too long and too frequent. For persistence hunting think walking and jogging.

Did you misread "The hunters run down an antelope, such as a kudu, … a distance of up to 35 km (22 mi)" as being 35 miles?

So it's not at all like persistence hunting - something done by traveling a long distance, usually running, over an extended period of time - because people are running for too far of a distance or for too long a time?

This is getting confusing, igouy.

You were already confused when you posted the wikipedia link.

Aleksandr Sorokin's 24-hour world record is an amazing feat. Aidas Ardzijauskas's daily run is an amazing feat.

They are not like observed persistence hunts.

So when `spiderfarmer` claims "Goes to show…" we can just say — No, it does not.

Wow you're so right; I mean, when's the last time you ran anything more than 5km? That's likely some concrete evidence of humans not being able to persistence hunt. Or is that a non-sequitur, too?

16 km — 13 September

10 km — 11 September

16 km — 26 August

21 km — 7 August

Well, you did ask.

That's likely evidence, that once-upon-a-time, it was helpful to go a relatively short distance faster than walking pace.

Honestly, thanks for sharing - that's some good distance if I'm doing my conversions right :P

Our skin with its vast distribution of sweat glands coupled with our comparative lack of body hair certainly made us well-adapted to pedestrian movement.

10, 6, 10 & 13.1

Thanks for giving me an excuse to look at the evidence behind persistence hunting speculation once again.

"… the main hunter, armed only with a digging stick, identified the fresh hoof prints of a duiker and followed its trail at a steady, relentless walk for approximately three hours.

The duiker was thereby pushed from one uncommon shade tree to the next in the hot sun. The bare ground beneath each shade tree was pock-marked with duiker tracks from many different animals, which slowed the hunter, who circled the perimeter of the shaded areas and was able to pick out the tracks of the targeted duiker as it left the location.

Toward the end of the hunt, when the tiring duiker was sighted for the first time approximately 250 m ahead, it was running at a right angle to the direction the hunter was walking along its recent trail. Rather than changing direction and walking or running directly toward the fleeing animal or making any effort to maintain visual contact with it, the hunter continued along the hoof-print trail.

At the end, the duiker was standing, incapacitated, beneath a small cluster of trees, with its head lowered and tongue hanging out. The hunter walked up to it, clubbed it with the digging stick, and then carried it back to camp.

In sum, successful persistence hunting by walking requires truly phenomenal tracking skills, with the added risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion even for the physically fit. On days following a walking hunt, Kua hunters typically spent a recuperative day of inactivity in camp."

https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-ma...

"The hunt takes place during the hottest time of the day, with maximum temperatures of about 39–42 C. Before starting, the hunters drink as much water as they can."

"A prerequisite for persistence hunting would have been the invention of water containers. In contrast to horses and camels, humans cannot consume large amounts of water at one time. Human thermoregulation requires considerable water for evaporative cooling, and this would have made it essential to carry water in containers."

2006 "Persistence Hunting by Modern Hunter-Gatherers"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260135266_Persisten...

fyi 2020 "Are humans evolved specialists for running in the heat? Man vs. horse races provide empirical insights"

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/EP088502

Interesting video here of one of the San people running down a Kudu which collapses from exhaustion after an 8 hour chase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o. Hard to compare this to Sorokin because the hunter is running in veld, not on a road, and has far less access to refueling points. Also, if he fails to track the prey down on day one, he would probably have a go again on day two, maybe even day three. Interesting claims too, that as an upright runner which sweats from glands all over his body, and as a creature capable of carrying water, man may have had persistence advantages over creatures with less ability to cool themselves and which run on four legs - a less energy efficient mode of running according to Attenborough.

Dog owners know to take water with them for the dog, if they're walking a few miles on a hot day.

That gives the wrong impression. That's about people trying to keep their pets comfortable, not about how well dogs can run in the heat.

You might find this interesting —

"Rather than being the elite heat-endurance athletes of the animal kingdom, humans are instead using their elite intellect to leverage everything they can from their moderate endurance capabilities, optimising their behaviours during a hunt to bridge the gap between their limited athleticism and that of their more physically capable prey. Our capacity for profuse sweating provides a subtle but essential boost to our endurance capabilities in hot environments. This is a slight but critical advantage that our ingenuity magnifies to achieve the seemingly impossible: the running down of a fleeter-footed quarry."

2020 "Are humans evolved specialists for running in the heat? Man vs. horse races provide empirical insights"

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/EP088502

"Over the course of 20 years, only two of the ER hunts observed by Liebenberg were spontaneous. Eight others were prompted by Liebenberg so that they could be filmed for television documentaries."

p436 "The endurance running hypothesis and hunting and scavenging in savanna-woodlands"

https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-ma...

Aleksandr's training is public on his Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/26934035

Something to remember is that this is his pace _after_ pit stops, so his actual running pace was faster. Also notable is that this course was kind of terrible, with four 90 degree turns and three 180 degree turns each lap for 209 laps. There's little doubt that he could run > 200 miles on a course with fewer turns.

Strava also shares the latitude/elevation during the run. (Screenshot in case you dont have Strava https://imgur.com/PuuKo5r) What I find interesting and don't really understand is why the elevation keeps going down during the run, even though he stayed on the same track. Anyone have an idea why that could be?

It’s probably based off of a barometer in a watch, not GPS, and the air pressure was changing

Yes, a high-pressure area was moving over Italy the last couple of days.

The elevation in this case is just a proxy for storing the barometric pressure, which is because the actual air pressure is the important thing to track if you are trying to normalize against athletic performance. If the watch logged the GPS altitude, it would be a lot more accurate, but less useful as the air density would only be estimated..

All GPS watches already calculate their altitude (GPS uses three dimensional trilateration for computing the position, so you must get the elevation because you must calculate the three dimensional position). The elevation measure is usually pretty inaccurate in Central Europe. Since the satellites are comparably low above the horizon, flat movements of the runner have a large effect on the run time of the signals coming from the satellites, while vertical movements do not really change the run time and are therefore much more affected by any error.

This is why most portals like Strava run a data correction by overriding the elevation data of the GPS track by tracing the path over their internal elevation model.

The barometric elevation calculation is usually much more accurate and is constantly calibrated on the watch. This breaks down a little if you run for over 24 hours and the weather changes a lot. The drift over the 24 hours of this run amounts to about 8m over 2 hours, which doesn't really matter. And while air pressure can be used to normalize performance of the athletes, the absolute values measured by the barometer are usually pretty inaccurate, while the relative changes are quite accurate. Therefore, they can be used to measure climb/descent, but not really for an absolute air density measurement.

Source: I have worked on a GPS wearable (without barometric pressure sensor).

I downloaded .gpx of the run and it's 6.7MB. He started with 4min/km pace, held it for 130km(9 hours) and then He "slowed down" almost linearly to 5min/km when he finished.

Where did you get the GPX file from?

You have to login. Then on map there is "GPX" button.

Thanks!

I've taken to running during my lunch break in March this year and I can now run a 5k most days of the week at a 5:30 per km pace.

So I can't even imagine how he does that.

Wow, my best ever 10k pace was 6min/km. 9 hours ag 4min/k is insane.

4min/km = 6:27/mile roughly, I think? If I did the math correctly?

I didn’t know you could get a watch with more than 24 hours of battery life including GPS tracking (COROS APEX Pro). The accuracy is a bit weird though, the elevation chart doesn’t make sense.

All of the higher-end Garmin watches can do this, it is one of their main selling points. In normal use, I charge mine around once a week.

I don't think it's that big of a deal for good running watches. I ran the JFK50 with a three year old Garmin 935 with a heart strap (HRM-Tri) in a little under 11 hours. My watch was close to 50%. That was with GPS updates every second. It would have been much better if I left it at the default, not the ultratrac or whatever they call the endurance battery mode.

It's really only been the last few years that running watches could last >24 hours with GPS tracking enabled.

I also have a Forerunner 935 which I've used for 24 hours, but I think I had it in ultra-mode where it takes GPS samples less often.

Before that I had a Forerunner 230 and I had to charge that mid race during a 100-miler, which was fun to do while running (used an external battery, put the watch and battery in a running vest while running one of my laps).

The latest watches which do 36 hours or more with full GPS accuracy are really amazing.

I knew the Garmin Enduro could do it, it can apparently do 80h of GPS tracking with solar charging: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/02/garmin-enduro-gps-watch-...

The Apple Watch Ultra is rated for 36 hours so long as cell service isn't enabled.

That's 36 hours of normal use, with a 60 minute workout[1]. My Fenix 6 lasts 8 days of normal use and currently tells me it can record a 14 hour run even with only 42% battery.

[1] - Details in footnote #1 on https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-ultra/

My Apple Watch with Cellular enabled is the only electronic doo-dad that I carry on my bike rides, even up to 100 miles. At the end of the night when it goes on the charger, I might have 20% left. That's good enough for me considering I seldom, if ever, leave the house with a phone.

And if one could ever get a cellular enabled watch without an iPhone, I'll be first in line.

You actually can, it's called "Family Setup" and it allows you to use someone else's iPhone to complete the initial device setup.

High-end Garmin watches as well. The fenix 7 can do 48+h including tracking, the Enduro2 will likely go 3 days.

And yes, elevation is bonkers, because GPS elevation via watch is about as precise as you guessing. (+/- 400 feet on Garmins, but I'm not sure there are any watches significantly better than that. )

Mid range Garmin watches too. The Forerunner 255 can do 30 hours. It is only their entry level stuff which cannot.

I ran for 8:30 with my ancient Forerunner 235 and it still had some batteries left. Modern watches can easily do 24 hours, even the mid range Forerunner 255 can do 30 hours and the larger 955 can do 42 hours.

A sibling comment to yours asked about the elevation --- apparently it's actually a measure of air pressure.

That's strange that they use such an inaccurate sensor when they have a GPS.

Apparently the reasoning is that what actually matters is oxygen partial pressure in the atmosphere, not true elevation. Measuring air pressure and reporting as elevation is a decent proxy for what athletes actually care about.

He's got the fly-bys enabled, too -- and you can watch the replay of the race with 20 other athletes:

https://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/#7828119666?c=u0pf6j88&...

I don't really get flybys, but I'm jaded as the founder of Ayvri.com

here's the run in 3D. It's a flat loop, so not very exciting. https://ayvri.com/scene/z15yoqwqjx/cl89ecl3b0001356i6w6jf6t1

This is his actual running pace. Strava only calculates pace including the stops when you set the activity type to ‘race’, which he didn’t.

This type of distance / pace is hard for some people to even grasp. This line helps sum it up nicely:

> That’s 7:15 per mile or 4:30 per kilometer for 24 straight hours.

Incredible

Back in the 80s, Yannis Kouros seemed to be able to crank out 6:30 miles for many hours a day, for several days in a row. But I don't remember how many hours--eight or ten maybe.

Yannis Kouros was a legend. When I was a teenage, he was a 5-time winner of the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, from 1985 to 1990. The distance was 800-1000km. It took 5-6 days, running non-stop.

He was so much better than everyone else that "in 1988, the race organiser challenged him to start 12 hours behind the rest of the field. Kouros overtook his competitors and won the race with a one-hour lead over New Zealander Dick Tout." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_to_Melbourne_Ultramarat...

Thanks!

Several years ago, I was running in Rock Creek Park when a couple of men in their twenties passed in the opposite direction, and were apparently discussing Yannis Kouros. He isn't or wasn't forgotten.

I can't even imagine. I'm gassed at that pace after a couple of KM.

I have a 1:28 half-marathon PR, a 3:07 marathon PR, I've twice run 100 miles in under 24 hours, and I can't imagine even more.

That said, the marathon WR is 2:01:39 which is 4:38.39/mile (2:52.98/km). So Sorokin is running about 55% slower than that, or what would be considered an easy pace for an elite marathoner. AFAIK, we have yet to see an elite marathoner transition to ultras. However, there are quite a few elite ultra-marathoners who run marathons. The one I'm most familiar with is Michael Wardian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wardian

He's run both a 2:17:49 marathon and finished 15th as Western States (19:32:07).

And to be clear: I'm not diminishing Sorokin's amazing accomplishment here. I've run a 24 hour race. I got to 105 miles. I'm just noting what the best in the world are capable of at different distances.

Humans are amazingly adaptable. I'm reminded of Howard Schatz’s Athlete series of photographs:

https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-how...

https://howardschatz.com/human-body/athletes/

Wardian is an insane athlete.

So 13.32 km/h or 8.27 mp/h on average.

Eight gallons of gasoline

This is a frighteningly-cool insight. If I think about a single marathon, that's roughly 1 gallon of gas for my own car. I don't know how to translate that to human fuel, but it is crazy to me to think that that is not an insignificant amount of fuel the human body needs to burn to do the equivalent of a car.

Humans are much more energy efficient than cars, so it was less than 3/4 of a gallon (100 kcal/mile * 200 miles = 20,000 calories = 0.7 gallons of gas or about 6 pounds of body fat). He's probably much more efficient than 100 kcal/mile though.

When I was cycling I was joking that the bike is not much greener than the car, because it burns 4 ribeyes/100km or 17 miles/ribeye.

I read somewhere that if you’re not at least mostly vegan, e-bikes actually have lower lifecycle carbon emissions than bikes because you end up burning fewer calories and eating less (assuming you don’t substitute in more exercise).

So. Lithium battery powered humans would emit less carbon than regular humans?

They would since we could charge them using PV instead of wasteful bovines.

That makes a lot of sense. Intuitively (I haven't tried to run numbers on this), the big efficiency problem with a car – gas or EV – is not that it's using "unnatural" forms of power, it's that you're hauling a 3000 pound vehicle around with your 160 pound human. It's easy to believe that photovoltaic power -> modern battery -> electric motor is far more efficient than photosynthesis -> animal digestion -> human digestion -> human muscle. I wouldn't be shocked if that held up even on a vegan diet, though the difference would be a rounding error compared to the emissions from other aspects of our lives.

It’s plausible especially if you use PVs to charge. But what about the costs in producing and disposing of the batteries?

Yes, sedentary lifestyles require less overall energy input vs. active ones

Side note - comments like this are why I come to HN. Thank you.

If we consider the average diet bikes are still around 1/3 the emissions of cars per mile. Obviously if you eat only meat that gets worse but I doubt it’s possible to exceed car emissions this way.

This has some data: https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog/climate-impacts-biking-v...

According to Table 1, a meat eating biker emits more CO2, than a double-occupancy Prius.

I suspect an EV would completely tip the table in favor of driving.

Energy efficiency per distance of running improves very little with training. According to the book “Burn” by Herman Pontzer we are talking about few percents, not even 10%.

Just being skinny probably makes him more efficient than average.

That is presumably talking about differences in metabolic and mechanical efficiency, but assuming those are held equal, energy output still scales linearly with work performed, which is directly proportional to body mass, and energy loss from atmospheric and wind drag is going to operate similarly. Simply being smaller and having a slimmer profile will result in less energy needed per unit of distance compared to an average person.

That said, Aleksandr is smaller than an average 40 year-old man, but actually pretty large for a distance runner, 20 kg heavier than the current world record holder in the marathon.

That book described total energy expenditure for an individual per distance traveled. It does not improves much even after years of training. It is interesting that for running the efficiency does not depend on speed as wind drag does not contribute much below 20 km/h. This is different from walking. Walking at relaxed pace is the most efficient and uses 2 times less energy per distance than running. At about 7 km/h walking becomes less efficient than running.

Doesn’t this ignore the energy loss from eating and growing the food?

Yes, it does

It's 8 gallons if he were to drive. Cars weigh more, but the human body doesn't have an internal combustion engine built into it.

That's not true, Humans are not more energy efficient than cars. Rather Humans are lighter than cars.

A car as light as a human would get something like 1,000mpg (probably a fuel cell with an electric motor).

https://sites.google.com/view/ebikestudy

That's a bit like saying a Honda Civic aren't more efficient than an Abrams tank because the Civic weighs less. They don't have the same capabilities, but one is gonna win on MPG for sure.

Anyone who can run 5 miles at 7:15 pace is a pretty well conditioned athlete. If you can keep that pace for an hour, that shows some determination. Multiple hours is an incredible feat. 24 hours is just suprahuman.

The standard to pass the first phase of US Army Ranger School is 5 miles at 8:00 pace. Those aren't pro runners by any means, but shows a standard for a rather well conditioned group of people. They also need to do 49 push-ups and 59 sit-ups in 2 minutes each, plus 6 pull-ups.

I could easily meet the push up/sit up/pull up bar but I can only run 12 min miles for 5 miles. Pretty interesting how uneven is my conditioning.

I can do the running but not the pushups so maybe we can trade

You two should buy an extra long trenchcoat and see if you can make it work.

My conditioning is also very uneven. Running would be trivial (I ran a half marathon at 7:55 min/mile a couple of days ago), I could also manage sit-ups just fine, would fail on push-ups (but not by much) but can't even do a single pull-up.

I'm the same - it's very easy for me to ramp up miles and pace in endurance sports, but I've never been able to do a pull up.

I do notice I weigh 25-30 pounds less than my friends that are same height and waist size. I'm 6'3" and when fit hover a little under 170 lbs, while everyone else is 190-200. I think it's a distinct lack of muscle.

I consider myself unfit and can do 10k at 7min/km ... not sure those numbers are right given 1km=.6mile

No one actually “unfit” can run (not walk) 10km

Maybe there's a conversion issue here. The fit Soldiers are running a pace of 8:00 per mile at the slowest. You (self-proclaimed unfit) are running a pace of 11:16 per mile. This is much slower. To change to speed and km, the slowest acceptable speed is 12 kmh. Yours is 8.5 kmh.

Source for Ranger numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Physical_Fi...

You did some calculation error, the requirement for rangers is 5 min/km or a 50 minute 10k (compared to your 70 minute one). Not that hard to do but requires one to be in decent shape.

My mental arithmetic is shocking. Maybe more shocking than my cardio.

5min/km is quick.

Only 6 pull ups? I find that a bit humorous compared to some of the other requirements

It's truly incredible. Even most pretty in shape people could not run a 7:15 pace for more than 2 or 3 miles.

I was 35 when I was able to run 10k in 47m on my first season after I lost 26 kg the previous year. This is about about 7:30 minutes per mile. I was also able to run 5k in 21:03 (about 6:47) and at the end of the season a marathon in 4:12:00 (~9:35).

I wouldn't consider myself athletic and definitely not "conditioned athlete". I had no prior history of running or taking up any sports of any kind. Actually, I would be spending very few days doing anything else than sitting straight by the computer, lying down to read a book or standing in the kitchen cooking something.

But I quickly learned to like running and I would push myself to run faster, harder, longer and further and I ran about 900 miles between March and October of my first running season with most of the volume in second half as I was ramping up on distance. At the peak I was doing say three 10k days in the middle of the week and then a 20-24k on the weekend every two weeks.

You ran 900 miles in 6 months but don’t consider yourself athletic? Um ok you might want to revise that evaluation.

He just wants others to tell him that he is.

No, I just want to say that probably most of healthy people (well, at the very least men) can, with a bit of preparation, achieve the above mentioned result with no prior history of doing any serious sports. It would require some effort but it is doable in 6 months.

Why does everybody assume this is vanity?

The numbers simply don't agree with you. Instead of repeating myself, I'll just cite my other comment in this thread (including link to RunRepeat).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32900865

That does not contradict with what he said. If you average 8 km per day I think most men and quite many women would be able to run a 45 minute 10k. You just need to be willing to put in that much hard work and not be obese.

Both I and the person I was responding to cited numbers and you come back with "I think"? Really? Here are the results from the Peachtree Road Race, which is the largest 10K in the US. Only 1036/34877 (3%) of participants finished in under 45:00.

https://www.athlinks.com/event/115192/results/Event/1016777/...

Second largest is Dick's Sporting Goods Bolder Boulder: 1202/27997 (4%).

https://www.athlinks.com/event/6172/results/Event/1020677/Co...

Third largest is the Cooper River Bridge Run: 549/16053 (3%).

https://www.athlinks.com/event/9036/results/Event/1013345/Co...

Clearly, getting under 45:00 takes a lot more than just "hard work and not be obese" - some combination of youth, talent, and years of grinding it out harder even than most other runners. No, not 8km every day; that's a bit of a tell for lack of direct experience or expertise. I know only a handful of people - including myself but excluding many marathoners - who average even half that beyond a brief (month or two) pre-race training period, and all of us take days off. Any training guide will explain why. 45:00 for 10km is something that most people will never achieve, even with practice and even if they are considered very fit by any reasonable measure. FOr those who can do it, kudos, but let's not hold it up as a meaningful standard.

I think you might be looking wrong at how big an accomplishment it is to be in top 3 or 4% of random sample of people in a field where a lot of people do it recreationally.

All running events I took part look more or less like this -- there is a line of a dozen or two dozen "serious" people and then there is hundreds or thousands of people that are just doing it for fun.

If you put a random sample of drivers on a track, the person that is half percentile from the top result would still be an amateur with poor result by any possible standard.

Or, think in terms of Settlers of Catan. If you've red any strategy tutorial on how you should properly play it to win the game you are probably in the top 0.1% of players. Does it make you special? Does it make you a professional player? Most certainly not...

I think it is true for a lot of fields, including running, that if you are trying at all, putting any effort, you immediately jump to top percent or two of all participants.

Why do you assume it's me who's looking at it wrong? Your own PR is "no big accomplishment" by your own standard, despite having worked hard to get it. Does that seem sensible to you? Would you not have taken offense if I had been the one to dismiss it with a hand-wave? You're not even being consistent here.

A lot of people will run a 5K recreationally, but that's much less true of a 10K. Just completing the distance puts them in a pretty high percentile relative to the general population. I know a lot of dedicated runners, people who have been running three to six times a week for years, who nonetheless have never run a 10K in under 45:00 and never will. Many of them have never even submitted an official time. They're not unfit. They're not obese. They're not doing it for fun, either. They're dedicated and often quite competitive; they're just not fast, and many of them couldn't be even with the utmost dedication.

That's why age-grading exists, and it's based on more science than you seem to know. Even elites lose alveolar density and joint flexibility as they age. That's why all of the world records are held by young people, who also dominate all of the top events. Believe it or not, being over 40 is a thing. It's a significant percentage of the population right there, never mind the younger folks who also range from the disabled through the genuinely lazy to those who are actually super-fit but specialize in other activities or just aren't hyper-competitive enough to devote their time to HIIT and other speed-specific training methods.

> the person that is half percentile from the top result would still be an amateur with poor result

That is simply not true, and it's strong evidence that it's you who lack perspective. Being within half a percentile of the top is an excellent result practically by definition. "Hanging with the elites" is a ridiculous cutoff. Even the person in the middle of the pack for any of those races I cited is a "well conditioned athlete" by any sane set of definitions. In any room of a hundred random people, they'd stand a good chance of being the fittest one there. Moving goalposts to exclude them seems a bit disingenous.

You're ignoring that he's talking about performance given a certain baseline training volume while you're talking about performance regardless of training history.

It's two very different populations.

This is like someone saying a reliable way of making six figures in the US is to study CS and become a developer and you're responding with the average income across the human population as evidence for why this isn't a good strategy.

> performance given a certain baseline training volume

That would make the argument pretty circular, because of course those two tiny slivers of the population have high overlap. I was trying to assume good faith, despite the venue, and clearly that was a mistake.

But your numbers are largely irrelevant. Most people who sign up to races are not regular runners, and do not come close to averaging 8 km per day if you even run at all. If we instead look at a race for regular runners (but still amateurs) we will see vastly different numbers. Also not everyone in a race goes all out, some people run with a slower friend or just run to have fun.

Premiärmilen 2022: 610/1455 (42%)

https://registration.marathongruppen.se/ResultList.aspx?Lang...

Hässelbyloppet 2021 441/1001 (44%)

https://www.marathon.se/racetimer?v=/sv/race/show/4972%3Flay...

Höstrusket 10k 2021: 220/621 (35%)

https://www.marathon.se/racetimer?v=/sv/race/show/5011%3Flay...

Sorry for only citing Swedish races, but from my experience running many races and being a member of running clubs I can say that your 4% is misleading since in many races there are a lot of people who never run. In races where most people run (and many of those still run less than 8 km per day) I expect ~40% of the men to run under 45 minutes.

Edit: That said running 8 km per day is a lot and few people average that outside marathon training programs. Which is also why I doubt even most people running in the races above average close to that much.

And this matches my experience.

I once joined a 10k without much research. It was on the weekend I wanted to run fast 10k (at the time that was 50 minutes for me) and I decided I might want to run it with other people.

The detail I missed was the race was organised by a local sports school to commemorate 50 years of the school and the participants were mostly alumni.

I quickly found myself at the end of the pack and even though finished around 50 minute I was still mostly surrounded by 40 and 50 year olds, everybody younger or my age was far faster than I was.

> Most people who sign up to races are not regular runners

[citation sorely needed]

Yes, some non-regular-runners sign up for a charity 5K, but as I already said that's much less true for a 10K. "Most" is a drastic overstatement.

> In races where most people run

i.e. where most people fit the definition of "well conditioned athlete"

> I expect ~40% of the men to run under 45 minutes

i.e. 45:00 is still below median. Even by your own shifty definitions, you're refuting your own point.

The problem is that you said you're not athletic or not a conditioned athlete, then described exactly what it takes to become a conditioned athletic person - dedication to training and putting in the mileage.

Anyone that can run a half marathon every weekend and 30km+ during the week is almost by definition athletic. Yes, nearly anyone can achieve this with the dedication it takes, but that doesn't change the fact you're being overly humble about your own athleticism.

It's like someone saying "I'm not an engineer, and am not particularly good at math or physics, but I studied 3 days a week and got an engineering degree and now I work at an engineering firm and can solve most math and physics problems."

The longer this thread continues, the more I think you're right.

Yeah, that's an average of about 5 miles a day.

That doesn't seem too long of a run until you realize it would need to be every day without rest days.

humans are remarkably good at running.

Granted this was in high school, but I went from huffing and puffing a 3 mile jog to being able to go for leisurely 8 mile runs within a couple months.

If you do 8 miles every day my hat is off to you, I find I'm happiest only running 4 days a week.

Back in the 1980s, a man under 40 had to run a 2:50 marathon to qualify for the Boston Marathon. That's right around 6:30/mile. Quite a few did.

But that wasn't a general fitness measure, that was a way to weed out weaker contestants by setting a very aggressive standard. That's aiming to get only elite runners.

Assume 5% can run a marathon (definitely less) and that 2:50 is 90th percentile (definitely higher) and you're still top 99.5%. How is that not an "incredible feat" as the GP called it?

Well, because it was me. I regarded myself as a fair recreational runner, but nothing more.

I don't think the first part of that is true. That pace is a ~25 minute 5k which most reasonably healthy adults could build up to quite quickly; you certainly don't need to be a "well conditioned athlete" to do 5 miles at that pace. Anyway, doesn't change your point that maintaining the pace over 24 hours is super-human, very much agreed.

> ~25 minute 5k which most reasonably healthy adults could build up to quite quickly

For 5km, 25:00 would put you into the top 10% (median is 34:37).

https://runrepeat.com/how-do-you-masure-up-the-runners-perce...

That's out of those who post times in measured/timed events, so it would be an even better result compared to all runners, and better still compared to fit people specializing in other sports such as cycling. It's also for all ages. For example, in my own 50-59 age group that would be top 6% (median 36:36).

25:00 might not be all that impressive when you're looking on Strava, but in a broader context it really is closer to "well conditioned athlete" than to "reasonably healthy adult". BTW, since I know somebody will ad hominem at me if I don't say anything, I'm on schedule for 1000 miles this year and to that end I run 5km continuously (even on hills) at least once or twice a week. It takes a certain level of dedication independent of how generally fit you are.

I'm not sure how much I trust those stats. If you look at parkrun results, 25 minutes is definitely not the top 10%. I imagine you're familiar with parkrun, but just in case: parkrun is a weekly, non-competitive, just for fun 5k -- with millions of participants, and all their stats are online.

I picked a bunch of random events from last week's parkrun, and for most of them, ~>1/3rd finish in <=25 mins and very few of those times are PBs. I'd be absolutely shocked if being able to do a 5k in 25 mins puts you in the top 10% of runners, in fact, I'd go as far as to say, I think the majority of runners could do a 25min 5k -- where "runner" means "someone who runs regularly" (once per week, which parkrun is representative of).

Click a town name in the "event" column on this page to see various results (includes gender and age group) you can also click through to individual profiles: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/results

If we expand the definition of "runner" to include anyone who runs at least once per year, I think maybe you'd get to the 10% figure you're quoting. The other possibility is that the page you've linked is using marathon times and extrapolating out from those to get 5k times, which is not going to produce accurate results.

Yes, those numbers seem somewhat faster, but the medians I got for the four courses I looked at were still 27:27, 29:02, 27:13, and 28:19. 25:00 is still better than median even among runners who participate in official events, so it still seems true that 25:00 is closer to "well conditioned athlete" than to "reasonably healthy adult". Remember, "well conditioned" doesn't mean an elite marathoner, and "athlete" doesn't mean a professional. If you're running 5km in under 25:00 you're well ahead of the vast majority of human beings.

Wow that's better than my personal record for a 10km run. Obviously you cannot compare yourself against the top1 guy in an endurance race, and not even against the top1000 but it's still mind-blowing how something that required a lot of effort (physical AND mental to be constant enough during training) for a normal human being can be literally nothing for another human being.

> Obviously you cannot compare yourself…

Obviously you did.

Obviously doing so is a basic way we can try to understand the accomplishment.

I... obviously :) implied "keeping you accountable for", like when you compare yourself to someone doing better and think "I need to do the same as well!". At least in my case I would ever dare to think I want to try to achieve something like what reported in TFA.

Seems like you did dare to think whether you want to try to achieve something like that, and decided nope :-)

Sorokin and Ardzijauskas are "normal human being[s]"; and we can be pretty sure that their accomplishment was so much harder for them than "literally nothing".

Normal human beings can accomplish so much!

Seems like you could improve your 10k pb :-)

I've started running and an unexpected challenge is boredom. The running is challenging as is, but doing it for ~1h30m has been, for me, well, tedious. I guess that's a byproduct of always being within arm's reach of a phone.

I think that's also an upside of running. It's a forcing function to be away from screens and occupy your own mind.

Though music or podcasts can be a nice way to break up the monotony if you are struggling

This. It forces you to start actually using your imagination again, and your current working memory to work on problems being away from things.

I queue up podcasts or audio-books and use it as uninterrupted me time, though I do find audio-books harder to listen to on 2+ hour runs just because my mind tends to wander by that point. I find that podcasts are easier to mentally tune in and out of.

For me it's the only time (perhaps other than driving) I can truly focus on an audiobook. Ideally a nonfiction one, so it can be paused until the next workout at any time without creating a cliffhanger.

When I find a particularly engaging audiobook, I reserve it only for running. Works really well. I've done extra laps just to hear more of the book.

I've been a runner for a long time and this is absolutely a thing, it's not just you. Running do over an hour gets boring unless you're trail running and have different scenery to look forward to. That being said, a lot of people get bored (or worse, are actively displeased) much quicker and can't even run without music to entertain them.

I run without any noise and sometimes I do when the track goes through a nice forest or so. But for anything longer than 3 - 5 km there is gladly no shortage of music-playlists, podcasts or audio books to choose from.

FWIW I can run without music and find it pleasurable, but I get much, much more joy out of running with music.

I don’t think there needs to be any judgement for somebody who “needs” music to run. Music is great!

>>Running do over an hour gets boring unless you're trail running and have different scenery to look forward to.

As somebody into heavy hands walking this is precisely my problem. Urban walking gets boring and tedious quickly.

Most people who enjoy these activities are basically looking forward to spending some time in solitude walking in natural spaces where there is much green, sunlight, wind and some scenery to relish.

For me I've always found running outdoors engaging, but swimming laps becomes quickly tedious. I once as an experiment did a half marathon on a circular sports centre track to see how it compared and it was awful.

That's why I can't do running.

I can't get over the fact that it's a painful way to get from A to A. Some optimizing party of me is always screaming WE COULD JUST HAVE STAYED AT A!

Now, if they're is a ball to chase and a game to win, I can run until I fall over...

> Now, if they're is a ball to chase and a game to win, I can run until I fall over...

Well, there's the solution :) Make a game out of it. Some find it helpful to reward themselves if they can reach some sort of goal (under X minutes per km) and not otherwise, then you have something of a game.

Otherwise, if you're a bit competitive, find another competitive friend and compete who can run for longest without giving up. Loser buys the other one beers for evening.

I run Bay To Breakers done years, and it's vastly easier surrounded by people who also run.

Even though they're complete strangers, there is some social pressure to keep going.

I'm sure a running group could also work for me.

I'm the same, but I found out I really like rucking (weighted marches). Grab a backpack, put some weight on it, and take a walk around your neighborhood while listening to a good podcast. Currently I walk 4-5km with a 14kg backpack, 3-4x a week. Some more details here: https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/the-be...

Exactly the same, plus the weird effect that when I finish a run I spend the rest of the day feeling like I'm coming down with the flu, while if I play a ball-chasing game so intensely that I puke, I feel invincible the rest of the day (win or lose). All in my head, I guess, but I can't shake the feeling that one leaves me unhealthy while the other leaves me healthy. Really strange—and that, on top of one being the most boring thing I've ever done on purpose and the other being really fun.

So yeah, running... not for me.

You might be overtraining! While a more intense run can certainly have that effect, especially to a new or infrequent runner, a light effort jog (zone 1 heart rate or below) usually leaves you feeling better than you started.

This. When I over train my body just rattles with impending doom anxiety for days while I feel like I have a bad cold.

I love long bike rides, I do 40 miles most weekends. Then when I occasionally try running, all I can think is how incredibly slow it is. It's all the pain of exercising without the fun of actually going anywhere!

I was the same way, but it helped that I've more recently made a conscious effort to be process focused instead of outcome focus. Oliver Burkeman's book Four Thousand Weeks was good at reframing for me.

> I can't get over the fact that it's a painful way to get from A to A. Some optimizing party of me is always screaming WE COULD JUST HAVE STAYED AT A!

I feel absolutely the same... about taking a walk. That seems incredibly pointless, as you say.

However, if I jog the same route, I burn X kcal, and after dieting for a while, I know how much X is, weighed in food. Very tasty food, this long into a diet. That makes it incredibly easy to instead go for that jog.

It's incredibly weird. I can also take a 1h walk no problem to go buy milk at a shop 30min away. That ticks a box, so it's a Job Well Done for my brain.

Have you tried something like Zombies, Run?

It is kind of a gamified running game, with audio clips and interactive elements. For example, at certain times zombies appear and you have to increase your pace for a bit. In the meantime you follow a story about a post-apocalyptic world, with characters etc. I tried it for a while, worked pretty well!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zombies-run/id503519713

You're running way too hard. Focus on zone 2, and it ain't so hard. Of course, you do want to go faster, but these training should be the minority of your run.

Run faster. That will be different.

I run enough for others to classify me as a runner, and they are always surprised when I say that I almost never listen to music or bring anything more than a watch.

For me, having to deal with The Suck and be alone with yourself and your feelings is part of the challenge.

I don't run as much as I used to but empathize with this. It's fine to mix it up too. When I was doing longer runs I'd listen to a long podcast.

With weight lifting and higher intensity exercise I make a point to not listen to music to build up a tiny bit of mental toughness and be stuck with The Suck and also myself. Music is a crutch.

I do listen to music cached on my Apple Watch every now and then, but I got it primarily for quick voice note taking. Many an idea - most bad, some great - were birthed from The Suck.

Same. I do not now what the definition of meditate is, but I imagine I come close to it while running.

I don't run but I do a lot of walking. My mind wanders a huge amount during my walks, which I find nice. I am usually so focused on preventing my mind from wandering, even in leisure activities, for example by focusing on a movie or book. Sometimes I stay up later because it means I'll fall asleep quicker and not be alone with my thoughts waiting for sleep for as long. But I think there's a definite need in the human mind for time to sort things out internally, even if (and maybe especially if) there's thoughts you're trying to escape from.

This is one of the major benefits of LSD (long, slow, distance) running, especially for people who have (a slight) ADHD (like me).

It allows you to have solitude. I can't sit down and think quietly for an hour, because I .. just can't cope with the lack of stimuli. Running provides some baseline stimulus at least (plus I always set a specific goal, either a distance or a time goal so that I don't give it up), so I just need to survive the first 30 mins and then I get in the flow to some extent. Most of the good work I've done was actually done during long weekend runs -- then I have the week to actually do what I figured out during the run.

Yeah that's why I MDMA (mid distance medium acceleration) I get the same benefits.

You might instead try THC (technical, high-cardio) running; it takes up less of your weekend.

Crack is also good for weight loss. The crystallized form of cocaine.

There are of course, other METHods to go about it.

Regular cocaine HCl is crystalline too.

The trend these days is Cardiac Basal Distance. Works best on low altitude.

My ADHD symptoms have been drastically reduced after running daily for the past couple of months.

Even while using medication, running improves results on top of what I had been seeing. It also helps to have a physical challenge to complete every day in order to maintain a routine.

For my body, I need about 90 minutes of challenging physical exercise every day, or I start to seek stimulation in any form I can find, which is usually distracting from my primary goals.

One of the top recommendations that pretty much every ADHD resource mentions is regular exercise. To be fair, running (exercising) daily will help pretty much everyone's mental health significantly.

I've never done super long runs (anything over 20 miles) but I just find it too boring. I can listen to a podcast or something but unless I'm running in a new area its just moving kinda slowly through spaces I've already seen.

I've switched to biking now which tends to help my restless mind much more. I'm moving faster, I have to lock in more because when I'm going 15 mph or higher I cant zone out like I do when I'm running, and I can see more/new places if I want to.

Huberman talks about this in his podcast - he says that "don't stack dopamine". In this context - try to run without podcasts, then you'll enjoy more running and podcasts too.

Huberman must be one of those guys who experience the runner's high - I can't say I ever have, so podcasts and running is about getting back to normal rather than multiplying the happy.

Yeah... If I cant listen to a podcast while I run then I'm not going to run. It's not a thing I love doing. If I can listen to a podcast at the same time I feel like I'm doing something I don't like doing but its okay because I get to listen to a podcast.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32897812

I think I'm biologically [0] wired like this. I feel good when I'm deeply active. Running makes my mind wander, my body better (deeper breathing, more cardiac activity). Bonus point when I get runners high.

[0] I've heard my grand parents were also never ending workers.

this is assuming you can manage the long part... my trash cardio got me wheezing after 15 minutes jog and walk alternating.

I experience this same benefit from a walking desk. I thought it would be distracting but somehow that 10% of my brain being occupied by walking actually makes it way easier for me to focus otherwise.

Try a run that is much longer (eg, 3 hours), then see how your 1.5 hour run feels. Usually you need a larger-than-normal stimulus to elicit adaptation. In my experience, the mind adapts to these things and will essentially learn to shut off.

I treat it as meditative, "connect with nature" time. Treadmills, however, are indeed terrible, but then it's easy to watch things. I was never a fan of listening to things while running, some combination of having to have volume high enough to cover the wind noise, and wanting to maintain situational awareness.

When I ran (casually), there seemed to be three non-boring factors:

* Running through the city, there's the changing scenery, and also being very careful about constant tripping hazards, cars, pedestrians.

* Running on a treadmill or in an empty university track lane, you can hit a sustainable pace in which you can just zone out and think.

* The exertion, and trying to manage that and not be injured, while keeping going, wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't boring.

When a combination of fatigue and boredom did strike, on a track, I'd stretch the slow jog to the nearest lap mark, then suddenly sprint another half lap just by telling myself I could and this was the time for it, and then be glad everything worked and didn't explode. (I'm not sure this was a good idea, physically, but it was emotionally reassuring and symbolic.)

That's one of the things I love about running, after about 12 hours I even stop having things to think about :D

I joined a Hash House Harriers group, which helps a lot with boredom. It's running somewhat chaotically in the woods, and you're constantly needing to find the trail. Its quite social. There are some cultural aspects around drinking and such that I don't love, but overall it is a net positive and far more engaging than other types of running for me.

My problem with running was knee malfunction. I don't know how people do it short of just accepting the damage and/or getting mechanical replacements.

I wouldn’t say it’s a given that running torches your knees - mechanics, flexibility and musculature make a big difference.

Damage from running, while not unusual, is not the default. Running does not wear out the knees long term.

Go slower, allow your musculature to adapt. The aerobic system adapts quickly and then beginners go farther or faster to “feel” the same challenge but the musculature adapts more slowly and then injuries occur.

Fix your form and/or weight. Unless you’re doing technical trails or sprinting knees should never have any issues

Try going for shorter distances, at slower speeds, with less hills, more often.

Make sure that you have 2-3 rest days per week for the first 60-90 days, then it’s okay to start ramping up by adding 10% more miles per week.

Everyone has had good points about conditioning, but I'm surprised no one has said it yet - fresh running shoes. I go through a pair each year. Until your body has adapted it's very important to have a good pair of supportive but cushioning shoes.

I have the strictly opposite advice to recommend. Ditch the cushioning completely. I had stress injuries every year until swapping to barefoot shoes, and have experienced none since. It changed my gait and allowed my stabiliser muscles to actually function. Could not recommend it enough.

Were you experiencing knee pain? It could be possible you were at a level were your tissues were adapted enough to able to accept that additional straing. And I would stress that works for you probably won't for others - as a few counter examples, Mr Sorokin was wearing shoes with cushions during his run, and other elite runners who grew up running shoe-less, such as Haile Gebreselassie, run with shoes.

I had some knee pain issues (likely caused by ITBS) last year when I increased my running frequency. Not wanting to rest for more than a few days, I'd still go running and then just reduce to a walk when the pain became unbearable.

I researched and found a few helpful tips that helped eliminate the problem. One was to correct my running form. Overstriding will kill your knees; don't let your upper body lean back from your lower body. Your body should be vertically aligned, head to foot, with each landing (though a slight forward tilt of your torso is fine). Another tip is to incorporate lower body strength exercises. Lastly, be sure to do stretches after (at least half of) your runs.

These days I run almost daily and experience no knee pain. At my current rate I'm on track to finish 2000 miles for the year.

For the past year I’ve been running a lot, and I’ve found that listening to podcasts and/or audio books is a great way to stay cognitively engaged with something other than the physical sensations of running, as a bonus you get to learn and experience cool stuff.

There is also a benefit to running without audio, in that you have a chance to let your imagination go wild, or try to focus hard on your breathing, cadence, and form, but I can understand that being challenging for many people to do for an hour or more at a time.

I also second running without audio stimulus. Your brain can do some wonderful things when left to its own devices.

I started with this problem when I first started running. Once I was conditioned, the boredom went away. I was only doing 45 min. I was on an outdoor trail with different paths through different environments I could choose from.

FWIW, two things that help for me: 1- trail running, especially longer distances. Spending 4 hours and going 20 miles one way through the woods gives me a sense of travel and distance and freedom I can’t get in the city. 2- listening to something while I run, podcasts or music or language lessons like Pimsleur. For a short 30 min run, sometimes even pace music works for me, even though it seemed like it could be more boring, running to a good 170 BPM playlist is kinda fun. For both of these, mixing things up a lot is helpful for me too, always finding new routes and new audio to go with.

Gosh I find it takes a lot of mental effort to monitor the body while running. I spend a lot of mental effort balancing exertion among muscles (left-right, calf-quad-glut, legs-arms), tuning pace, "shifting gears" in terms of breaths per stride when terrain slope varies.

I listen to techno/EDM-- which in any other context I can't stand context-- and that was the discovery which helped a lot with the boredom issue. I've tried listening to podcasts/audiobooks, but I either lose focus on running or the words.

You need to repeat it many times. Then your mind will grasp the idea: you run marathon, you get endorphins, you feel good. When conditioning kicked in, it wouldn't be such a boring experience.

I have a terrible solution for this, which is to run indoors on a treadmill (or do any similar form of cardio) and watch Netflix while on it

You get more benefit from just walking, I believe.

Walking is good.

Walking doesn't raise the heart rate enough.

https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/personal-activity-intelligence#Bet...

Wrong, Walking can be more beneficial than even swimming or running if done right.

Please see: https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/fitness/heavyh...

Basically use all your four limbs while working out, even running appears to be a dumb way of exercising since only two limbs are involved at any given time.

As-it says — "… at certain levels, Heavyhands Walking approaches the cardiovascular workload of jogging" — but not the cardiovascular workload of running.

If walking is what you are happy to do, then use resting heart rate and maximum heart measurements to guide your effort.

>>pumping 3-lb weights while walking briskly generated 2.5-3X the workload of walking without the weights, and at certain levels, Heavyhands Walking approaches the cardiovascular workload of jogging.

This the full sentence. The cardiovascular workload of jogging is for sub 2 kg weights.

So it depends on the weights and pump levels your are using. 1 - 2 kg weights definitely has cardiovascular workloads of jogging. The >2 kg weights are a different deal altogether. In my experience running doesn't hold a candle to what happens from 3 kg onwards. In a 2 hour walk, you are lifting tons of weights as your are walking(with extra kgs of weight on your body), for like 2 hours straight.

It might even be unfair to compare it with running because this is really a very different exercise altogether. Only thing that I found somewhat comparable is swimming.

As a general rule never exercise with just two limbs alone. Its a poor return on investment for the time spent. This literally follows from logic.

However you choose to exercise, measure resting heart rate and maximum heart rate to fact-check.

https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/personal-activity-intelligence#Bet...

https://functional-strength.org/heavy-hands-training-dr-len-...

There are some more details in the above article.

The highest VO2 maximums ever recorded by a group of athletes were not registered by endurance runners, which is what he had logically presupposed before his investigations, but rather by Russian and Norwegian cross-country skiers. Why was this? He wondered. It didn't take long for him to come up with the answer: the skiers generated propulsion using all four limbs. The runners used only their legs.

While the majority of the aerobic world used two limbs, the legs, in their respective modes, the skiers were using four limbs to power locomotion.

The poundage possibilities were limitless. A person moving a pair of 20 pound dumbbells short distances for 10 minutes would net far different results than a jogger throwing 2 pound hand weights head high for 60 minutes.

Len's own transformation was mind-blowing and pointed out how effective the studies use of quad-limbed cardio exercise could be ...

(Followed by a table of resting heart rate details)

"The elite marathoner runs at approximately 75% of his maximum workload capacity. A Heavyhand user can generate 50% of leg capacity, 50% of arm capacity and exceed the marathon runner's 75% of maximum capacity using legs only. This is why Heavyhands feels easier. Lots of units, each doing less, add up to more."

As-before, measure your own resting heart rate and maximum heart rate to fact-check.

Thanks -- I've now added 2-pound weights to my walks. I felt some bicep burn during an hour of walking uphill on the treadmill.

Ideally the 'pump' is not for your biceps, but shoulders. The book is really nice, he goes into the details of how it's to be done.

I think I'm going to go up to 3-pound weights. It definitely feels like a more complete workout.

It feels far more tiring than a regular jog, or a run.

The higher weights will be even better. It feels so obvious now that we see this, but it follows from common sense, with four limbs and weights the workload is far higher than a regular walk/jog/run.

There is no sense in going to back to regular plain weightless hand walk/run/jogs.

Ok, so I just did 4.1 miles on the treadmill at 8% uphill slope with 5-pound weights in each hand. I'm sure it works the shoulders as well, but there is definitely some bicep work going on there -- you have to keep your elbows bent, for one thing, which means your biceps must be doing some work.

I'm still at 1 kg, brisk walk, 2 hours straight. Will go to 2.5 kgs soon.

Its great you were able to walk with a 2.5 kgs on the very first try.

Music, podcasts, audiobooks, calling a friend… there are plenty of activities that can keep you entertained while running. I like to download comedy specials and rip the audio for my runs.

Aleksandr is very gifted genetically, he ran a marathon after one week of training while being overweight (100kg). It only took him 50 days to train for 100 km after the marathon. He is also 40 years old.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLyzAH9Y0A

It's worth noting that the previous record had stood since 1997. That's an incredible amount of time for a running record, especially with the huge increase in ultra running over the last 10 years.

I beleive that he broke the 1997 record last year and this was breaking his own record.

Amazing feat. Also makes you wonder what he was thinking for 24 hours through the solitude— the mental toughness and… the boringness.

Plenty of people have run for 24 hours, or spent far longer in far more solitary conditions. You could ask any of them. Sorokin "just" ran 5% faster.

I don’t how it is for you but the longest I have ever run is three hours and I don’t remember feeling bored nor thinking about anything apart from the running. If your effort is intense you don’t really have space to think.

> That’s 7:15 per mile or 4:30 per kilometer for 24 straight hours.

That's an insane pace to keep up! I couldn't manage an hour of that, it's a real wonder what the human body can achieve.

For many people, the risk to long-term health (and in some cases even sudden cardiac death) due to extreme running might not be worth it.

Ultramarathon running: how safe is the sport?

https://theconversation.com/ultramarathon-running-how-safe-i...

Potential Long-Term Health Problems Associated with Ultra-Endurance Running: A Narrative Review

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-021-01561-3

Interesting link. But the way you introduce it overstates the statements made by the research.

I agree. Most people could not get into the area of "death risk".

I am more interested in injuries.

I have just a couple of friends who run full marathons on a regular basis. One of them just died this year, probably due to heart condition, one day after a marathon. He has no other ailments we knew of.

It’s anecdotal, yes, but coupled with some research and other medical advice I’ve read, running marathons or longer distance too often and aiming for a competitive time likely has long-term negative effects on your health.

(Note: The etymology of ‘marathon’ also gives a small hint of this, though obviously Pheidippides ran in a very different condition from modern marathons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheidippides )

Seems like this sport got him out of the drinking, eating, depressed type of lifestyle.

I know the US 24h record holder, Nick Coury from around the PHX trailrunning scene. He ran 173 miles in 24h on a track last year. Talking to him, it's all about meticulous training -- he's an engineer by background, so he basically measured and tweaked every variable, one at a time, until he found things that worked. Still, these runs are won and lost on efficiency -- to stay that focused for so long seems... uhhh... difficult.

https://www.irunfar.com/nick-coury-24-hour-american-record

That is 50% of the world record on rollerskates, on Le Man's circuit and 75% of my own 24 hours records on the same... This is beyond my understanding.

He's also 40 years old, impressive for that age!

About to turn 41. Amazing how old you can be as a runner and still be world class in some metric.

I didn't know who he was and after reading about the pace in the article I decided to search YouTube for a video of him running, just to see how fast he's going, and instead found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLyzAH9Y0A

Apparently he weighted 100kg, was a smoker and a drinker, quit both and started running in 2012, only 10 years ago in his 30s. Amazing.

I would say it's impressive at any age.

Not really, actually. Most ultra runners are over 40 so he is pretty young and hopefully has a long career in front of him. Still extremely impressive of course.

I'm sure he's clean for classical PED, I mean they must test for that.

But how about things like ADHD drugs?

When I see someone do a "low boil" endurance event that is beyond all others for all of history like a 24 hour record or triple-Ironman, etc. I have to ask why is their brain so different than competitors?

I guess the benchmark is how many other people are even close to his accomplishments?

How much weight did he lose? It's quite amazing how calorie dense our energy storage mechanisms are.

Someone on Twitter calculated about 55,000 calories burned. Not sure if he had things to consume while running - but 8 - 10 lbs of fat burned in one day is wild to think about.

Definitely had things to consume. I don’t think you could go through this kind of effort on your energy storage only. I don’t think it can be mobilised that fast. Hydratation probably is a major concern too.

That seems way too high. A rough ballpark of energy expenditure while running is 1000 kcal per hour. Strava has the activity at 16,751 kcal.

Dang, that would be SO impressive... <1000 calories an hour would mean he is running SUPER efficiently from a body perspective, but of course, with the right hydration, nutrition, and temperature it is all possible to burn less calories.

I don't know about that, it's probably not super precise but an hour running is 600-700 kcal burned, reported by Garmin Connect

Whether you walk it or run it, a mile is about 100 calories. So, give or take, ~20,000 calories. Divide by 3500 calories/lb. and he burned five pounds of fat he probably didn't have to spare. But not so fast, he was also consuming calories along the way, and consuming a lot.

So calculating the net burn would be quite difficult. But the gross burn was probably about five pounds/2.25Kg.

IIRC, a gallon of gasoline is about 37,000 calories. So that's a lot of energy he utilized, all through his body burning fat and carbs!

Not sure if he had things to consume while running

Oh, he had things to consume. I ran 16 miles on hilly terrain on Saturday, and just for that I brought about 500 calories with me (not all consumed, some was "just in case").

It has been said that your liver stores about 2000 calories of glycogen. Divide by ~100 calories/mile, and now you know why marathoners hit "the wall" at about 20 miles if they don't chomp on some calories along the way.

So a probably safe comparison is Ironmans or Ultramarathons (100 milers go for 17-18 hours for the top finishers). Usually you have to put in a huge amount of carbs per hour (50-80g/hr) and a high amount of calories (250-400 cal/hr). Hydration is obviously also very important and getting sodium will be key (1000mg/hr). Outside of that you can generally limit your body's usage of fat stores though at this length and time it is probably inevitable.

I would suspect that if properly hydrated and consuming calories (no easy feat after 12 hours because the stomach does really go to shit) maybe 600 net calories an hour (-1000/hr + 400/hr from nutrition) = 4-10 lbs (@3000 cal/lb).

Range provided because I suspect my calculations are a little off and I'm underestimating the calories burned and probably overestimating the ability to consume that many calories/hour.

TLDR: Probably 10 lbs if they are properly hydrated and fed (which this appears to be a VERY well supported achievement)

I wonder if losing weight over the course of the run itself means that it got easier for him to move near the end (of course offset by the tiredness/fatigue) - I wonder if the effect did slightly cancel out?

I wouldn't think it would be helpful to lose weight, the issue really is that turning fat stores into calories is quite slow (for how many calories he is consuming) and it can't be relied on as a source of energy so you just end up more tired I think.

You need some amount of weight for muscle to push your body forward and I don't know that there is a big aerodynamic or energy advantage to sacrificing weight for that.

It's very hard to comsume 600 calories an hour whilst long distance running. A good thing to aim for is 200 calories as that's probably about the max your body can digest whilst running.

However, this guy is clearly superhuman so who knows :D

I had the estimate at 400 calories in my post (which is on the high end for sure), which is what I know some Ultraman and ultramarathoners aim for in at least the first half or bike legs of their race. I believe 200 is enough for amateur runners, but I know professionals really load up since the calories from carbs are definitely more efficiently utilized than fat stores.

I just ran a 5km today with a 6:02 pace. I was just about to collapse and I've been running for about 2 years now. I can't even imagine doing a full 24 hours just walking let alone 4:30 per km.

And he's in his 40s!

How does one train for a 24 hour run? Do you need to run the full 24 or is it enough to run single or double marathon distances leading up to the race?

Marathon-esque training is pretty good. The difference is really in being able to slow down so you are well within your aerobic zone, below your threshold pace/effort. Running slow enough so you can breathe only through your nose is a good measure. From there, it's about eating and hydration, etc. Ultras are often described as a "an eating competition with some running thrown in". The joints of course is a big deal too, some can do it easier than others.

Also, most people walk a lot, you don't have to run, you just keep making forward progress.

source: I've done a few Ultras and have used a running coach.

Alexandr had been running 185mi/wk average to train for this over the past 3 months. Lots of marathon and 2x marathon runs on back-to-back days. That said, there's an enormous chasm between someone like this training for a 24hr world record and your or I just training to finish a 24hr race on our feet.

In terms of logistics, can you drink just enough water to be healthy and fast without having to pee yourself to evacuate the excess?

You need to pee to eliminate some waste products

Good for him he got Lithuanian citizenship. Many "Russians" born in Lithuania never got that privilege!

Edit: not true, see comments bellow

Being a multiple records holder undoubtedly helps a lot.

I think the GP is a bit confused and mixed Lithuania up with its neighbors. Lithuania, unlike its neighbors Estonia and Latvia, gave citizenship automatically to everyone residing in Lithuania right before the independence. While Estonia and Latvia chose to create a naturalization process aimed at excluding ethnic Russians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statelessness#Estonia_and_Latv...

Fair enough, I mixed up with Latvia, sorry

I know what you are implying here...

All Russians born in Lithuania been offered Lithuanian citizenship, repeatedly, many times over.

Some Russians on the far right of the political spectrum repeatedly imply the contrary. This is not even a conspiracy theory, but a "being debunked in 5 minutes Googling theory."

I want to run but I cough for hours after running. Doc gave me an inhaler but it doesn't do anything. Any ideas? Help!

Ever tried running while on vacation? I grew up in new england and always found that I had a lot of exercise intolerance. However, I could always do better when I was on vacation out west. Now that I live in CO, I find my exercise tolerance to be way better. Anecdotally, I find that humidity is a real performance suck for me, as well as seasonal mold.

This is not medical advice, and could even be wrong.

However, I had a friend with with the same problem and he did have asthma. The thing that helped him the most was dialling it back completely. Run 1km, does that make you cough? Run 0.5km. Once you get a distance where you don't cough, run it for a week or so, then increment by another 0.5km. If you start coughing, reduce it again.

im not a doctor but i had the same thing happen to me, but time after time i stopped coughing.

also make sure you’re breathing is correct

I've had that sometimes during the cold seasons, and usually take a puff of salbutamol before setting out. I still get it sometimes after a hard run or a race.

Maybe try reducing the dose of running (duration x intensity), until you don't suffer so much, and then slowly build up if you can over weeks. You can walk & run, couch-to-5K style, if it helps.

This little-by-little approach applies to most things in running - from training your VO2max to coming back from an injury, so it may help you. The key is to understand that the timeframe of adaptations can be weeks to months, and not to rush things.

Exercise asthma is a drag.

You might be opening up your lungs more than usual during running, and dirty or dry air can be irritating to pockets that aren't used to use. Start with short runs to build up your tolerance. Running on wet days can help -- the air is cleaner, wet, and less irritating. Good nose breathing will humidify and filter the air through your sinuses instead of passing straight to the lungs. Huffing steam through your nose in the shower before or after can calm the irritated tissue. If that doesn't work, reactine or a puffer can help. A light puff deep in the lungs _before_ the run can help stave it off.

After getting a flu some years ago, I had a similar problem ever since it cleared up. I have no idea if it is like yours, so it might be a longshot; mine is classified as "mild exercise-induced asthma". It is worst in cold weather.

I've also found that the inhaler helps only marginally, but it does help to start out each run on a much slower than normal pace, even walking (sort of giving the airways time to adjust), and also starting out wearing a scarf or big collar over the airways to trap moisture in the airstream. It's kind of annoying to do as my usual routine was a good warmup then just start right-off at full pace, but since then, I kind of pay for that.

Good luck, I hope this helps or or you can find something that does!

Allergies? Definitely consult your doctor, but try taking claritin (or generic) for 2 weeks and see if that clears things up.

If you cough then you needs different method of breathing. I coughs when I breathing through mouth because inhale/exhale make my mouth and throath dry. Try use nose for both.

Anecdotal:

I struggled with exercise asthma for as long as I can remember up until about a year ago (currently 28). I had in my head that I'd never be athletic for this reason. Last year I started heavily lifting weights with a trainer in order to correct some of the slouch I'd developed from programming and mentioned to my trainer that I would never be a runner because of the breathing issues.

I'm not sure if his response to that came from a place of wisdom or not, but he effectively told me to "quit making excuses and get after it" and started integrating runs into my workout. My lunch issues were always exacerbated in cold weather, and this was in November where the mornings were around 38f. It started with ~1km runs and I honestly thought this guy was killing me. I was bringing an inhaler in my truck and would use it between the "warm up" runs and doing weights because my lungs tight and on fire.

I was doing this routine 3 days a week that entire winter, and the length of the warmup run would range from 1-3km. I started noticing the pain less and less as the weeks went by. I actually started enjoying it, and began running on the days I wasn't going to the gym. I worked from 1 mile runs to consistently doing 4-5 5ks a week, with the occasional longer run. I still try to do 3-4 5ks a week to this day.

I hadn't really thought about it until this comment, which is probably what prompted this long-winded response. For me though, the solution was to just keep doing it. Your lungs get stronger.

Does it help if you run slower? Does it happen more during spring (i.e. could it be allergies)?

Come on, Roman Empire’s Parateus Messenger Express do this every day.

/sarcasm

Link doesn't work for me for some reason.

It took a few seconds to load, but it worked for me.

Amazing feat

Amazing legs, lungs, heart, brain, etc etc too

This has to be with substances

One could safely assume he drank and ate some substances during this event.

The guy was clearly juiced up on dihydrogen monoxide.

I can't believe the run ogranizers allowed him to use DHMO (dihydrogen monoxide), it's a very deadly substance if one isn't careful.

There's even a website dedicated to how devistating it is:

https://www.dhmo.org

The performance advantage is ridiculous too. You see a guy on DHMO next to a regular guy without it, and the results are very predictable. Totally unfair.

Could be, but I think he was using hydrogen hydroxide

Even if it is, it's still his leg muscles, his cardiovascular endurance, his ability to remain awake for 24 hours doing an intense exercise without collapsing of fatigue. Substances don't confer superpowers.

Yes they do, amphetamines would accomplish everything you wrote above. With enough hydration and amphetamines I’m certain even I could accomplish this and my general time for a mile over 20 miles is currently 8.5 minutes.

go do it then

Yeah not trying to get addicted to highly addictive substances.

Yep, if anything I'm fascinated by the advance in science in this area. It's amazing how much work is being done in human longevity and healthspan that isn't "publicly" funded.

yeah I'm sure he used chemicals to get him to the finish line. I mean everyone does, it's how human bodies work.

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