.
300 miles.
it is simply mind boggling.
that may not sound like much,
it looks like i will see on the next scoreboard
that a dozen runners have completed 300 miles in these races.
what an incredible achievement for those athletes!
.
one thing people like to say about the satellite championships;
“they are not fair.”
at different venues we have totally different conditions.
heat waves and blizzards
floods and dust storms
even a wildfire this year.
there is no way to make it “equal”
.
but every athlete is competing in their customary environment
(except maybe in a country as geographically diverse as the us)
when we have the individual championships next year
everyone will be competing in the same environment….
.
but will it be more fair?
we have been doing it for years,
and here is what i have observed;
if we have a hot day,
all the runners from scandinavia suffer.
if we have freezing cold
(like this year)
the runners from the equator are miserable.
.
the races start at different times of day.
but that is because the competition is effected most by not knowing where the finish line is.
not knowing what the other athlete is feeling
or what they might do.
everyone has to run thru every part of the day.
and the morning feels best everywhere
while the middle of the night feels the worst.
there are advantages and disadvantages both to having those things come at different parts of the race.
.
will it be more fair next year
when everyone starts at the same time in the same place?
here is what i have observed;
an athlete is going thru a rough stretch,
struggling to complete the loops.
i notice that no posts of encouragement are on social media from his home country.
later,
for no apparent reason,
he perks up and starts making it around with no difficulty.
when i come in to post what is happening,
the first thing i see are posts from his home country;
“what a great thing to wake up and see he is still going”…
.
even tho the athlete is physically here
physiologically he is still on the time at home.
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the satellite competition might actually be more equal than all running in the same place under identical conditions!