Heroes

There are a lot of people in the ultra-running world to look up to. A lot of them are listed in my blog roll down the bottom right hand side of this page. Some of them train obscene amounts and achieve incredibly fast race results. Some of them train a lot less and are even faster still. Some of them have been running for 10 or 20 years and performing at the top for a good proportion of that. They are all incredibly impressive athletes which help to inspire me and many others to go a little bit further, making what would otherwise seem to be impossible seem suddenly human.

Of all of those people the one that I look up to the most is Marshall Ulrich and although a lot of people have heard of Marsh and his exploits over the years I think he's about to become a whole lot better known in the near future with the release of his film and long awaited book. The reason I look up to Marsh more than anybody else is because of Badwater last year. Marsh raced the Gobi March in 2007, my second desert and that was the first and only other time I had the pleasure of meeting him, even then Jim and I really just admired from afar as he made seemingly light work of the course. His demeanour exuded total relaxed control of the race, respect for all of the other racers and for the environment, local people and the opportunity we were all fortunate enough to have, to run in such a remote location.

At Badwater Marsh started about 4 hours ahead of me and had a difficult first section of the course. I passed him on the way up Townes Pass maybe 50 or 60 miles into the race and he was dragging his feet along like he was out for a stroll in the park. He was clearly having a difficult time but made sure to tell Frank and I what a great job we were doing and to keep it up which gave me a huge boost. He then stormed down the hill into Panamint and overtook me leaving me for dust (he was 59 at the time of the race). I carried straight on where he took some time to tend to blisters and made his way on when he was ready. Right at the top of Mount Whitney Portals about 2 miles from the finish Marsh came past me again with a slap on the back and words of congratulations we're almost there you're doing awesome. That meant an awful lot coming from him. Even then he had a smile on his face and was pretty much on his own just doing his own thing at his own pace, totally unconcerned about anything else.

The reality is i'm not sure I can really begin to list some of the things he's achieved as there have been so many but I will certainly be buying a copy of his book. He recently mentioned he has only in the last year or so felt he was qualified to put his experiences down on paper which may just be the craziest thing I've ever heard. When he passed me at the top of the last hill at Badwater it was on his way to his 22nd finish on that course which has included a number of wins (5 i think). he has run Leadville 13 times. He was one of the first people to race and finish the Grand Slam and did so in astounding times. He raced all of the eco challenge adventure races before they came to an end, climbed the 7 summits including Everest in a calender year (he also ran Badwater just a few days later) and has completed over 100 races of 100 miles in length.

Have a look at the video trailer and read a little about him if even you feel like you need a little inspiration.

http://www.marshallulrich.com/