Max King World 100K Champ -- 6:27:44.

Thank you for saying this. I really wanted to start a post on this very subject. People can armchair this all day and say oh any 2:20 guy who was bored could do this, or the Tough Mudder etc etc, but the fact remains they did not. This guy has battled in every distance event he was in, aside from the Oly Trials for the marathon, he was always in the hunt. Just my two cents, and maybe my foggy memory of his races. Congrats to Mr.King

I have lots of respect for Max King, as much as I do for the guys running 2:03-2:07 marathons. I bet most professional runners would look at his resume and feel the same. His range is impressive and the fact that he has run all these races and done well speaks volumes. Easy to hide behind a keyboard and discount a performance, Max King is an amazing athlete.

oldcogger22 wrote:

Why can't they get more prize money for these events. Correct me if I'm wrong, but runners have to pay their own way to these international events and even top 5 appear to come home with very little. According to World 100k website, $10,000 was split evenly amongst men and women. So breakdown was probably something like 2000, 1500, 1000, 750, 500, 250. For a World Championship? Seriously? No wonder so many countries don't participate or have partial teams.

Which is why there's no Africans- just in it for the money. Ultras are like the state of the marathon in 1955.

easy weeks wrote:

imsmarterthanu wrote:You're an idiot. That's 6:14 for 63 miles.. incredible

Aww, did I hurt your feelings, bro?

No it's not incredible. As I mentioned, pretty well any sub-2:20 marathoner could have a go at this and have a decent chance of beating it. Therefore, this 'record' is only a record due to lack of real interest.

Its a pretty remarkable feat for the distance. Some pretty good americans over the years have not come close to what Max just ran. No what he knows the distance and pace , on a faster course he could run sub 6:25:00. Given his breath of ability he is one of americas better distance runners.

To put my money where my mouth is , I will give you $500 if you can get your average 2:20 marathoner to break Max's time on a certified course. You have one year from today.

Congratulations! Awesome performance. So many Americans would simply hang up the shoes given that they can't hang with the 2:04 Africans - Max has taken his talents and has achieved a diverse set of wins over a wide range of races.

Awesome race from Max. He destroyed a handful of guys with marathon PRs down to 2:08. Really impressive on a hard course. I think it's pretty obvious that he could run 6:1x under better conditions and on a better course. A handful of those guys have run significantly faster than 6:27, so this course obviously wasn't great for fast times.

Max has already committed to Comrades next year. It'll be exciting to see how he fares in that race.

RDP wrote:

Max has already committed to Comrades next year. It'll be exciting to see how he fares in that race.

Just listened to his interview on irunfar and saw that he is committed to Comrades in 2015.

Will be an up run if I am not mistaken. Will be good to see him take on the Southern Africans at The 'Rades.

easy weeks wrote:

In other news, this barely translates to a sub-2:20 marathon.

In other news, Max King has run 2:14, which translates to a "a lot faster than you".

I think people are overlooking one basic point here. Way had a horrible race so Max beating him means nothing. We could look at Max's bad/subpar days and say the same thing, "oh he lost to such and such". Look at the usa national mountain running championships, Max has not competed for the win at any of them since 2011 nor has he even led team usa at that world championship since 2011. Relevant?

He moved to another genre to retain relevance. The Team aspect is non existent in IAU, its not a REAL world championship folks. Most country hand pick the team and some countries will just allow you to be on the team if you can pay your own trip, thus the reason you saw a lot of older and unfit folks in the live stream video of the race. Max did not beat any great athletes, but he did win and he gets kudos for that because if he had not won then it would look really bad. I'd like to see Max come back out to Europe and see what he can do!

Ellie Greenwood is the Comrades Champion, and she won the IAU 100K title. We can assume Max King would win Comrades.

Would love to see what Yuki Kawauchi could manage in an ultra, though he'd probably wear his teeth down to the nubs given how much teeth clenching he does.

Other sports headlines:

300 pounder bowls 300.

Pro wins golf tournament while drunk.

Rotten toothed brit dominates darts world championships.

Canadians score gold in curling.

10 year old sells the most Girl Scout Cookies.

Only on Letssuck do people denigrate a world championship. You people should be ashamed.

max KING OF ROADS wrote:

Only on Letssuck do people denigrate a world championship. You people should be ashamed.

Trash talking is all part of the sport brah. Nobody here is saying they could replicate Max King's performances. The man truly is a beast: he's a Warrior Dash world champion, XTERRA world champion, Mountain World Champion, and 100K World Champion. Yet none of those individually or even combined are better than Rupp's silver medal from the Olympics. Props to him, but you have to try harder to understand the argument about where the real competition is. Not all world championships are equal.

Alex Tilson wrote:

Congratulations! Awesome performance. So many Americans would simply hang up the shoes given that they can't hang with the 2:04 Africans - Max has taken his talents and has achieved a diverse set of wins over a wide range of races.

congratulations. max king has won the widest range of big name races in the most impressive manner. letsrun, name a more genuine all-rounder.

there´s a huge physical and mental difference between running a mountain race, 5k, halfmarathon, marathon and a 100k.

spooneys can´t comprehend it.

Diverse runner indeed! Finished 3rd in Pikes Peak marathon 2 years ago. Killian was first. He never ducks competition.

It translated to a 2:12 marathon, additionally he's the only American to ever run that fast for that long, so why hate?

90% on this board can't run a 5k at 6:14 pace and people are hating, smh.