Just happened upon the current list of folks entered in the Hardrock lottery to date...Holy $#!%!! Granted, only 140 of the 500 (or so) runners on the list will be selected, but still, this could be an amazingly deep and talented field of the ping-pong balls bounce the right way. History has proven Hardrock to suffer in comparison to the depth of the Western States field (with both WS's auto-entry for previous year's Top 10, and the fact that it's just a couple weeks before Hardrock forcing most folks choose to focus on the "Superbowl of 100s" instead), but this could be the year when things possibly start to even out a bit. The two races are certainly very different in terms of terrain, altitude, and time-on-feet considerations, so it will be quite fun to see how the skills of some of the great WS100 runners translate to the insanity of the HR100 course. I'll tip my hat to any of the top WS guys who decide to skip the Superbowl in exchange for the pure challenge of HR this year. After reading a few blogs and talking to a couple other folks, it looks like this year could mark the start of that trend.
Not to get too excited since they're not actually in the race yet, but here are a just few names that I noted in my quick scan of the list: Roes, Krupicka, Meltzer, Koerner, Callahan, Clark, Goggins, Jones, AJW, Wolfe...and a bunch more studs too (not to mention the likes of Diana Finkel, Anita Ortiz, and Darcy Africa on the women's side). Talk about the potential for one heck of a showdown! We all find out our Lottery fate on February 5, which just so happens to be my birthday as well. Hope that means a little extra luck for me!
3 comments:
Yeah, it 'could' be a great race! I would think 3-4 of those folks will get in (I think Karl & Diana are guaranteed entry). It would be interesting to see what would happen if a bunch of faster folk got in - HR is so different than anything else that I think a lot of faster runners may not do as well as would be expected.
Good luck to you on your birthday!
...of course, the shameful omission of your name, Nick, should be noted here for sure. You already have a leg-up on all the 1st timers in the group I mentioned with your great performance last year. The question is, now can you do it backwards?!
Ha! I'm not anywhere near as fast as those guys!
Supposedly it is harder the way it goes this year. The logic of faster one way vs the other makes some sense, but depending on who you ask it is the same both directions. Course knowledge is helpful though - I would just say it is sparsely marked ;-)
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