Ultras are a different beast entirely, as its more of a "survival" test of muscles, ligaments, and bones than that of sustained running performance--even top ultramarathoners will walk during races. Ultras are about physiological limits of our bodies to handle stress; the 2-hour marathon is about the physiological limits of running.
Lydiard-ians would disagree - at least for a base phase.
But I will agree that if you are running even 7min/miles for your easy and recovery runs, many get injured at 100 miles a week. Many do. And that disrupts their development in the worst way possible!
Interesting article on that: http://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked...
But sure, I also agree - ultras versus marathons are different types of limits. Or mountain races versus marathons versus something like an ultra like Badwater.
I'd disagree though that the grit/toughness thing to me is too emotional. My marathon time is 3:38 - reasonably fast for an amateur, but nothing blazing. ~8 minute pace. I know that getting that time faster is 100% about my commitment level. I know I could be faster, but I just don't want to invest the time and pain in it. I enjoy running, but I'm not trying to be super competitive.
So I think it is emotional for 99.9% of people. Only those .1% of people you mentioned are hitting the physical limits, as you said.
In other words, I agree with your facts, but I think the interpretation is wrong (or I'm misunderstanding). The key ingredient is the willpower, the consistency, and that comes from an emotional place.
By analogy, there's a difference between an HN celebrity, someone who does programming for a living at a typical skill level, and someone who claims to be an engineer - but cannot complete FizzBuzz.
Ultras are also far less populated by folks with an elitist running mentality. It is more about being in nature and a personal journey, which is why Ultra appeals to a certain crowd. Olympians and the guy down the road have more in common with their running experience than not.
The human race didn't fight tooth and nail for 40,000 years to give everyone education, a code of laws and civilization, safe lives that include both work and leisure, so that I could bump into the limits of my physiology. How is that a normative goal?
There are no mountain lions chasing me whose escape pushes me to the limits of human physiology - and I for one prefer to keep it that way!
On the one hand that's true but on the other hand, the vast majority of people aren't operating at their theoretical mental limit either, either way a vast amount of wasted potential.
I think the latter may be more interesting and useful: not many can afford the time commitment to eating, sleeping, and training to the max. But when a high-school kid takes 30 seconds off his 1600m PR in the meet with the rival school? That's just because he didn't know he had more available.
There is also the case of the people who can rise above what their physiological markers predict, somewhat consistently - and then conversely, people who are strikingly under performing.
I'd add elite soldiers to that list, which would take it up to tens of thousands maybe.
Badwater is (more) brutal now that it has a night start, and experience only counts for so much...
But please don't treat 100 mile weeks as some trivial task. I have been running for > 25 years and have run from a 4:40 mile to a 2:44 marathon and 1:15 half and my max week was 84. I was doing consistent 70 mile weeks in college for a while and finally couldn't continue due to injury.
I do agree with your core point that most people have no idea what their true limits are. I have seen friends who hated to lose pass out at the finish line of a race. I find I don't even improve until I hit about 40 miles a week with at least one LT run of 4 to 6 miles and a >= 13 mile long run. That only takes about 4 to 5 hours a week (not including extra showers, drives to runs, necessary strength work, etc.) I guarantee most spend far more than that on Netflix et al.
P.S. Congrats on your race!
Thank you for pointing this out. I'm so sick if people telling me they ran a marathon only to find out they walked. I'm totally fine with that being an accomplishment to finish, but it's entirely dissimilar to those who were racing.
It's one thing to be proud of your own time, it's entirely unsportsmanlike to criticize someone not as good as you.
If you tell me you RAN a marathon, I'll think that you RAN a marathon. If you walked a marathon and you think that's a great accomplishment (and it very well may be), I'm also very happy for you. But it's not the same thing. Conflating the two is dishonest and devalues what others are doing. It's the difference between building a website as a fullstack dev vs building one using Square Space. It's not that there's anything wrong with Square Space, but if you tell me your a software engineer afterwards, I'll think of you the same way I think of marathon walkers who tell me they ran a marathon.
Anyway, let's throw out willpower and even genetics for a second so I can bring up something: In today's age, virtually no one is even remotely close to their physiological limits.
Literally, hundreds of people (elite marathoners, a few ultra marathoners, cross country skiiers) out of billions of people are bumping up against physiology. These people will do anything for the smallest performance gains (1%).
Really, if you have not achieved a level where you are ~5-8% body fat and run consistently at 100 miles (or more) a week, you are not anywhere that close. Trust me. This is kind of even standard for competitive college distance runners - and even they are likely making mistakes that hold back their development (diet, drinking, running too many miles at too fast of a pace, etc.)
Yet we can take someone who is 20% body fat, and runs 10 miles a week. You will find this person finishing an 100 mile ultramarathon. It's not that uncommon, if the time cutoffs are liberal. 18 minute miles is walking pace.
The author even mentions he didn't think he was obese. He just didn't know the reality of things, I'd argue. He had to have this concept of willpower (concentration) to learn. And to change his diet and training habits. And even his understanding of what is possible.
It's magical to chalk things up to grit - but there is so much process of knowing how the lows feel during a race, what to eat while training, how fast to do each run while training, how much to run while training, how to stay hydrated while racing, how to get nutrition while racing, etc.
"Tough" or "in control of self" to me is too emotionally loaded.
Edit: I almost feel bad writing this because it takes some of the magic that gets marketed about it. But this is a science-oriented crowd and should be exciting to know there is more of an opportunity for the objective than a lot of people believe.