Well, one practical reason could be that he took a 3 hr nap in the middle of the day. Who knows?
I can answer this...... Sometimes you go just go with it because it seems right at the time. Scott has more experience than every poster on the blog combined at these sorts of days. I trust he knows what he's doing. just because YOU don't understand doesn't nessesarily mean it doesn't makes sense.Originally Posted by tdoczi
It is all so easy to hike his hike on excel. It's quite another thing to strap on your trail runners and follow in his footsteps.
no, but for some reason his pace has dropped dramatically and the pack is closing on him and its painfully obvious that barring him being to step it back up hes going to be caught. you watch horse racing? ever see a horse with a big lead fade at the top of the stretch, get caught, and then suddenly find a new burst of energy and win? cause i havent. when a horse fades its a question of whether he gets caught before the finish line or not. in this case its a simple matter of doing the math, seeing what he ahs to do and reasonably assessing whether or not based on how is he hiking NOW (not 3 weeks ago) can he do it?
Good grief...
Some people are rooting for Scott just because they want to see him succeed - Very doubtful anyone here will cry themselves to sleep, or be inconsolable if he doesn't reach his goal. The enthusiasm doesn't in any way imply that we are "blindly optimistic." Most of us are just being hopeful and encouraging. That's all.
I highly doubt any of us have papered our walls with Scott Jurek posters and are now saying "I want to be like Scott when I grow up!" I doubt any of us have much emotionally invested in whether he wins or loses - This is simply how we are passing the time on a forum.
Why do you care whether or not we cheer for something? For someone who doesn't have anything emotionally invested, you sure seem to care a lot about whether or not we see things your way. Many of us don't see things your way, as you do not see things our way. It's a two-way street.
Now, back to the trail...
fair enough, i guess. but is the notion that hiking until 5 am wasnt the plan that morning or the day before really outlandish?
already answered why i "care." should i? no, probably not.
or you just are rooting against SJ, contrary to .your claims
I'll just say it one more time: the definition of a Curmudgeon ! And I thought sometimes I was one... well, maybe I'm being one now. Nuff said (by me, on that subject) !
Hang tough, Scott! I got him somewhere at 1925-26 or so, right? 26-27 miles to ME 17 and it's 3pm. If he goes to midnight or 1am, 9-10 more hours, it still seems reasonable to me, but again, I haven't been on this part of the trail.
I guess there are two explanations for continuing to go until 5am: (1) It was a conscious rational decision based on a number of factors, many of which we might not be aware of or haven't fully considered; (2) he made an emotional decision to keep pushing despite rational arguments to the contrary and his support team either did not object or supported this emotional, irrational decision.
I don't think that there is a third choice.
And I think that even if we don't understand the logic, there is some logic at work here.
I might join you. I had a go trying to state an abstract opinion that was by no means a declaritive statement on anything. It was a tortured discussion that I will not repeat. I love the various views. I hate group speak. However, there are some that seem to make a sport out of another view.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln
i'm really not, i have no reason to. though my desire to be right and how much you all are arguing with what i see as obvious facts is starting to give me one.
1) give considering what those reasons might be a shot, just for fun. its a discussion board, right?
now, while we're doing that, let m,e throw out a hypothesis for you- on the day he reached 25A on 1am he reaggravated an injury, started to truly feel fatigued and beat up, anything like that, take your pic. he woke on the next morning with a plan to hike to galehead hut that didnt include it taking until 5am. nut, slowed by whatever slowed him the day before, with the chance of underestimating the whites mixed in, he couldnt make the speed he thought he could. at 11pm he was faced with the choice of stopping at the notch or continuing, which is likely where emotion kicked in and he decided to continue on.
now, i honestly ask you, is the above hypothesis really that outlandish? since you have no real theory of your own beyond saying that theyre up to something us little people possibly couldnt understand, i dont see how you can make that conclusion.
The high regard you have for your opinions is causing the grief you are receiving. Altough you had no room for allowing me to have an opinion on Grarfield, I believe your opinion is as valid as anyone's. However, they are not obvious facts. Now I join CR in putting you on ignore.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln
But the plan is only good until the first shot is fired. So he mis-judged the terrain, or he was a bit off physically, or he needed a nap, or he tweaked his ankle. this isn't a one day ordeal, he will have difficult days and then have to recover. This happened earlier in the hike and many wrote off his attempt. It was then followed by over twenty days where he average 50mpd. Don't judge the expedition by one day.
i'm not, but most others are ignoring that one day or claiming it was somehow part of the plan and not a sign of a misstep. and several went so far as to act as if it was some wonderful amazing feat that was proof of how awesome he is (which it is, but in a way that has nothing to do with setting the record or not). thank you for being more rational than that.
can he recover? sure. ive allowed that if he makes 17 today without hiking until some ungodly hour hed have a shot at it. time is running out to make a recovery though, and beyond blind hope if he cant make 3 mph over some of the easiest terrain he has left, if is it really reasonable to think hes going to do it over harder terrain? again, i guess it is possible, but....
At the risk of stirring the pot, didn't JPD do just this very thing with some very high mileage days to finish?
I think that it is very unlikely given that we're talking about an experienced ultramarathoner who has, no doubt, faced this type of adversity before and somehow learned to make rational decisions focused on the long term goal, rather than emotion.
E.B. Hill by 4:40 and maybe 7 hours more of fairly easy terrain.
tdoczi:
To me it's clear that Thursday didn't go well. He was probably beat up from the previous couple LONG days and misjudged what he had left in the tank at that point. In hindsight maybe he wishes he had stopped at Liberty Springs Campsite or something, who knows.
Where I don't agree with you is that he has little chance at the record going forward. To me it's very much up in the air how he his recovery from that episode will go. He showed earlier in the hike that he was able to do 3-5 shorter days after an injury and the recover and put in the big miles again. I don't think we know what his mind/body are like at the moment.
If he does 30-35 miles today instead of 40, I don't see it as a big problem. He went through some horrendous terrain this morning. If he accomplishes the 30-35 miles without emptying the tank mentally/physically and is able to get another good night's rest, I think it's entirely reasonable that he would be stronger tomorrow. If that 30-35 miles also involved him going all out and taking until after midnight again, then it doesn't look as good, but I wouldn't say anything is over.
my point about garfield, and to a lesser extent about mahoosuc notch, is that if 70% of the people who hike something call it hard, then theres a 70% chance that someone else who hikes it will agree. on the day in question he had what a great many people consider a hard obstacle in front of him, and you dismissed it because you didnt find it hard. does that mean everyone who hikes it will think it is hard? of course not. is someone who thinks its easy somehow wrong? that would be absurd. but what you dont realize is that the fact that you found it easy doesnt mean that other people wont find it hard and that most people in fact do.
and i tried to point out to you today that i too find some things others think are hard to be easy, but you missed that one.
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