A few days ago ESPN, celebrating twenty years on the air, released it's list of the top twenty athletes during that time. I am not going to argue who should or shouldn't be on the list, though having Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds included seemed borderline antagonistic to me. But listening to Mike And Mike discuss the list and read texts and tweets suggesting other athletes that could have been included got me thinking. Some athletes from outside of the mainstream, major sports were included. Micheal Phelps, Serena Williams, and Armstrong, to name a few. One runner did in fact make the list, sprinter Usain Bolt.

Now I am not delusional enough to expect that an ultra runner would even get considered for such a list of athletes. It is an athletic occupation way too far out of the scope of most sporting fans to have a chance. However, let's play fantasy land and pretend ultra marathoning were as popular as, say, soccer, which had Mia Hamm and Messi make the ESPN top twenty. What two stars from ultra running would make this list? Assuming that the stellar Killian Jornet is a tad too young and in the infancy of his career to be eligible, in my opinion that can leave only Ann Trason and Scott Jurek. Let's take a look at each of their crazy-great resumes.

First Trason, who in my opinion is the most accomplished ultra runner of all time, period. She arrived on the ultra scene in 1985 with a splash, winning the first event she entered, the American River 50 miler. The next year she entered again, won again, and broke the course record with a 6:23. In all she won American River five times and in 1993 set the course record again, 6:09. It has yet to be broken. She won the Leadville 100, one of the toughest races in the world, four times, once finishing second overall and on another occasion, third overall. According to her Ultra Signup page (Ultra Signup tracks results of North American ultras, among useful ultra type stuff), Trason completed 51 ultra marathons between 1985 and 2004. She was the top female finisher a mind-boggling 49 times. Four times she was the overall winner.

While those stats are undeniably impressive her feats at the Western States 100, one of toughest and most competitive ultra races in existence, are absolutely mind blowing. Since the first women's champ was crowned at States in 1978 (the 2008 race was cancelled due to wildfires), Trason has won a staggering fourteen times! In fact, she won fourteen out of fifteen years with a streak of ten in a row from 1989-1998. She held the women's States record (17:37) until 2012. Just for good measure, she also is the only American woman to win the 56 mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa. She won it twice in fact, back-to-back in 1996 and 1997. Oh, I almost forgot to mention she won Western States both those years even though that race took place just TWELVE DAYS after Comrades.

Scott Jurek's credentials are in many ways just as impressive as Trason's. While still living and attending college in his home state of Minnesota, he competed five years in a row in the Voyageur 50 miler, finishing second twice and winning the other three times. After relocating to the West Coast Jurek began running in more high profile races. And winning. In 1999 he began a seven year win streak at Western States, including a course record of 15 hours and 36 minutes is 2004. In 2005 and 2006 he won the 135 mile suffer-fest Badwater back-to-back. The first of his Badwater victories was a course record effort.

Never afraid to try new things, Jurek traveled to Greece in 2006 to compete in the 153-mile Spartathlon ultra, which follows the footsteps of Pheideppides from Athens to Sparta in 490 B.C. Jurek, of course, won the race, becoming the first North American to do so. 2006 also saw Scott travel to Mexico's Copper Canyon to take part in the first Caballo Blanco Copper Canyon Ultramarathon, finishing second to Tarahumara legend Arnulfo. That entire trip is chronicled in what is perhaps the most popular running book of the last couple of decades, "Born To Run", a tale that made Jurek and Jenn Shelton the closest things ultra marathoning has to household names.

In 2007 Jurek returned the Copper Canyon and this time emerged victorious. He also made it back-to-back victories at the Spartathlon (he won again in 2008) and defeated the field at The Hardrock 100. In what might have been his last top elite finish, he set the American twenty-four hour record in France, covering a staggering 165.7 miles. 

Jurek dominated some lesser know races in his day. He  was the victor at the Leona Divide 50 Miler four times and the Miwok 100 three times. In 2004 he entered and completed the Ultra Running Grand Slam, finishing Western States (1st), the Vermont 100 (5th), the Leadville Trail 100 (2nd), and the Wasatch Front 100 (17th) over a four month period.

Now one factor to consider when comparing ultra running to most other sports is that in any race, all the top current runners are not there. Due to the extreme rigors of running 50 or more miles, racers pick and choose their events and seldom do more than a handful per year. Also, participant limits that result in lottery systems to enter most big ultras also results in many top runners being left out of races they want to run. This is not NASCAR, in which almost every weekend all the best in the world are participating in that race. That is why victories at Leadville, Western States, Hardrock, etc. are so crucial to an ultra runners lagacy. The field is simply stronger at those races than most others.

Anyhow, those are the two ultra marathoners that I feel would be included in the top twenty athletes in the last twenty years if they had a snowballs chance...