British ultrarunner Tom Evans finished third at the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run in California at the end of June 2019 in 14 hours, 59 minutes and 44 seconds, the fastest time a runner from outside the United States had ever recorded on the course. He prepared for the 161-kilometer race by spending two months in Ethiopia training with the country’s marathon runners, the South China Morning Post reported.
Evans said the Ethiopian group was fast even by elite standards. “The slowest runner [in the Ethiopian running group], except for me, was a 2:08 marathoner,” he said, meaning a man who could cover the 42.2-kilometer marathon in about two hours and eight minutes.
Much of the work was tempo running, long stretches at a hard and steady pace. “Their tempo runs were on dirt tracks with rolling hills, so were perfect for WSER100,” Evans said, using the short name for the Western States race. The sessions were tough. “They would run until they dropped and we were being followed by a car so they’d be picked up,” he said.
Altitude was the biggest early test. “At first, because of the altitude, I was the first to drop out but I began to get used to the elevation,” Evans said. Many of Ethiopia’s leading distance runners live and train in the highlands around Addis Ababa, more than 2,000 meters above sea level.
Sources: South China Morning Post