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Comment by slipperyp | Hacker News Reader

Many, many people are and do it all the time right now, every day. There was a video where Scott Jurek talked candidly about Dean a while ago - it was great. The site took it down (or the site is down?) but in a nutshell, Jurek was very super critical of Dean because Dean for goes around like the ambassador and greatest ever athlete in ultrarunning when he's never been one of the top 10. Dean's a pretty great athlete - there's no question about that. But he's only a fraction of the god that he thinks he is or that the media empire he's built around himself makes him out to be.

(for background: Scott Jurek is definitely one of the top ultrarunners of the current generation)

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"...when he's never been one of the top 10."

Not correct. He has won the Badwater 135 Mile and the Vermont 100 Mile ultras, and has come in fourth place in the Western States 100 Mile (iirc).

Jurek has a more impressive record than Karno as an ultra runner, and a history of being negative about not being as well known as Karno. Karno is a great runner who also wrote a great book and got a lot of people to read it and has a history of being positive and encouraging about everyone running.

Edited to add references:

First place at Badwater 135 Mile, 2004: http://www.badwater.com/results/index.html

First place at Vermont 100 Mile, 2006: http://vermont100.com/html/2006_results.html

Fourth place at Western States 100 Mile, 2003: http://www.wser.org/results/2003-results/

Athletes are generally not ranked on the performance in individual events. Aka after wimbledon the #1 men's tennis player is rarely the guy that just won. Simply because individual events are to random and often based around who shows up, what the weather was like etc.

PS: http://xkcd.com/852/

Dean has a background in marketing - and has been a very good self-promoter.

His athletic accomplishments are pretty awesome but you're right - Jurek and others make up the elite of the sport.

Yes, I'm a big fan of Jurek. He is featured very prominently in the book "Born To Run".

Then you should definitely check out his book "Eat and Run". http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Run-Unlikely-Ultramarathon-Greatne...

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