Wait. . . what?!?!?!
I know I run a lot of long ultras, but this is crazy. I’m now firmly into the top 20 overall US runners this year based on mileage covered during ultra races per Deutsche Ultramarathon Vereinigung (DUV). I ended 2025 ranked 57th in the US so this is another jump for me. I’ve already logged more race miles than last year and I still have a hundred and a 160 Miler left on my calendar.
Now some context. According to Ultrarunning.com, there have been 79,000+ unique ultra finishers YTD. Seventy nine thousand and only 14 have run more miles in races than me this year.
[shocked face emoji]
What I love about the DUV rankings compared to UltraSignup is that all you have to do is show up and finish. You’re not judged by how quickly you finish the races. Or dinged because a single fast runner decided to show up and wreck your score. Nope. This ranking is strictly for those who like to do a bunch of long ultras. Completing rather than competing.
As you can see, I’ve basically doubled my annual race mileage the past couple years thanks to the inclusion of journey runs into my race schedule. In order to rank highly, you need to be racing a lot of 100-200M+ races. Knocking out a couple 50Ks each month while impressive, isn’t going to get you to the very top of this ranking. I feel like my race schedule has been sustainable, however I’ve recently realized that this is having an adverse impact on my fitness. I’m planning to cut back my racing a bit in 2027, however I’ve got a pair of 300M+ races on my tentative schedule so another year of logging 1,000 race miles is probably (hopefully?) in the cards for me.
New Long Term Ultra Goal?
Don’t worry. Chasing 10K (100 hundred milers) isn’t going anywhere. I have been toying with adding a new target of getting into the top XX lifetime race mileage though. I have a couple issues with setting this as a goal though. The first is that I have no idea what would be reasonable (like that’s ever stopped me). I’ve managed to move from #787 last July all the way up to #441. I’m a little over halfway to top 100 already (10,800 miles) and while the mileage need to reach Top 100 number will continue to increase, I feel like I should aim higher. Top 10 seems unachievable as it is currently over 22,000 race miles and only going higher. Top 50 isn’t too much higher than Top 100 so would seem like a good target if I wanted to shoot for something.
The bigger issue though is that doing a bunch of races just to log miles to chase an arbitrary mileage ranking doesn’t seem very appealing to me. Now that’s not to say I don’t want to run a bunch of long ultras. I most assuredly do. But I want to race what what looks fun rather than merely as an exercise to pile up race miles. If that was my true goal, then I’d start scheduling a bunch of 72HR and 6 Day races. While I can see myself dabbling in these races at some point in the future, I don’t think I want to make them my bread and butter. Variety is the spice of life, people.
Regardless of where I end up, it’s currently fun to track how I’m moving up the leaderboards. My best long term strategy is to keep doing what I’m doing and that’s scheduling a sustainable number of races each year that I’m jazzed to tackle. Next up is another gnarly east coast hundred. I can’t wait!