If you’re interested in looking up someone’s ultra running history, there’s a couple different places you can go. Ultrasignup has been my primary source over the years. It may not have every single race, but it’s got the vast majority of them. Well, as long as we’re talking US races since it doesn’t have much of the international scene covered. I’m from the US and only really look up US based runners so this hasn’t been an issue for me. Starting out I was interested in their ranking system, but have been less and less interested in it as I go along. Regardless, a great source for what races US based runners have done especially as it included sub-ultra trail races in it’s dataset.
Ultrarunning.com has been my backup source. I’ve found it to be a little less inclusive than Ultrasignup so it’s typically not someplace I frequent much for this purpose. What the site lacks in runner history though it more than makes up for with it’s race calendar. If I’m looking for new events to run or to fill out my racing schedule, this is where I go. You can easily filter by state, region, format, distance, you name it.
DUV
The #1 resource has to be Deutsche Ultramarathon Vereinigung. I’ve known about the website for quite a while and looked at it occasionally, however it has not been my go to resource. Well, that’s about to change. It’s got three features that I think separates it from the others listed above:
- All Encompassing – US and International Results
- Personal Bests / Comparison Tables
- Lifetime Mileage Rankings
They have literally everything on this site. And when I say everything, I mean they have ultra results back to the 1800s. If you are looking for all encompassing ultra race results, this is where you want to go. Nowhere else really comes close.
The site has a table for personal bests at distances which is a little meh, but their comparison table is really cool. It lists all the races you’ve done more than once with your finishing times by years. This can be a neat way to see how you’ve performed over the years at the same race.
But the thing that really piqued my interest were the rankings of lifetime mileage in ultra races. The US ranking has me at #787, which I feel is pretty high considering I’ve only been running ultras for the past 11 years. The only caveat to this is that it’s really a listing of modern ultrarunners (2000-present) due to the explosion in number of races over the past couple decades. What I like about this list is that it’s not a list of elite runners or a list of the “best” ultrarunners. It’s a list of people who just keep showing up and finishing races. I would love to slowly work my way up the list, however I don’t have a goal (yet) of reaching a certain level (i.e. top 100). My overarching goal with ultras is to continue running them for a couple more decades, which should naturally move me up.
So if you ever want to look up someone’s ultra history, you now know where to go.