Welcome to Your Annual Anton Krupicka Comeback Story Fix

by Chase Parnell — March 22, 2020 — 📸: ESM

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Over the last couple months, between Jim Walmsley’s Olympic Trials build-up to now Anton Krupicka’s return to legit running volume, I’ve spent more time creeping on Strava than I’d like to admit. I’m certain, based on interviews I’ve read or listened to, that Anton would question why I’d waste my time looking at his training so closely. Why would someone who doesn’t even know him care to research his training and then write about it? Well, all I can do is flip it around and say that I’m constantly surprised at how he doesn’t seem to understand why people care about him, his running, or his story arc generally. I know he doesn’t view himself as anything extraordinary, but much like he reveres authors such as the late David Foster Wallace, he should be able to understand how one might similarly revere what he’s done in endurance sport and culture. [Note: I mention Wallace because it is well known that he is Anton’s favorite author. In an interview I read, he said he has read essentially everything Wallace has ever written. I have read none of it, but I’ve read essentially everything Jonathan Franzen has ever written, who was a dear dear friend of Wallace and I’ve listened to Franzen go on and on over the years expounding the genius of Wallace. I guess what I’m saying is that within the ultra running microcosm, Anton is a Wallace, a Franzen; if his 2006 Leadville win was his first “work”, he sunk a hook into many of us and we’re now compelled to read anything else he puts out.]

To those that get all riled up about this never-ending narrative, I think its just a matter of taste. People go bananas over certain other ultra runners that I’m not inspired by at all. And that’s okay. With respect to whether or not Anton’s status in the lore of ultra running is worthy of such acclaim, here are a few tidbits to nibble on if you dismiss him wholesale because he essentially hasn’t raced in five years. First, Anton is bigger than the performance side of the sport. For those that got into ultras during the decade pre-Walmsley, Anton was and arguably still is the preeminent icon of our sport. His results only tangentially effect his status, which is the reason why we can all still be interested in what he’s doing despite his competitive drought. Second, he remains an authentic and authoritative voice in the sport. He isn’t afraid to say it like it is and he’s been that way from the beginning. Third, you have to appreciate his consistency and connectivity to the landscape around Boulder, Colorado. He has a wealth of knowledge bore out through time and effort in his local environment. Fourth, in many ways volume, not competition, equals passion. Anton has the same thing that Walmsley has and the same thing that Kilian has, which is an ability and desire to do an absurd amount of one thing. This fervor for aerobic movement outside is just as impressive, if not more so, than any competitive feat he could accomplish.

For example, American cyclist Ben King, 2019 Tour de France rider and winner of two Vuelta de Espana stages, road his bike for 932 hours in 2019. Anton road his 957. That’s averaging almost three hours a day, every day of the year. He also ran for 240 hours and skied and climbed a lot too. All combined, he is outside and pushing with some level of effort for four to five hours a day, every day. What that tells me is that he has an extraordinary appetite. As someone who enjoys running a fair bit myself, as much as I try, I am honestly just way too lazy to put in that kind of volume. I can run for six hours in the mountains and enjoy doing so, but I’m probably not going to feel like waking up and doing it again the next day. The inner desire just isn’t there to go big day after day after day. And sure, that desire in him is largely to blame for his chronic injuries, but it’s also what continues to make him relevant and intriguing. And honestly, as fans, don’t we like obsessive personalities? Tell me, would Ernest Hemingway or Truman Capote be more or less interesting if they weren’t also alcoholics? I recently wrote a book review for In Search of Al Howie by Jared Beasley, which delicately intertwined Howie’s heroic and sick relationship with running. Howie holds the record for the Trans-Canada run, 4,500 miles in 72 days. Howie was an amalgam of crazy, vices, great runner, and a unique but unstable mind. We see patterns of self-destruction in Anton’s running/injury cycles. Is he too mad in some way or am I just being dramatic? The story is still unfolding.

His Recent Weeks of Training

In Anton’s last three full weeks of training, he averaged 73.1 miles per week of running (scrambling included). And despite the uptick in running, Anton still put in a lot of hours on the bike (159 miles per week average) and climbed a fair bit too.

But as I mentioned, these types of ebbs and flows in running fitness have mostly served as a tease over the years. He puts his training out on Strava and makes fairly optimistic comments, and then inevitably, his achilles, shin, or other soft-tissue malady surfaces and he’s forced back to the other endurance disciplines in his life.

He always seems to be bummed with his setbacks and yet his training doesn’t ever really change. Already in this build-up, in my opinion, he’s doing way too many longer efforts given his history. He has the occasional 8-12 mile outing but many of his runs are 15, 20, 30+ mile efforts. In his last three full weeks of training, he had eight 15+ mile runs. To me, this proves that he’s primarily running for entertainment and not to get back to a starting line necessarily. I think Anton could get super fit off 50ish miles a week, with maybe one 15-25 mile run per week, three 8-12 mile runs a week, and then supplement with other sports. But that type of moderation is not something he’s proven he can do. He catches a whiff of those high volume weeks, and pushes up against them until he breaks. But hey, he does what he wants, his sponsors seem to be happy, he is still a massive “influencer” and continues to adventure in the Front Range no matter what, so who am I to judge?

Reasons Why This Comeback Might Be Different

I’m going to make an argument that this build-up might be different and that we might just see Anton back on an ultra starting line in 2020. Come on, indulge me here.

(1) While he is still getting out on huge runs, for the most part, he’s spacing them out intelligently. Here are his running workouts for his last three full weeks of training:

• February 23: 17 miles
• February 24: 0 miles
• February 25: 32 miles
• February 26: 10 miles
• February 27: 0 miles
• February 28: 15 miles
• February 29: 0 miles
• Week 1 Total: 74
• March 1: 5.2 miles
• March 2: 16.3 miles
• March 3: 35.3 miles
• March 4: 10.1 miles
• March 5: 0 miles
• March 6: 0 miles
• March 7: 15 miles
• Week 2 Total: 81.9
• March 8: 25.1 miles
• March 9: 0 miles
• March 10: 0 miles
• March 11: 5 miles
• March 12: 8.3 miles
• March 13: 0 miles
• March 14: 25 miles
• Week 3 Total: 63.4

The only red flag I see is the 16/35/10 mile efforts on March 2-4. That’s 61 miles in three days. Not sure he needs to be doing that in early March. But I’m liking that he proceeded to dial things back a little bit, and he did so not responding to an injury. After these three weeks, on March 16, after a 16 mile run, he said on Strava, “Great jog. Achilles was fine, weather was spectacular, and 8×100 striders in the final 2mi of barefoot felt smoooth.” This can be taken one of two ways. Fine could mean that it didn’t bother him much, or it could mean that it didn’t bother him at all. Describing the weather as spectacular but the achilles as fine makes it questionable.

(2) Some horrendous weather in the Boulder area over the last few days has held him back from pushing the running, allowing him to absorb the solid three-week block of prior training in a healthy way. Classic running conventions like a three week build followed by a down (recovery) week are not things that Anton seems to abide by, so any time nature, travel, or sickness steps in to force him to dial it back, can actually be blessings in disguise.

(2) COVID-19 has killed off all the upcoming races so Anton is free to train with no immediate race distractions. I have to imagine that on some of these longer runs, Anton lets his mind drift to potential debuts. Spring temptations such as the Golden Gate Dirty 30, Jemez Mountain, and Zane Grey, all of which he’s won in the past, might have started to float forward in his mind, motivating him to push a little harder, go a littler further, add in another running day to his week. But now, with all Spring and early Summer races essentially obliterated by the Coronavirus, there’s no rush because there’s nothing to do, other than train smart and get healthy.

(3) His lady and training partner (on the rock and two-wheeler) probably keeps him from overdoing the running. I don’t know this, but from my experience during my seven year marriage, having a fairly objective partner that sees exactly what you’re doing on a daily basis, and how you respond to certain stressors and emotions, who can call you on your BS and isn’t afraid to smack you over the head with it, can be extremely valuable. Nikki calls me on my shenanigans all the time and I imagine Haley is doing more and more of this for Anton too. Also, it appears that she doesn’t really run much, so Anton running equals time apart, which might be a good restraint variable to add to the equation.

A Story Worth Following

Anton seems fairly fit right now. If you go into one of his recent runs on Strava and look at the segments, there are definitely some PRs in there, not a lot, but some. When you see a PR it typically means something because, despite his injuries, he’s been using Strava in the Boulder area since 2016 and you can see how his recent efforts stack up against his best times on the routes. And typically you can suss out if he’s run the segment hard based on how he stacks up against the overall leaderboard. On March 3, during a 35 mile run, he commented on Strava about his time on “Sunshine”, which is the Gold Hill to Centennial TH segment, essentially a burly nine mile continuous climb out of Boulder, “Somehow only 8sec off my best.” That was a couple weeks ago, so I imagine his form is even better now.

When recently asked on the Wayne Watch Podcast what race still excites him, he said — of course Hardrock — but admitted that he’ll likely never get in because he can’t stay healthy long enough to qualify, so he said Leadville. I’m thinking the pandemic will likely have passed by August, so again, indulge me here, wouldn’t it be fun to see Anton take another crack at the race that launched his career back in 06′. In 07′ he defended his title and ran 16:14, which stands as the third fastest time ever on the course behind only Matt Carpenter (15:42 in 2005) and Krar (15:51 in 2018). A lot of fast dudes have toed the line at Leadville, so let that sink in if it hasn’t already.

All I can say is even if this turns out to be an exercise in futility, and Anton experiences some setbacks and can’t race in 2020, as I’ve outlined above, it’s not his racing performance that defines him. No matter what his future holds, I’ll put him on the Mount Rushmore of ultra running for his overall contribution to the sport. If he finds his way to more starting lines, that’ll be icing on the cake. And really, the guy is still only 36. He’s got another decade of potential competitive running in him. Do you really believe that he’ll NEVER start another 100 miler? Come on.

The stars will align at some point. That La Sportiva jersey will finally come out of the drawer. And who knows, it might just be at that early morning start in August on a dusty dirty road winding west towards the mountains out of Leadville, Colorado.

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