For anyone in the northeast, i can recommend Three Days At The Fair [1], the longest duration of which is actually 6 days and the course is a 1 mile loop around a state fair ground in New Jersey. I did a mere 12 hour option on the final weekend, and the suffering of those competitors on their 5th/6th day is something i will never forget. Sideways leans, some quite pronounced, others moving backwards to alleviate pains developed moving forwards etc.
Why do they do it? Well, the camaraderie is incredible. Much of the course is lined where runners have pitched their tents/campers/chairs and the support, sharing of food, stories and beer make it a unique event. The shortest duration is 6 hours and you’re not obliged to run more than a single loop/mile if you don’t want to.
Relatedly, see Big's Backyard Ultra[0]: runners run a 4-mile loop, on the hour, every hour, 24 hours a day, until only one runner completes a loop that nobody else does. In 2011, when it started, the winner did 18 laps. In 2023, the winner completed 108 laps!
I don't think that this is the most pure running format. I don't know what that would be, never having aimed at purity in running--maybe it's kids playing tag.
Financially, though, this doesn't sound that bad. One must go through quite a few pairs of shoes every year, and there's the cost of travel to such competitions. Plenty of people like to ski, and I can imagine they drop a lot more money on that.
Skiing is mentally and physically genuinely enjoyable. Endurance/exhaustion running is defined as at least 12-hours of pain, which to me translates as "proselytization via self-flagellation". I hope the sense of achievement they get at the end is genuinely worth it.
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