Marshall Ulrich

Mar­shall Ulrich

Mar­shall Ulrich, 57, is the only per­son in the world to com­plete the Triple Crown of Extreme Sports: world class ultra run­ner, record set­ting adven­ture racer, and Seven Sum­mits moun­taineer. His spe­cialty is com­pet­ing in extreme con­di­tions includ­ing desert and adven­ture rac­ing, as well as moun­taineer­ing. Mar­shall has:

• Com­pleted over 116 ultra marathons aver­ag­ing over 100 miles each.
• Com­pleted 12 expe­di­tion length adven­ture races, includ­ing all nine Eco Chal­lenge adven­ture races — some­thing only two other peo­ple in the world have done.
• Reached the sum­mit of each of the Seven Sum­mits, includ­ing Mount Ever­est, all on first attempts.

From Sep­tem­ber 13 through Novem­ber 4, 2008, Mar­shall Ulrich ran 3,063 miles across Amer­ica from San Fran­cisco to New York City. He ran an aver­age of more than 58 miles—or two marathons plus a 10K—every day, for 52 and-a-half days in a row. That’s the equiv­a­lent of 117 marathons in less than 53 days. He broke the record for those over 50 years old (Grand Mas­ters), and broke the record for those over 40 (Mas­ters). He was 57 years old at the time. In 2010 a doc­u­men­tary and book will be com­ing out about the run.

How does Mar­shall fol­low the run across the US? By head­ing back to Death Val­ley to run Bad­wa­ter. This is one bad-ass dude. This will be Marshall’s 16th offi­cial Bad­wa­ter race and 22nd time across Death Val­ley – both world records. His other cross­ings include the only 146-mile, unaided, self-contained solo from Bad­wa­ter to the sum­mit of Mount Whit­ney; a north to south cross­ing; and his four-time, con­sec­u­tive cross­ing: the 584-mile Bad­wa­ter Quad.

Once Mar­shall fin­ishes the 135-mile offi­cial race again this year, he will con­tinue to the sum­mit of Mount Whit­ney. All told, his jour­ney will cover 157 miles with about 19,000 feet of ele­va­tion gain in tem­per­a­tures rang­ing from 120°F to pos­si­bly as low as freez­ing on the sum­mit of Whitney.

Mar­shall Ulrich’s Blog

Some clips of Marshall’s achieve­ments (not a pre­view of Run­ning Amer­ica, as the title would suggest):

Mar­shall Ulrich — Run­ning Amer­ica 2008 — The best home videos are here