Final 2016 Gunksrunner Ultra Rankings

Men's #1, and UROY, Jim Walmsley photo: Geoff Baker

I'm still waiting on results from two races in mid-December to officially close out 2016, but I don't really expect either of them to substantively affect the standings, so here are the more-or-less final 2016 GUR.  As noted, I made some tweaks to the formula this year, placing a larger emphasis on level 4 and 5 races, which I think helped.  The question now is whether these races are a little over-valued.  I don't think they are.  Yes, performing well in only one or two level 5 races can really vault someone to a high ranking.  But, it should!  There were only ten level 5 events on the calendar this year; placing highly in one of them really should carry extra weight.  The biggest problem I think I have right now is accurately categorizing overseas races.  Several of them were level 5 this year: Comrades, obviously; UTMB; Laveredo; MDS.  Many others were also level 4, including Transvulcania, Transgrancanaria, Ultravasan, CCC, and several others.  But these races are taking on increased importance, particularly among the North American elites, and I need to be as methodical as possible about making sure these are accurately reflected.  I'm not willing to just accept that any race in Europe is automatically a level 5, as some folks would have you believe--every European field is not Western States, people!--but I need someone with a little more expertise to help out here.  Any volunteers? (Jason Schlarb, I'm looking in your direction.)  I may have to over-rank these races a little bit to account for the fact that the field strength multiplier will not be as robust as it should be (since the multiplier is dependent on the number of top-ranked runners in the race, and these rankings follow North American runners only, European and Asian fields will get some short shrift in this respect).

Otherwise, I'm happy with the balance that the rankings continue to strike between racing a lot and racing just a few big races.  There are certainly multiple runners on both the men's and women's side that obtained top rankings with varied racing schedules.  Some people are higher than I'd like to see them, some are lower.  That's OK, that's what UROY voting is for.

Twenty-seven of last year's top 50 women repeated in the top 50 this year, and twenty-two men did the same.  And allow me a brief moment of bragging to point out that yours truly managed to rank #94 for the year.  I don't know if that accurately reflects anything, really, but I'm kind of psyched about it.

Anyway, here's the final top 50 for 2016.  These runners will factor into the field strength multipliers for every race they run in 2017.  Nearly 4000 men and over 3500 women earned ranking points in 2016.  As always, you can view the entire list here, or anytime using the links on the Ultrarunning magazine site.  Use the CTRL-F function on the rankings sheets to find your own name.

	Men	State	Points	Women	State	Points
1	Jim Walmsley	AZ	254.125	Kaci Lickteig	NE	230.9
2	Brian Rusiecki	MA	181.1	Magdalena Boulet	CA	141
3	Ian Sharman	CA	148.5	Kathleen Cusick	FL	121.4
4	Andrew Miller	OR	145	YiOu Wang	CA	119
5	Zach Miller	CO	137.4	Courtney Dauwalter	CO	104.5
6	Dylan Bowman	CA	129.875	Amy Sproston	OR	100.5
7	Paul Terranova	TX	113.5	Caroline Boller	CA	98.3
8	Mark Hammond	UT	106.95	Devon Yanko	CA	93.2
9	David Roche	CA	101	Neela D'Souza	Canada	80
10	Christopher Dennucci	CA	100.725	Bethany Patterson	VA	79.3
11	Jeff Browning	OR	99.4	Cassie Scallon	CO	76.05
12	Alex Nichols	CO	97.375	Julie Koepke	TX	75.875
13	Hayden Hawkes	UT	95	Clare Gallagher	CO	75.8
14	Cody Reed	AZ	87.3	Sarah Keyes	NY	74.5
15	Jesse Haynes	CA	81.7	Alissa St. Laurent	Canada	72
16	Tim Tollefson	CA	73.1	Hillary Allen	CO	71.825
17	Michael Daigeaun	PA	68	Maggie Guterl	PA	71
18	Paddy O'Leary	CA	66.05	Amanda Basham	OR	70
19	Mario Mendoza	OR	65.9	Heather Hoechst	PA	68.75
20	Jason Lantz	PA	64.95	Nicole Kalogeropoulos	TX	68.6
21	Matt Flaherty	IN	64.85	Jodee Adams-Moore	WA	68.25
22	Jason Schlarb	CO	64.8	Kelly Wolf	AZ/CO	66.7
23	Kyle Pietari	MA	64.5	Sarah Schubert	VA	65.8
24	Sage Canaday	CO	63.75	Camille Herron	OK/MI	62.7
25	Michael Owen	OH	62.75	Corinne Malcolm	WA	60.25
26	Tim Freriks	AZ	62.125	Megan Roche	CA	60
27	Jorge Maravilla	CA	61.85	Laura Kline	NY	59.75
28	David Laney	CA	60.8	Keely Henninger	OR	59.725
29	Chris Mocko	CA	60.375	Sarah Bard	WA	59.3
30	Jared Burdick	NY	58.5	Aliza Lapierre	VT	59.25
31	Aaron Saft	NC	58.075	Darcy Piceu	CO	57.375
32	Ed Ettinghausen	CA	57.6	Sabrina Little	TX	54.5
33	Dakota Jones	CO	55.5	Anna Mae Flynn	CA	54.3
34	Tyler Sigl	WI	54.9	Megan Kimmel	CO	54
35	Zach Bitter	CA	54.5	Annie Jean	Canada	52.5
36	Dominick Layfield	UT	52.55	Megan Alvarado	VA	52.25
37	Jorge Pacheco	CA	52.2	Liz Bauer	SC	52
38	Mike Wardian	VA	50.95	Kaytlyn Gerbin	WA	51.875
39	Stephen Wassather	CA	49	Angela Shartel	CA	51.5
40	Brett Hornig	OR	45.4	Amy Rusiecki	MA	50.625
41	Chikara Omine	CA	45.35	Abby Rideout	UT	49.7
42	Masazumi Fujioka	WA	45.3	Pam Smith	OR	49.1
43	Chase Nowak	MN	45	Justyna Wilson	PA	49
44	Patrick Regan	GA	44.5	Beverly Anderson-Abbs	CA	49
45	Anthony Kunkel	CO	44.1	Erika Lindland	CA	48.8
46	Patrick Caron	MA	44	Leah Frost	VT	48
47	Ryan Bak	OR	44	Denise Bourassa	OR	47.425
48	Morgan Elliot	NC	43.2	Katalin Nagy	FL	46.8
49	Olivier Leblond	VA	43	Darla Askew	OR	46.6
50	Clark Messman	CA	42.5	Megan Digregorio	PA	45.4