Ultrarunning Gets Younger – and Faster

His emergence as an ultra phenom has caught the attention of the small cadre of publications that cover the sport. Running Times recently dubbed him "Tarzan of the Plains" because of his penchant for running shirtless, long hair whipping in the wind, as well as his earnest talk about shunning technology and reconnecting with the land. "People like to make these runners out as characters," notes Adam Chase, the Boulder-based writer of that article and co-author of The Ultimate Guide to Trail Running. "Tony, I think, is genuinely a character. And he's very firm in his beliefs without being cocky."

Krupicka is also gracious, nerdy, thoughtful and shy. But he can be blunt, and some of his remarks have stirred up a surprising degree of resentment. When he told one interviewer that many ultrarunners "are woefully underprepared for an undertaking as daunting as a 100-mile run," the running blogs lit up with snarking about his nature-boy persona, his frugal lifestyle, his surreal training schedule — the general drift being, this is one brash young gun who clearly doesn't have to work for a living (he works part-time in a Colorado Springs running-shoe store), can't possibly sustain the kind of punishing mileage he cranks out every week, and won't be around much longer.

Such comments reflect a larger upheaval in the sport, Chase says. The ultrarunning scene has long been dominated by veterans, their bodies tempered by years of running marathons, but that's changing as younger competitors, oozing post-adolescent angst and in search of suffering and glory, are making their presence felt.

"Tony is kind of a lightning rod," Chase says. "The age group has shifted downward. I started in earnest in my late twenties, and that was considered really young back then. Now there are 21-year-olds showing up and doing even the hundred-milers — and kicking ass. A lot of these people haven't even run marathons. They were enticed by the extreme nature of this."

Krupicka doesn't see what the fuss is about. "A lot of ultrarunners are middle-aged professionals who have a lot of money," he says. "To them, it's a hobby. They have jobs, so of course they're not going to do 200 miles a week. That's fine. But I've chosen this way to live my life."

His choice has come at a price, including a dozen stress fractures and other injuries that have left him idle — and frustrated — for long, depressing weeks or months. Devoting so much time to running, Krupicka admits, has also put some strains on personal relationships and career plans. Last fall, after a stab at graduate school in Montana and another crippling fracture, he returned to Colorado Springs determined to get healthy.

But since that dark period, Krupicka seems to be hitting his stride. Two fellow Colorado College graduates shot a scenic documentary capturing his training over five weeks last summer, Indulgence: 1000 Miles Under the Colorado Sky, which is now being marketed on DVD to the ski-and-bike-film audience. He recently signed a promising sponsorship deal with New Balance. He has his eye on a series of daunting races this summer, including the Western States Endurance Run in California in June — one of the oldest and most respected hundred-milers, which usually attracts a deep field. It could be his chance to finally go head-to-head with some of his all-time heroes, veterans like Scott Jurek (who won WSER seven years in a row) and Matt Carpenter (who set the course record at Leadville in 2005, at the ripe old age of 41). And aside from a case of shin splints, he's been injury-free for months, possibly because he is seeking greater moderation in his training.

"I've matured physically and in my approach to running," he says. "I'm just not as obsessed about it. I train a lot, but I'll take an easy day here and there. I figured out that ten months at 150 miles a week is better than ten weeks at 200 miles a week, then getting hurt. If you can temper your obsession about it, in the end it's going to be better. It's important not to get too tied up in it, or it all falls apart."

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Anton Krupicka sits in a booth at Wooglin's, a granola-tinged deli just off the Colorado College campus. He's not exactly eating the poppyseed muffin in front of him; he's deconstructing it, a few grains at a time. You might think that a man who's just run twenty miles this morning would be hungry, even ravenous, but not this man. Finally, another diner demands to know if there's something wrong with the muffin.

"It's a great muffin," Krupicka insists. "I'm just saving it for later. My metabolism is a little...different from most people's."