‘Ten-minute miles are the new eight’: the senior ultrarunners pushing the envelope

Not only are more runners doing ultramarathons in their seventies and eighties, they're also going faster

On a bone-cold morning in November, Wally Hesseltine, far from his cozy California home, was lying prone in southern Illinois - beside a trail of crushed gravel - his right knee bruised and bloodied. The initial 95 miles of the Tunnel Hill 100 footrace had unfolded with the swiftness of a fleeting breeze. Brisk, beautiful miles under a collage of crisp autumn foliage. The 80-year-old hadn't fallen once. But the last five miles presented a particular problem. They were all downhill.

He couldn't feel it, but he could see it - his upper body drooping like a glove without a hand - his hunched shadow sinking into itself until he finally dove into the soft grass. Little is known about the leans", a temporary but debilitating condition that can crop up in older ultrarunners. The phenomenon is oft observed but poorly understood. The same is true of Hesseltine.