For some people, Burning Man is a natural extension of the Olympic Spirit. A chance to see who is the fastest, who can run the longest, out of all Burners.

This one time at Burning Man, I camped with one of the 20 fastest people on the planet. The only time I saw him running was in the direction of Swingers Camp!

Anyway, this year the Burning Man Ultramarathoners  were out in full force, with about 40 people actually completing the gruelling 50 kilometer multi-lap race.

The fastest man was Joel Fitzgerald, at a jaw-dropping 3:48, and the fastest woman was Christine Mosley at 4:20. Pretty sure she wasn’t smoking the 420 with a time like that! Although there is no word on if there is any official testing of pee funnels for performance enhancing substances out there on the Playa.

Congratulations to Joel and Christine, and everyone else who participated in this. In my opinion it’s one of the most crazy events of all on the Playa, but then again looking at the Course Map it feels like I might have done several of these ultramarathons myself, albeit at a much slower pace…

Sign up now for next year. Here’s some other coverage of previous Burning Man ultramarathons, in Wired, and the world of cherie

2012 Ultramarathon Course Map

Full Results:

Joel Fitzgerald 3:48:31 M
Nickademus Hollon 4:03:19 M
Stephen Price 4:11:27 M
Japa Volchok 4:23:35 M
Chris Danesi 4:25:27 M
Christine Mosley 4:20:51 W
Kathy D’Onofrio 4:26:41 W
Orion Cruz 4:32:36 M
Sean Sidelko 4:35:00 M
Jeff Gentzler 4:37:40 M
Wayne Pacileo 4:37:40 M
Ted Shalack 4:52:09 M
Will Tarrant 4:59:00 M
David Harger 5:15:14 M
Mari Miyashita 5:16:02 W
Terence Steinberg 5:16:30 M
Cheryl Yanek 5:22:09 W
Stephen Born 5:22:09 M
Mark Bennett 5:25:50 M
James Endicott 5:30:31 M
Yukiko Bowman 5:33:17 W
Arno Holschuh 5:46:44 M
Jessica Rosario 5:47:07 W
Lily Muldoon 5:47:07 W
Maximilian Leger 5:47:07 M
Stephen Neary 6:01:18 M
Caroline Brun 6:04:58 W
Ray Krolewicz 6:08:04 M
Evan Pyke 6:10:28 M
James Cherry 6:11:01 M
Lara Gonzalez 6:16:45 W
Brendan Legario 6:21:55 M
Rachmann Blake 6:26:45 M
Andrew Readringer 6:31:03 M
Bonnie Truong 6:36:09 W
Darkling Thrush 6:39:40 M
Chris Tschinkel 6:45:44 M
Michael Gaerman 6:45:46 M
Rachael Bazzett 6:46:06 W
Alison Kool 7:32:00 W
Henry Magalong 7:48:00 M
Jennifer Keeney 7:53:03 W
Matthias Wynne 7:56:02 M