Battle Royale: Surfers vs. Ultrarunners!

Cardiff Kook

Like two fleas battling for ownership of a dog, two fringe sports compete today for my entertainment. Surfing and ultrarunning have defined my sporting identity since I was 18. And this is the Internet, so who needs qualifications to pass judgement, right?

So which is the more fringe sport? And by fringe, I don’t mean a surrey with a fringe on top, but fringe, as in few in number, unconventional, extreme in their conventional behavior, and I'll add unusually cool.

By the numbers. There are somewhere around 100,000 active surfers in the U.S. About half of them seem to follow me to every break I paddle out at. There are 40,000 ultrarunners in the U.S. About a quarter of them enter the lottery for the same few races I enter. If not for the lottery, Western States and Hardrock would look like Swami’s on a winter swell. Something with that much organization can't be considered fringe. Ultrarunners 0. Surfers 1.

Danger. Every surfer has their own great wipeout, near death and drowning story. Ultrarunners can find themselves stuck on a mountain top in a thunderstorm and/or lost in the darkness or alone in the middle of nowhere three steps from a rattlesnake rendevous. Sure, both can be hazardous to your health, but so can a trip to the grocery store. Truth is, the most dangerous part of each activity is telling the spouse your plans for the weekend. Draw.

Dawn patrol. Best surf happens in the morning, so surfers get up at the butt crack of dawn to be at the ocean before sunrise. Ultrarunners pay good money to take part in races that start at 4:30 AM, so they are often up at 3, not to mention those crazy all nighters for 100 mile runs. Ultrarunners 1.

Tan lines. Surfers in wetsuits get dark faces, hands and feet. Ultrarunners get burnt faces, dirty legs, farmer tans on their torsos and white feet. Warm weather surfers look like tanned gods, but we cold weather surfers just look pale-lame-olo year-round. Surfers 2.

Movies. Surf movies are like pornography - all action, with no plot, and stars doing things you'll never be able to do on waves you'll never get. Running films are pretty much the same. But how is watching someone run entertaining, seriously? Surfers 3.

Dogs. There are no surf cats or trail running cats. Dogs running in the mountains, yawn. Isn’t that what they’re for? Dogs on surfboards? That’s just insanely cool. Surfers 4.

Snot. Runners are known for their snot rockets, and ladies don't hold back either. Surfers drain nasal ocean water for hours after a surf session, sometimes when you're about to kiss your girlfriend. Surfers 5.

Poop and pee. Ultrarunners have been known for pooping on the trail and wiping with leaves. It's unfortunately an annual rite of passage for me. Surfers have been known for peeing in their wetsuits to keep warm. Seriously disgusting. I've been cold on a trail but never been tempted to pee on myself (on others at times). In the ocean, it's go with the flow. Fortunately for surfers, wetsuit technology keeps improving so this thermal protocol has become passé but until they invent a magic pill to put a 16 hour hold on shit, ultrarunners will continue to have it worse. Ultrarunners 2.

Post session dining experience. Nothing beats a burrito or a few fish tacos after a couple hours of surfing. Except maybe a pizza or burger after 6 hours of running, or warm broth after 16 hours of running. Or just not vomitng is good, too. Ultrarunners 3.

Non-Americans. The rest of the world often has a different take on a sport than the way Americans do it. Take football for example. The rest of the world actually use their feet to kick a ball around - how is that “football”, right? Australians took the sublime activity that is surfing and perverted it into something resembling interplanetary warfare. With ultrarunning, Europeans run races with German precision but with copious amounts of spandex. They probably have spandex ball holders. Anything with the possibility of testicular spandex has to be more fringe than something without. Ultrarunners 4.

"Surfing" in Australia

American style follows European style

Shorts. Do you prefer butt crack or sweaty balls? Or spandex? Toss-up.

Ideal athlete. The ideal surfing athlete is young, tanned, toned and muscle bound like surfing champion, Kelly Slater - a freak of human bio-engineering. Heck, I'd be gay for him. Our ideal ultrarunner is Gordy Ainsleigh, the father of the 100 mile run. Ultrarunning is an old man's sport, and we all hope to be running 100's into our 70's. What can be more unconventional and extreme than a sport where the ideal athlete is a 68 year old, half naked Santa Claus? Ultra runners 5.

The tally is Surfers 5, Ultrarunners 5. So basically, I can't even answer my own idiotic idiosyncratic (idiot-syncratic?) questions. Maybe these two idiotic and fringe sports are meant for each other. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Cardiff Kook 10k run, a costumed themed run, based on the prank costumes festooned upon a local awkward surfer statue. Take a look and I'm sure you'll agree, if that's what happens when you combine these two worlds together, it will redefine "fringe sport".