Ultrarunning is what I would call a perfect magazine. That doesn't mean that it is necessarily better than other niche magazines, but it does what it sets out to do.
I'm a long-time runner. I don't blog about it much because runners' blogs can be really uninteresting (did the 6-mile course to Skyline, but was feeling good, so I threw in the Hanson loop, making 8.3 miles, did it in a solid 66 minutes, felt good - yawn). But I have run several marathons and ultramarathons, and I've seen pretty much every publication on the subject.
The vast majority of each issue of Ultrarunning is given over to race results, race photos, and a race calendar. There are a few articles on water consumption or nutrition or training, but, in the main, it's all about chronicling the sport. That's it.
Runners' World lost me when it became more concerned with celebrities running a slow 5K than with the great accomplishments. There's none of that in Ultrarunning (well, almost none - this month the race report of the JFK 50 Mile race does mention that the drummer for the Goo Goo Dolls finished, but that's pretty much the full extent). So hats off to a magazine that does what it should, and little that it shouldn't.
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