[bfe]

"...when he's never been one of the top 10."

Not correct. He has won the Badwater 135 Mile and the Vermont 100 Mile ultras, and has come in fourth place in the Western States 100 Mile (iirc).

Jurek has a more impressive record than Karno as an ultra runner, and a history of being negative about not being as well known as Karno. Karno is a great runner who also wrote a great book and got a lot of people to read it and has a history of being positive and encouraging about everyone running.

Edited to add references:

First place at Badwater 135 Mile, 2004: http://www.badwater.com/results/index.html

First place at Vermont 100 Mile, 2006: http://vermont100.com/html/2006_results.html

Fourth place at Western States 100 Mile, 2003: http://www.wser.org/results/2003-results/

[Retric]

Athletes are generally not ranked on the performance in individual events. Aka after wimbledon the #1 men's tennis player is rarely the guy that just won. Simply because individual events are to random and often based around who shows up, what the weather was like etc.

PS: http://xkcd.com/852/