Like many fanatical sports, ultrarunning comes with its own set of vocabulary. Though it's nothing compared to baseball, here are a few words and phrases from the ultrarunner's lexicon.

Whitewater kayaker Hendrik Coetzee had decided to call it a career after a decade of first descents on the wildest rivers in Africa. The river’s most feared predator had a different ending in store.

He glanced through the glass and saw Tilikum staring back, with what appeared to be two human feet hanging down his side. There was a nude body draped across Tilikum’s back.

John Long was living the greatest adventure of his life, sailing home from San Francisco to his native Ireland. But when his beaten and bruised body was found floating off the lawless, empty coast of Chiapas, it was a scene that sailor and author David Vann knew all too well.

Days into a trip spent with his father and brother in Greenland, author Wells Tower was seized by a tantrum-pitching impulse and the overwhelming desire to punch himself again and again in the face

At the bottom of the biggest underwater cave in the world, diving deeper than almost anyone had ever gone, Dave Shaw found the body of a young man who had disappeared ten years earlier. What happened after Shaw promised to go back is nearly unbelievable—unless you believe in ghosts.

“No one knows where I am, for the simple reason that I don't know exactly where I'm going. Not knowing is a key ingredient in this game.”

Six young men set out on a dead-calm sea to seek their fortunes. Suddenly, they were hit by the worst gale in a century, and there wasn’t even time to shout.

Longtime Outside readers will tell you: The funniest story this magazine ever published appeared early in its history, in 1983, when a prolific writer named Don Katz persuaded the editors to let him celebrate the strangest sport anybody had ever heard of. His odd but true tale became an instant sensation.