2009 and all that

We're at the time when seasoned bloggers do their review of the year, and although I'm still a beginner having only started in July I didn't feel that I could escape the deal. I wondered if it wasn't really my thing because the year is already fading from my near consciousness and I'm thinking more about what is to come than what has been, but I found deliberately looking back triggered a lot of memories and overall it's been a more enjoyable task than I was expecting.

First, the blog. I've no idea how many people read these ramblings but I've enjoyed writing it and I'm sure it's been good for me to try to crystallise my random thoughts from time to time, and it gives me something to look back on if nothing else. I'll carry on for another year at least, to get in a full calendar season and try to get some overall perspective. Same pattern as this year, not many blow-by-blow accounts of training sessions, just events or days out that I've found good experiences and occasional other stuff that interests me.

Next, the people. I have already met a lot of amazing characters since taking up this rather questionable sport three years ago, but this year has been especially rich in new acquaintances and getting to know people I only half knew, or those I had only met in the ether. But of course we lost Dario; I neither knew him as well nor could I write of him as eloquently as his close friends have, but he always talked warmly and at length with me and my family whenever we saw him, and he was instrumental in getting me into this game in the first place for which I will always be grateful. I'll think of him whenever I set foot on the West Highland Way.

Now I suppose the running. I set my sights on 9 races this year ranging from half marathon distance to a hundred miles plus, starting in March with the Wuthering Hike and finishing in December at the Rotherham Round, but the latter was moved to a date in October I couldn't make so I ended up running just 8. I chose them not for any rational athletic reasons but because I thought, or in some cases already knew, that they would be good days out. The year started well in Haworth where I knocked just over 4 minutes off my best time for the Wuthering Hike - not a lot in a hilly 32 miles but good enough to let the senior citzen know that he hasn't become completely decrepit since last year. The next two races were in pure performance terms the best of the year for me. I started the Rotterdam Marathon with the intention of just enjoying the day; in perfect running conditions I looked at my watch just twice, once at half way and once at 10k to go, finishing in a "where did that come from?" time of 3 hours 17 minutes, faster than my previous best by over 7 minutes. I have to be honest at my age I don't expect to beat or even come near this ever again. In the Highland Fling in April I set myself a challenging (for me) target of 10 hours 36 minutes (ie 5 miles an hour average) and came home in 10-23. My warm glow at the finish was only slightly tempered by not winning the over 60's class in spite of beating the previous record by over three quarters of an hour  -  reality is always there to put you back in your place when you get too full of yourself! Again, I don't expect to beat this time in the future.

The West Highland Way came next, and although 24-44 beat my previous best by nearly two hours I was still a bit disappointed not to get in just under the 24. I think I can still improve here though, I'm convinced that in the longer races a bit of experience (or is it just low cunning) can pay off. The Devil o'the Highlands was great for me for three reasons; it's a wonderful fast course (the WHW without the messy bits), it was good to join the "triple crown" band (runners who have completed the Fling, Devil, and WHW in the same year), and my time of 7-39 felt very comfortable as I was running conservatively in view of the upcoming UTMB. I think I could knock a chunk off this, but the need to find a support crew and to commit to the race so early the previous year because of its popularity probably means I won't run it again for a while. As in previous years my next race the UTMB was a real disappointment, the big one got away again when I dropped out about two thirds of the way round. It remains the only ultra where I have recorded a "Did Not Finish" (three times!) but I'll be back again in 2010 if I can get a place in the ballot.

My final two races were family affairs. We always go to the Great North Run in Newcastle, and after a summer of running slowly up and down hills my time of nearly 1-37 was certainly not sparkling (barely a minute faster than my second half split in the Rotterdam Marathon earlier in the year) but it was fun. So was running the Amsterdam Marathon a month later where I finished in 3-51. The move of the Rotherham Round was really a shame for me, this 50 mile feast of mud, rain and darkness in December had been a highlight of the two previous years, so after Amsterdam in mid October the events were done, and I spent the rest of the year just ticking over and scoping some potential events for next year.

I've just read John K's blog on his own review of the year and while I'm nowhere near as organised I found some of the statistics fascinating, so I've trawled through my diary to find a few of my own. In the year I ran a total of 2207 miles, probably more than I need to and I'll aim for no more than 2000 next year, but it's how they are built up that's interesting. John ran 2326 miles, but only ran over 20 miles on 15 occasions including races, whereas I ran over 20 miles 28 times, including 11 times over 30 miles. Now JK's a far and away better runner than me, but his figures seem to show that you can produce some pretty good ultra performances without doing too many long runs. On the flip side, I like long days out in the hills, they seem more like fun than training, and I have the time to indulge myself, so come the longer daylight I expect I'll be out there doing just the same next year!

But these are just figures. The events are rewarding experiences and they give us focus, but there was much, much more to 2009 than that. I have a hundred memories that I will treasure; of surprising the same pair of walkers three times on Snowdon on the same day, of the fiery furnace that was the Nantlle Ridge in early summer (yes, Wales!), of clattering down Steel Fell at a speed I thought was now beyond me with a companion who I had met a few short hours earlier, of the hundreds of people who gathered to wish Dario farewell, of the Anglesey coast path on a calm clear early morning, of meeting the dawn on the Col de la Seigne, of discovering parts of the Lake District I never knew existed, of my son's elation as we crossed the finishing line together in Amsterdam, and of running on the near-deserted roads two evenings before Christmas, snowflakes falling gently through the glow of the streetlights, my feet silently making the only marks on the shallow fresh carpet beneath, content.

Yes, a good enough year. But of course, next year will be better.....

Running's OK

I went for a run yesterday morning; 5 miles, flat, no great scenery, a gloomy day with gentle drizzle, nine and a half minutes a mile. It was great.

They say that Ron Hill has run every day for 50 years or so; I don't know how he does it. I had been getting out regularly but the niggles that come with years and miles were getting at me. Nothing show-stopping, just an ache here, a pain there, a bit of stiffness, the first trip downstairs in the morning getting harder. Come on, you're just being a wimp, get on with it. Then three Sundays ago I was out for 20 miles on one of my local trails on a day of continuous rain following several days of continuous rain, you remember how it was then for most of the country. I finished with mud up to the knees, every square centimeter of clothing soaked, hurting all over. I had to sit and shiver in the car for ten minutes to warm up before driving the the five miles home. I oozed out and into a hot bath for a soak and a think. I can't do this, I need a rest.

I decided to have two weeks off, something I haven't done for over two years. The relief at not having to go out again in the rain was wonderful. But it's amazing how the memory fades, after a week I was itching to get running. No, I told myself, two weeks was the deal, stick to it. It wasn't too difficult in the second week, I had to have a tooth out, a couple of days later the first Christmas Lunch of the season with a bunch of old work colleagues, plenty of wine and banter, none of this condusive to running. Then yesterday I had to have the car serviced, 120,000 miles in just four years, where does it all go? So I drove down to the garage and ran back, a mile and a half on suburban roads, three and a half on canal towpath, not a route I would normally choose.

It was fine. Enthusiasm has returned. But rather gently back to more miles I think, I'll go with Keith the Aussie's words - "I'd rather turn up under-trained than over-injured." 

Getting to go

No action in this post I'm afraid, just a bit of reflection -  so you've been warned if you stick with it!

This week I got confirmation that I have a place in two of the events I was hoping to participate in next year, the West Highland Way race and the LDWA "Heart of Scotland" hundred. Although I had sort of assumed that my entry for both of these would be OK (the statistics are definitely in the entrant's favour, so the hotels for the WHW were booked in September!), it still comes as something of  a relief that the plans are going to work. It set me thinking about just how the maximum number of entrants in any event is arrived at and then how any potential oversubscription is managed. I'm certainly not about to complain that this or that event organiser does it wrong, I am more than grateful that they spend so much of their time setting up challenging and enjoyable adventures for us, but it is a subject that has caused some heated debate over the last year or two and I think it's interesting to reflect on how and why we have got to where we are now. I still have some uncertainty for next year because I decided in August that I wanted another go at the UTMB (of course!) but I won't find out whether I have a place until late January - should I feel dissatisfied with this situation or is it inevitable?

When I started running ultras three years ago there was no problem. I entered the West Highland Way about six weeks after entries opened and was I think about number twenty on the accepted entries list; it didn't fill up until after Christmas. Even for the UTMB it took a month or so before the number of available places was filled. However there seems to have been an explosion of interest in ultra running over the last couple of years or so; nowadays for popular events you have to add a third journey to the two that the wise old heads told me were involved in long races (getting to the start line in good enough shape, then doing the event)  -  getting yourself on the start list.

So what governs how many runners an event will comfortably stand?

I think the first consideration is the physical constriction of the actual trail you run; predominantly the width but also pinchpoints such as stiles, gates and so on. There is no doubt that the superb organisation of the UTMB could support a lot more participants  -  after all they manage to run three other major events in the same place at the same time  -  but with the present numbers the trail is simply full. This year I started somewhere near the back because I didn't want to stand out in the sun for an hour or so, and it was over ten minutes after the start before I could progress at anything above a slow walking pace, more like the start of a big city marathon than a trail race. Overtaking is hard work for the first few hours because you have to move off the trail to get around people.

But most events don't attract antwhere near the 2000+ starters of the UTMB, so how are they limited? There is a distinct difference here between events where you don't need a support crew (ie the checkpoint marshalls provide water and maybe food, and there could be a "drop bag" facility, but apart from that you are basically on your own from start to finish) and those where you do. Many of the "unsupported" events in the UK, particularly those that run through (relatively!) benign territory seem to get by without restricting numbers, for example the Wuthering Hike in Yorkshire and the Rotherham Round draw two or three hundred competitors which the trails will absorb easily enough, so they seem happy to accept entries up to the day of the race. Longer unsupported events such as the Lakeland 100 would probably hit a limit if and when the numbers started to cause problems to either the overall organisation or the local residents, but they don't seem to be anywhere near that yet.

Supported events are a different deal. Each runner has to have a support crew, and the support crew has to have a car. This takes a bit of work off the shoulders of the organisers, as they don't have to provide food and drink at regular intervals, but the consequence is a lot of cars fighting for space on often narrow roads and restricted parking spaces. Inevitably the numbers that can be allowed in the race will be a lot fewer. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against this style of race, it's just that it's different. Good for the competitor, who can have exactly the food and drink that suits them and don/shed clothing at each checkpoint rather than carrying everything you might need from start to finish. Races like this are great to run in because you carry a minimum of stuff, you get personal encouragement all the way, and they produce oustanding times. In a race like the West Highland Way which sees a high proportion of runners coming back year after year you get the added advantage that the support crews get to know each other too, which contributes to making it the special event that it is. But not so many people will get to run.

I could argue that specifying (or allowing) support crews in shorter events (say around 50 miles or less) may restrict numbers unnecessarily in races which can be run quite easily using drop bags or basic food/water at checkpoints, as they are normally completed within one phase of daylight. The counter argument is that these are the very races in which runners may be "trying out" ultra running and so feel happier with some support in their early attempts.

Whatever, if these are the limiting factors on numbers, how do you choose who gets a place? It used to be "first come first served" but when interested numbers greatly exceed places this may not be fair. The first time I entered the UTMB I had never run an ultra of any sort, but was accepted because I got my entry in relatively early and there was no entry qualification; I probably had an almost zero chance of finishing (I didn't of course) and may well have denied a place to someone much better qualified.  A couple of years ago this event reached the stage where whether you got in or not was probably dependant on how fast your broadband connection was. But we've moved on, and most oversubscribed races nowadays seem to have settled for a modified form of the entry system used in the popular American ultras; a fixed "window" for sending in your entry, from a couple of weeks to a few months, followed by a ballot if demand exceeds supply.  A qualification may be required, mostly as a demonstration that you are potentially capable of a finish, and the ballot may be weighted or bypassed to give preference to (eg) newcomers, foreign competitors, or long time supporters of the event.

So overall I think the principle is difficult for anyone to complain about, and if you don't like the details of how it is applied to a particular event, you always have the option of going somewhere else - there are plenty of races to choose from now!

This last thought is also interesting. Am I imagining it, or does it seem to be getting slightly easier to get your place lately? A lot of new events seem to have sprung up to spread the demand caused by the increase in ultra runner numbers. This is clearly the policy of the Chamonix guys, providing four events now where there was originally one so more people can join the party overall. Are we about to get into a period where entry levels in the traditionally popular races start to drop, as runners turn to events where they can get guaranteed places?

It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next year or two.

Low Down in the Lakes

A few weeks ago, fired with enthusiasm by reading Jez Bragg's account of this year's Lakeland 100, I put my name on the entry list for 2010. The event is modelled on the UTMB, and indeed the concept is similar; you start in a valley, climb over a col and get to another valley, climb over another col and get to another valley, repeat until you're tired, carry on repeating until you're very tired, carry on repeating..................well, you get the picture. It all adds up to a circular tour of the Lake District starting and finishing at Coniston, just over 100 miles in length and just under 23,000 feet of ascent. The 2010 date is five weeks after the WHW and five weeks before the UTMB, so even assuming I get into either of those two it should still be OK (ish).

But when I first set out from Milngavie on the Highland Fling, my first ultra all those years ago (or was it just in April 2007?), I felt that I already knew the West Highland Way route despite never having trodden a yard of it. I had shared the tracks, the rocky lochside, the climbs, the loneliness of Rannoch Moor, the darkness of the forest, the highs and lows of the journey, the despairs and triumphs of a dozen or more runners via their racetales from previous years. The Lakeland 100 is too new to have such a wealth of literature, and while he's a great guy and writes a good story, Jez's tale will never reflect the experience likely to be had by a shuffler like me near the other end of the field. I thought I should get out on the trail and find out what I've let myself in for. Of the 15 sections that make up the course I've covered 11 over the past few weeks, and I already knew most of the rest. I called it a day the week before last, when the shortening days made a trip to the Lakes a rather rushed affair  -  a decision reinforced by the dramatic weather conditions in the area over the past few days.

So what have I learned? Well firstly, the route takes you to some beautiful corners of the Lakes that you're unlikely to see as a climber, peak bagger, or even Bob Graham aspirant. I would never have visited the lonely Burnmoor Tarn, traversed the quiet valleys from Buttermere to Braithwaite, or reached as far east as Mardale and Longsleddale without the prompting of this event. OK, it was October/November but I rarely saw another person on my days out, and they were all rewarding even if the weather hardly ever matched the scenery.

Secondly, although perhaps not actually tougher than the UTMB as the route planners claim, this is definitely a big and burly 100 miler. It's a full 100 (I think nearer 105), and the climbs while never individually daunting keep coming right to the finish, but above all it's the ground underfoot that makes this a tough deal. Stony tracks, boulder hopping, slippery steep grass, knee-deep bog, it's got a fair share of everything, and there are long sections where you need to pay attention to each footfall which makes it mentally as well as physically taxing. A big plus though is that the checkpoints are never more than about 6 miles apart, and most of them offer some sort of food and drink, so it should be possible to "just think of the next few miles" when the going gets tough.

The route seems to divide naturally into three main parts with different characters. The first part from Coniston to Braithwaite (sections 1-5, about 34 miles) has the toughest ground, most of the tricky navigation, and most runners will do over half of it in the dark. 30% of the total distance but 40% of the climbing. Rough paths and boulder-strewn hillsides, with an expanse of open moor from Eskdale to Wasdale and a series of easily missable path junctions on the final stretch to Braithwaite. No easy going but if you work too hard you won't be able to cash in on the more easily runnable sections later on. And in the dark, if you don't have your compass or GPS out regularly here you either know the way like the back of your hand or you're with someone who does! I think if you can make it to Braithwaite in good shape you're in with a chance of getting round.

The next part from Braithwaite to Howtown (sections 6-9, about 33 miles) is a cruise if you've saved some energy. Daylight, easy to follow tracks, gentle climbs. A few messy bits here and there, maybe not great psychologically because you're starting to tire and feel you're still going in the "wrong direction", but physically easy going.

After Howtown there is a steady climb up to the high point of the course as you cross the High Street range and some great grassy running down to Haweswater if you still have the legs and your navigation's OK. A few miles along the lake to Mardale Head and this is where the final attritional 30 miles kicks in. From here to the start of the final section at Tilberthwaite there are no real navigational problems, just miles of stony jeep tracks, climbs in a seemingly unending progression, and of course it's now dark again. The sting in the tail is up from Tilberthwaite quarry to a rough fell path difficult to follow in daylight until the well-defined valley leading to the final col is reached, and the (inevitably) stony descent down to the finish.

I've put a lot of waypoints into my GPS!

Rain (July is statistically not great for the Lake District and both runnings of the event to date have been wet) makes the route much harder, turning tracks into streams and bouldery paths into slippery nightmares. Shoe choice will be hard in the dry and harder in the wet. I'm normally a road shoes fan but if you wear them over the first third in the wet you'll fall over a lot (I tried and did), and the continual pounding of the stony tracks all round will test the cushioning of even road shoes before the end. You're allowed a drop bag at 50 miles so I might even consider lightweight boots for the second half.

So that's about it for now. I'll renew my relationship with the Lakes when the days start to lengthen again. Am I looking forward to the Lakeland 100 (the "Ultra Tour of the Lake District"), and 36 hours or so of hills, mist, dark, bogs and stones, aching limbs, sore feet, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and probably a comprehensive soaking as well?  Can't wait.

Taking it Easy?

November. Dark evenings and gloomy afternoons. For the past couple of years this season has seen me preparing for the Rotherham Round in early December, 50 miles of mud, fallen leaves, rain, fast approaching darkness and the wonderful people of South Yorkshire who make it such a great event. This year it's been and gone though, held in October, and left a bit of a hole where it used to be. No events planned for me until next spring, just done my two thousand miles for the year, seven weeks earlier than last year so I must have been diligent at some time, but it's been getting difficult to raise the enthusiasm to get out and work at it. Tempo runs, recovery runs, just-doing-some-miles runs, I can't really be bothered. I'm not doing what our family calls the Lance Armstrong days (read his book). The feeling first hit me about three weeks ago; perhaps I just needed a break.

But one of the advantages of being past your period of gainful employment is that there is always the time to mould things to your mood. I decided that anything that I wasn't enjoying I wouldn't do, and that anything I was enjoying, I might as well do a little bit more.

Ever since early March I have had one day a week out in the hills to get used to ascents; I don't go fast, I mostly walk the ups and jog the downs and the flats. To start with it was pure training; the Clwyds, my local hills, have an accessible thousand foot vertical at best, some days I went up and down four or five times; Llanberis is just under an hour's drive, I think I went up Snowdon a dozen times this year. But then I started to venture further afield, and took the time to navigate around places I'd never been before, both in Wales and now more often the Lakes, a bit further to drive but with such a wealth of stunning countryside. I was going to give up for the winter but recently decided to carry on; I bought myself a GPS and decided that wild weather was to be enjoyed not avoided. I'm "learning" the routes of the Bob Graham Round and the Lakeland 100 and now eagerly anticipating and planning each week with the next bit of new ground to cover.

Closer to home I have some beautiful runnable trails through forest, farmland, and over the low sandstone hills of Cheshire. It's hard work if you go fast, but if I take myself out for two or three hours at 10-11 minute mile pace once a week I enjoy every minute. The changing seasons and conditions make trips like this different every time, no matter how often you go.

In between these two outings I'll maybe do a gentle five miles to keep the limbs flexible, but if I don't feel like it I don't go. So that's it; "training" twice or at most three days a week at present. I'm sure the experts would shake their heads but it feels like fun again and at least it ticks the "time on your feet" box.  Rather surprisingly it still clocks up 35 to 40 rather slow miles a week, so I'll assume that it's doing me at least some good and I won't start thinking about working harder again until the New Year.

Results and Rewards

Last Sunday I ran the Amsterdam Marathon with my son John. He's a fit young man and can burn me off easily in a half marathon or anything shorter, but this was his first brush with the full distance and his aim, in his own words, was to "just get round in one piece". So we conservatively arranged ourselves in the 4 to 4,5 hours pen at the start in the Olympic Stadium under a cloudless sky. The morning was chill enough for us to keep on our raggedy old throwaway tops until the last minute, then we were off, half a lap of the track and out into the streets, a 10k loop to warm up past the Rijksmuseum and through the Vondelspark, then out into the second major loop to complete the 42k.

It's a fine course, hardly any of the soulless residential areas and industrial estates that make up the miles in many big-city marathons; the low October sun was in our eyes as we turned southwards along the River Amstel but the day was warming up into perfect running conditions. We allowed the crowds to keep our speed down, just overtaking when it was easy, chatting to each other and to others occasionally, half a mile or so with a girl from Rochdale "long way to come to run with your neighbours!" (John lives in Manchester), and cruised easily through halfway in 1-55.  Same strategy through to the end, walking a bit to eat and drink something every 10k, you need to enjoy your first marathon although it will always be tough, 26 miles on the road is still a long way. Back to the stadium, round the track to the finishing arch, John clenching fists and raising arms as we crossed the line in 3 hours 51 minutes, done it! In no time we were back with our ladies for hugs, hot coffee, the warm glow of elation that comes at these times and a lazy lunch.

Two years ago on similar clear, crisp day in November I ran the New York marathon with my daughter Julia, on that occasion her first experience too of the distance. She found it hard at times but was helped round by a big enough supply of jelly babies and the matchless support and enthusiasm of the folk of the five boroughs (if you only ever run one marathon in your life, this has to be it). Just after the finish one of the medical checkers (who look into your eyes to see if there is still a soul connected to them) saw her and announced to everyone in earshot "Look at that smile, that's how the rest of you guys should be looking!"

I'm quite proud of my marathon PB, achieved earlier this year at an age when I should probably be doing something more sensible in my spare time. But the run in which I got it has already faded almost completely from my mind, while the details of those two golden autumn mornings in Amsterdam and New York will stay with me for many years to come.  Because although the results and medals are nice enough momentos, the real rewards that we get from what we do are the experiences that we share with our friends, our families, and the people that we meet along the way, that carry us into the future.

Ultras and Ultras

I recently read John K's account of his experience in the Hardmoors 110 mile ultra (link at the side of the page if you haven't seen it - it's a good read). Now compared with me John's a class act, you don't get a couple of sub-20-hour West Highland Ways unless you can cut it and he trains and plans his events very thoroughly.In the Hardmoors however he had a real struggle, missing his expectations by quite a way (although with considerable resolve he made it to the finish!).  His conclusion, that he shouldn't have attempted two "hundred mile" races in a year, set me thinking - for the past two years I have run the WHW in reasonable style then failed a couple of months later in the UTMB.  Yet some runners complete several such races in a year, not just "getting round" but turning in good performances each time, so what are they doing right? If you're interested in some theories stick with me, at least you can argue at the end!
I think there are two key factors at work here, how hard is the race and how do you approach it.

For sure not all races are equal, but what makes one "harder" than another? Some interesting stuff on the WHW forum on this but not crystallised into whole arguments yet. For me there are three elements that determine how much challenge you face in a given event:
1. The length. No need to say much here, this has to be the single most important element - we all know that 50 miles is further than a marathon, but with a bit of application you'll get by. 100 miles is much, much further. The CCC is pretty tough for 50-odd miles, but does it compare with setting out from Milngavie with 95 ahead of you?  It certainly didn't for me.
2. The height gain. The cumulative gain is important, but so is the way that it hits you. Long slow hills that you can run or walk quickly have much less impact than the in-your-face one-or-two-miles-an-hour jobs that just wear you down. On paper the UTMB has only(!) twice the height gain of the WHW but ask anyone who has done both if that's what it feels like.
3. The ground underfoot. The advantage of running or walking (even uphill) on a good surface is that you can get a rythm going which is both faster and less tiring than if you have to select each individual footfall separately. Here neither WHW nor UTMB can compare remotely with the sort of technical ground faced on (eg) the Bob Graham or Paddy Buckley rounds.
There is other stuff of course like altitude, start time, how much is in the dark, how much navigation you have to do, how much kit you choose or are obliged to carry and so on, but I think the three I've pulled out are the most important. So (for some examples) the WHW is a long race with moderate climbing and good ground, the Lakeland 100 is a long race with tough climbing and technical ground, and the UTMB is a long race with massive climbing and good ground. I don't know the Hardmoors, but my impression from the reports is that the climbing is tough and the extra miles are telling.

But where does all this get us? The bottom line of course is that the "harder" any or all of these three factors gets, the longer the race will take any individual runner - ie "hardness" ultimately equates to time on your feet.  If you compare performances in the WHW and the UTMB, most runners who have completed both take between 50% and 90% longer to complete the UTMB, so a competitor with a 24 hour WHW is likely to take somewhere between 36 and 46 hours on the UTMB. What is interesting is that the slower runners in the WHW tend to suffer a less dramatic slowdown - runners taking up to 30 hours or more on the WHW often get inside the 46 hour UTMB cut-off (around WHW time plus 50%) whereas the faster guys rarely get better than their WHW time plus 75%. There are exceptions of course but this is the trend.  Although there is less available data, you can see similar trends when comparing the WHW with both the Hardmoors and the Lakeland 100 (all of this data is available on the event websites if you want more detail to play with). Part of the reason is that the WHW is a very "runnable" course favouring faster runners whereas the others have a more levelling effect on the field, but I suspect that how competitors approach their events has some effect also.

After we have done a few, I suspect most of us approach a 50 mile race without too much concern. You start after breakfast and you know you're going to be done by sometime in the afternoon. If it hurts a bit you keep going and you're soon counting down, manageable numbers that you can always deal with - you can always do that last 15, 20 miles. It's not exactly "go out hard and hang on" but subconsciously once you're halfway you know that a bit of willpower will get you there. And to a certain extent I think you can carry that attitude into a race like the WHW, depending on what time you think you will finish in. If you're shooting for 24 hours or less, the first night is over in a couple of hours after the start and you know you're going to be in bed for most of the next one. 12 hours will see you well over half way and you just need to keep it togther to the finish. Don't get me wrong, I think the WHW is a brilliant event and I'll keep turning up at Milngavie every year for as long as they let me in, but in terms of hundred mile ultras it's just not one of the toughest.

When you take on something bigger and are going to be out for 30 hours or more, things are different. Going into the second night knowing that you'll probably still be going the next morning with all that entails in terms of sleep deprivation and gradually depleting resources; realising that halfway is now just another  landmark, you're not going to "hang on" for 15 hours or more; understanding that overall speed is now likely to reflect your logistics and organisation rather than how fast you put one foot in front of the other on the trail. I think it is the TIME that is the key for me - if you think your proposed event is going to take 24-26 hours or less you can probably wing it and keep going, but if there's a doubt that it could be 28-30 or more, ie really into the "second night", and you need a strategy that allows for it right from the start.

The strong will survive, just as John did in the Hardmoors, but it will be a tougher experience than they expected.  For the rest of us, I think we just have to plan for the long haul. I don't think this necesarily means going as slowly as possible and just beating the cutoffs, but still being far more conservative in the first part of the race, and not get drawn away from the plan by other people or the surroundings. But I think above all it needs practice, so that it isn't a once a year experiment. I think I need to get into that "second night out" zone more often, so I know what works and what doesn't.  So I'll take a different approach from John, and enter MORE hundred mile races next year!