Pacing and Racing

It's fascinating, this race strategy business. But if you're not interested in it then now is the time to click out, because I've a feeling this may turn into a lengthy post.

I'm sure many readers of my blog will have also been following John Kynaston's  and be aware of how he has of late been setting his race pace by keeping within a few beats of a predetermined "ideal" heart rate for the particular event. He's been helped in this by Robert Osfield, who takes a very structured approach to training and race strategy, I think to overcome recurrent injury issues that prevented him from achieving his potential in the past. Robert's blog is also well worth following, if you don't already.

Now John and I have been running ultras for a similar length of time (we both started in 2007), and although John is a far more accomplished runner than me, we do compare notes from time to time. John progressed very rapidly after starting in the game, notching up a couple of sub 20 hour West Highland Way races within 3 years. But then he struggled for a year or two; he wasn't able to maintain the high standard he had set himself, and had several races where he had to dig quite deep even to finish. I passed him in the closing stages of one or two of these and it was clear and sad to see that things just weren't working properly for him. So he regrouped, did some thinking and decided that his priority was to get back to finishing races feeling good, that should be his goal rather than any particular time target, and this set him on a course of running much more even paced races in terms of energy use than he had previously.

The approach brought some success so he progressively refined it, culminating in the heart rate target method that he used in the recent Hardmoors 55. John's finishing time at the Hardmoors was 9 hours 35 minutes. Now having myself completed 5 Hardmoors 55's and 7 Highland Flings, I'm in no doubt that the Hardmoors is the tougher course, and that on this performance John ought to be able, should he chose, to run the Fling in around nine and a quarter hours; this would be far better than he has ever done in the race, even in his most successful early years.

So John's training and in particular racing strategy has brought him right back to his best. It's clearly the way for anyone to achieve their best possible performances then?  Well, I'm sure Robert would say yes. On the face of it, the proposition was also reinforced by Marc Laithwaite, RD of the Lakeland 100 and 50 events,  in a talk at the latest Lakeland "Recce Weekend" last Saturday. To minimise energy expenditure, flatline your heart rate was Marc's message, slow right down if you have to on the uphills to keep it constant.

But although gaining in popularity now, this isn't the only game in town.

When John and I ran the very first Hardmoors 55 back in 2010, the winner that day was Stuart Mills. Now Stuart is a top class ultra runner who John and I both know,  and whose view on race pacing is rather different. Stuart defines his approach as "run as fast as you can for as far as you can"; his contention is that everyone slows down over the course of an ultra race (unless you deliberately run significantly below your capabilities this is actually incontravertable  -  everyone does slow down), so why not get as much ground as possible covered before this starts to happen? This sounds a bit foolhardy, but I think Stuart's own description is somewhat misleading. I don't think he means running "as fast as you can" - like for example starting out at 800m pace - but rather running at a pace that you know you can't keep up for the race duration, but that you might be able to keep up for say a half or three quarters of the distance, which is a different thing. Not being afraid, in short, of going into "deficit", a strategy that might have been defined years ago as "go out fast and hang on", and which has always been recognised as an option, certainly not to be discarded out of hand.

After his recent great performance in the Hardmoors, John K invited both Robert and Stuart to comment on his approach, and in particular asked the question whether he could have done even better by "racing" rather than sticking rigidly to his constant heart rate regime. The responses are on John's blog, but even if you haven't read them you can probably guess the trend. But for the neutral interested reader I think the arguments got a bit bogged down in figures and statistics, so I'm hoping as a somewhat simpler soul I may be able to cut through a bit of that.

There are two ways of running a race. In the first, you run at all times at a pace where you know you have sufficient "in hand" to be able to complete the race comfortably. Whether you do this by monitoring heart rate, or pacing via your watch, or even just by "feel", it's the same approach. I'll call this method "pacing" the race. You might feel that as you get towards the closing stages you could "let go" and be prepared to feel a bit more stressed, but in practice this doesn't often happen. However hard we try to deceive it, out brain knows how far we are intending to run that day and it's rather good at giving us a message towards the end that says we going quite fast enough thanks, so this "speeding up" to cash in on any energy we might have saved is unlikely to happen without a big effort.

The other way is to run at all times at a pace you feel comfortable at at that time without any consideration of how it might affect you later. Let's refer to this method as "racing" the race.

Just to reinforce the difference, let's think about a situation I'm sure we've all experienced. We're engaged in a race and have already come some distance, so whatever our strategy we are starting to feel some fatigue. Then something changes, we've no idea what, and we start to feel "good". Now if you're pacing the event, your reaction to this will be "fine, I'm going to carry on at this pace and enjoy this good feeling for as long as it lasts", but if you're racing the event then your reaction will be "I'm feeling good, I can go faster for as long as this feeling lasts".

I am a natural "pacer". I don't do it by heart rate  -  sometimes by watch and sometimes by feel, but my time splits show that I normally do better compared with the rest of the field as the race goes on, usually making up places over the second half. I like doing it this way and that's part of my reward.

But I did consciously "race" an event a couple of years ago. I had been trying to break 10 hours for the Highland Fling for a number of years  -  a fairly pedestrian target by most peoples' standards but we can only work relative to our own abilities! I'd come within 10 minutes or so on more than one occasion but couldn't seem to crack the 10 hours. So in 2013 I played a different game and every time I felt that I could go a bit faster, all the way up the course, I put in the effort and accelerated. By the time I left the final checkpoint at Bein Glas with about 12 miles to go I was feeling very tired. I usually enjoy those final 12 miles, passing people on the long steady uphills and the switchbacks in the forest, but that year all I could do was hang on and dig deep. I felt sure I'd blown it. I did, in the end, get my sub 10 hour finish, but it took me several hours to recover afterwards and at the time I was convinced that the effort wasn't worth it. Stuart was also in the race that year and I said to him afterwards "I've just tried your way and it hurts -I  don't think I'll do it again", to which he replied simply "Ah, but it got you your time though, didn't it".

And here we come to it I think.

The key to how you run your race is what you want to get out of it  -  what exactly are your goals?

John K made absolutely clear in a post just before the Hardmoors 55 what his goals for the race were  -   to beat 10 hours and to finish feeling strong. The pacing plan that he chose enabled him to achieve those goals superbly well, so well in fact that he was prompted to ask afterwards "Could I have done even better?" Well, maybe, but we'll never know, because his plan was designed to achieve his goals and it worked. To achieve a different goal he would have needed a different plan, or to have deviated significantly from the one he had.

Another friend, Dave Troman, was also running the Hardmoors on the same day. He finished in under eight and a half hours for third place overall, and said that he had had to put in some effort at times to keep safely ahead of the fourth placed runner. He also posted a comment on Facebook the following day which read something like "Did anyone get the number of the bus that ran over me last night?" A bit tongue in cheek maybe, but it shows that Dave's goals were different from John's. He wanted his best possible performance on the day and wasn't too bothered if a bit of recovery time was needed afterwards - no proviso about wanting to finish in good shape, though I'm sure the satisfaction of a podium place in a fairly prestigious ultra mitigated the tiredness a bit at the finish. 

I know we appear to be rambling along a bit but we are getting there. But before I can cut to the chase I have to pursue two other lines of thought a bit further first.

First, a bit more about pacing. The heart rate gurus would have it that a way (maybe the only way) to achieve your maximum potential is to keep your heart rate within a few beats of a designed "ideal" for the whole race. Well, I might almost buy that for a road marathon, but for a typical trail ultra with any technical ground I can't see it. No matter how technically proficient and bold a descender you are, you won't keep that heart rate up on the downhills, which means that you are taking a "ride" from your ideal effort, and unless you are prepared to work a bit harder than "ideal" on the uphills and/or flats you will never use the energy that you saved. You will, in a maybe familiar phrase, have left that effort "out on the course".

Further, I am sceptical that you can actually predict the "ideal" heart rate for your goals to any real accuracy. Too low and you may go too slowly to achieve your goal, too high and you either achieve your goal too easily, or it doesn't match your fitness and you blow up before the end anyway. John over-achieved his goal by a long way in the Hardmoors so he could have achieved it using a much lower ideal heart rate.

Now don't get me wrong. I am in 100% agreement that achieving your goals is about managing the deployment of energy through the race. All I'm saying is that there is more to it than simple heart rate monitoring. 

Secondly we have to look at how ultra running has developed and our (ie the participants') attitude towards it.

When I first drifted into the game via the West Highland Way race and its community eight years ago, running a hundred miles was seen as a pretty big deal, an experience that would likely take you many weeks or even months to recover from. You might consider the Highland Fling as a form of preparation 10 weeks or so earlier, but the jury was still very much undecided on whether you should actually  "race" it. The Race Directors of the Fling, the West Highland Way and the Devil o'the Highlands (the three races along the course) actively discouraged participation in all three races in the same year, which gave rise to the somewhat "underground" Triple Crown website for those who were imprudent enough to try.

But ultra running has exploded, and the understanding of how to train and what running long distances actually does to you has improved immeasurably in the last decade. We now understand that with sensible conditioning, running a long event at a pace that you find really comfortable does not wreak devastation on the body - even on a near 67-year-old one like mine.

I also ran the Hardmoors 55 this year. My goal was to jog as much of the runnable ground as I could but finish feeling good. I managed to do this in a time less than an hour off my personal best for the course, achieved on an occasion when I would have considered that I was really trying. I was still able to manage a fairly quick blast around one of may favourite runs (the 9 mile path around Derwentwater) three days after the race, and to enjoy the 33 mile Buttermere to Dalemain recce the following Saturday. Last summer after a severely curtailed training programme I completed the 95 mile West Highland Way in a very modest time (but still more than 5 hours inside the cutoff), and the following weekend enjoyed the 47 mile but extremely hilly and rugged Lakes 10 Peaks event. I'm not relating these to establish any sort of bragging rights (the times alone would preclude that!), only to illustrate what my friend John Vernon has been saying ever since I've known him  -  "it's not the distance that gets you, it's only ever the pace."

Incidentally, this knowledge also allows those of us who often participate in ultras for the experience and joy of the day out rather than the "challenge", to enjoy rather more events than was considered possible just a few years ago.

But it's time to pull it all together. As always, my views, my interpretation of the evidence I see, I'm not trying to convince you I'm right, just participating in a bit of interesting debate.

So here goes:

When you toe the start line of a race, you are bringing two things with you, which are

1. Your current level of fitness. This determines the total amount of energy you are able to devote to the project, should you choose to use it all and should you manage its use correctly.

2. Your goal for the race. This has to be set somewhere along the performance-comfort continuum. At one end, completion in complete comfort however long it takes, and at the other end the maximum performance that you can extract from your current fitness, regardless of how uncomfortable the experience might become during and after the event.

If you achieve maximum performance, you will use all of your energy (simplistic I know, but good enough for this model).  If you achieve anything less, you will have energy to spare. This will either be frittered away by bad management, possibly leaving you short of your goal, or be available to smooth your passage to greater comfort. (note I have not used the word "enjoyment" here - far too subjective and susceptible to post-rationalisation!)

If your goal includes a comfort element, I am with the "pacers". Most forms of pacing to prevent unnecessary burning of energy through excessive speed will get you there, so long as you are able make a reasonable assessment of what performance is in line with your current state of fitness, and set your overall pace to deliver it. I think the heart rate method might even be particularly good here - my earlier criticism of the energy not used on downhills will actually add to conservative pace management. So if you want to get to the end of your race with some energy left over, then pace it. And I suspect that is the game that most of us to a greater or lesser extent want to play - and probably sensibly so.

But I am convinced that if you really want to extract your best possible performance on the day then an even pace, ignoring all the other factors that impact you during the event, won't deliver it. You will always end up with some energy not delivered. I won't go as far as Stuart in believing that you might as well use up resources early on because they may not be there later, but I'm equally sure that at times when you believe that you could be going faster than your "ideal" pace with no real detriment, then you should go with the positive flow. It's a subtle business but our brains can be quite good at assessing what still has to be done and what should be kept in reserve, an assessment that we can make continuously and progressively as the end of the race gets closer. I suspect that having to dig quite deep over the closing stages of a high performance run is inevitable, and of course  it hurts. But I also suspect that the phenomenon of going out really too fast for our state of fitness (followed by the heartbreaking "walking it in" when everything falls apart)  can happen to us in the early years of ultra running but with experience we can spot the signs early enough to prevent it, so we shouldn't fear it.

So, to come back to where we came in. Could John K have performed even better than he did at the Hardmoors a couple of weeks ago?  Well, sorry John, of course you could  -  but probably with a degree or two less comfort!

Hardmoors 55

Since its inauguration in 2010, I have run all of the Hardmoors 55 races except last year when 4 days after some knee surgery it wasn't really practicable. I haven't done any of the other Hardmoors events (the 60, 110 and so on)  -  they always seem to clash with something else  -  but this one comes at just the right time of year when you're ready to step up from the shorter events of the winter into a bit of a longer day out. It's a pretty course (though some bits of the North York Moors are I think a bit of an acquired taste!), and the organisation by Jon (and now Shirley) Steele and their team has always been first class.

It was a cheap weekend all round as firstly Jon had kindly rolled my entry fee over from last year and then  I failed to get organised in time to get a conveniently located hotel for the night before the race, so I elected to sleep in the car at Helmsley Football Club, near the finish and where the bus to the start would depart from at 6am on the Saturday. In fact this year there were three double-deck buses, which shows how much the event has grown. On the first running in 2010 there were I think just about 50 starters  - this year there were over 300.

On the bus over to the start at Guisborough I sat by Mark Dalton, who I had last seen when we ran together in the dark through the woods south of Windermere on last year's "Lakes in a Day" (an excellent event by the way, I've already signed up for this year). Mark is local to the Hardmoor series and helps Jon with a lot of course setting and so-on. Typically, when I saw him after finishing today's race, he was helping to clear up rubbish in the town hall after running a PB. 

This was a morning when everything went right for the organisers. Everyone was on the buses on time, there was no bad weather slowing down the drive and the check-in procedure at Guisborough Sea Cadets Hall went super efficiently. Paradoxically, this left the runners with not a lot to do for an hour or so before the scheduled start. I had a second breakfast of bacon sandwiches and coffee (organised by the Sea Cadets, great job) and then met the Kynastons and Tromans who had the luxury of turning up much later having transport at both ends of the course. Both John and Dave had decided to give the day a good bash and were looking suitably fit and confident. Justifiably so as it turned out. John beat his previous best time of over ten hours by getting home in 9.35 and Dave turned in another elite performance getting third place in 8.24.  Mark Dalton actually finished within a minute of John's time also beating his previous best by a huge margin. It was interesting to read John's write-up the day after the race, describing how he monitored his heart rate and where he was against his last year's splits and targets all through the race, and comparing it to Mark's approach (Mark usually runs without wearing a watch and just goes on how he feels at the time). It's always fascinating how many ways there are to play this game, all giving good results for different runners.

My own ambitions were rather more modest for the day, just to complete my first 50 miler for about eighteen months at a pace you might with a bit of generosity call a run rather than a walk. I told the others I hoped to get round in somewhere between 12 and 13 hours. I was interested to see how I would cope with the longer periods of running, because although there are hills on this course (there is a total climb of something over 8000ft), they come in groups with long flat sections in between. The course today was being run westward, from Guisborough to Helmsley. There may be some logic Jon uses to decide the direction for the year but I haven't discovered what it is yet. I had already done three eastward trips, my only westward one being in the rather challenging conditions of 2013, so I was looking forward to going this way in the conditions we found on Saturday, which were pretty near perfect. Cool, dry under foot and with a gentle following wind for much of the way.

At just before 9am Jon did his final briefing, then the assembled mob made their way outside to start in the road. Being near the back of the queue I missed the count-down and just saw people running as I left the hall, but this didn't really have any impact as we then had to queue again for a few minutes to get up the steps onto the old railway line to get running properly. I guess if you're concerned about every minute at these sort of events you make sure you're somewhere near the front of the queue at the start, but for a casual performer like me it really is of no account over 50 miles! After a mile John Vernon was on duty to direct us onto the uphill track, then after another few hundred yards Flip Owen was there to put us onto the Cleveland Way proper, which we would then follow all the way to Helmsley.

I had no real race plan other than to take things easily as far as Osmotherly at least (about 30 miles), to make sure I could finish in good shape, so I walked all the uphills from the start. After a bit of undulation through Guisborough woods and a stretch of open moorland, the first few bits of up and down proper start with the out and back to Roseberry Topping (2 downs, 2 ups). As I was halfway down the first decent John K came past me in the opposite direction, well on his way already. I was quite surprised to overtake a lot of runners on both the descents and ascents here in spite of going quite conservatively, but a good number of these would re-pass me on the level ground later  -  depends what you're used to I suppose. Another down and up to Captain Cook's monument, then a long downhill to Kildale and the first 11 miles done in about 2 and a quarter hours.

It's a long uphill out of Kildale, all on tarmac and all runnable but again I made sure to walk the steeper sections.  Once you hit the moor it's 8 or 9 miles out to Blowarth Crossing and on to Clay Bank, no real hills so I ran, or rather jogged, all of this section. I could have gone faster and maybe in the past would have done, but I was still nervous about lasting the length of the event if I pushed too hard. Drop bags were available at Clay Bank so time to top up food and drink, although the supplies at most of the checkpoints are so good now that you could probably do the event without carrying anything other than a bit of emergency food. 

From Clay Bank to Osmotherly is by far the most interesting section of the course, a series of short hills along the scarp edge of the moors. Underfoot it is often artificially laid flagstones (the ubiquitous "anti-erosion" measures that we see in most popular UK hill areas nowadays). They do improve the overall landscape but they are rather uneven and require a bit more precision in foot placement than the grass, dirt and loose rock that they replace, so some concentration is required if trips and falls are to be avoided. A short way along we came across John V and Flip again complete with tent at the Kirby Bank checkpoint. Flip asked if it was cold for the runners as it was a bit chilly standing still, but I couldn't encourage him that I was other than rather happy with the conditions.

Time passes quickly on this section and Osmotherly seemed to turn up in no time, but the watch told a different story  -  it was seven hours from the start when I reached the checkpoint and a welcome cup of tea. I tried to get in and out efficiently so was about 5 minutes by the time I'd had a bite to eat,topped up bottles, restocked food, and was on the longish climb back up to the moor again.

I'd thought about this hill and the section to the end during the preceding section, wondering how to tackle it. From the top of the hill the course descends gently for nearly 20 miles all the way to the finish. When the event is run in the opposite direction the gentle uphill can be run at a good pace as you are fresh, and the two or three miles of steeper downhill to Osmotherly pass in a flash. In today's direction the decision was how much effort to put into the hill and how much to save for the easy ground after. In the end, swayed by the fact that I'd eaten quite a bit in Osmotherly, I decided to take it easy and the three miles out of the checkpoint took the best part of an hour. Cresting the hill I was then able to run nearly all the next ten miles to the White Horse, cruising through the Paradise Farm checkpoint without stopping.

But after the road crossing at Sutton Bank the light was fading and the descent to the final checkpoint at the White Horse car park was through woods, so I stopped to get out my headtorch before going down. At this point I discovered a bit of an error in that I'd forgotten to bring my glasses. In daylight I can see well enough to run over uneven ground, and even in the dark it's OK if I go slowly enough, but when trying to run at any pace in the dark I can't really make out where to put my feet, neither can I really see either map or GPS without a lot of concentration, so the pace slowed pretty dramatically from here.

On the flip side, the checkpoint at the White Horse was brilliant. There was a huge amount of both encouragement and goodies, and John V who had by now moved his duties along to here had even provided chips - best fuel ever for the finishing 9 miles! So fortified by these and a handful of ginger biscuits I set off up the steps, the last significant uphill of the day. 

Along the first part of this section the ground was quite easy underfoot. Two guys passed me who were going at a good pace and I managed to hang onto their lights for quite a while so at least I didn't need to do any navigating, but when the ground got a bit harder after Cold Kirby I couldn't see my footing well enough and had to drop back. All this section is very straight forward in daylight but in the dark there are several turns you can get wrong. I turned on my GPS and mostly left it in my pocket, encouraged by the periodic pings as I passed waypoints, but every so often I'd need to stop for a bit of a peer at the screen to make a turn decision, though there are just about enough Cleveland Way signs to get you by if you look out for them.

I remembered the last section of road, but not quite where you turned off from it, but once I'd seen the track off into the woods I knew it was straightforward to the finish. Then suddenly the fields turned into a track, then a road, and finally the signs to Helmsley Town Hall and the finish.

How nice to finish an ultra not covered in mud.

My time was 12.12. Within what I thought was my target, and only 20 minutes slower than my first run over the course when I was five years younger, so I'll take that. A slight regret is that had I pushed on a bit earlier I would have got more of the course in daylight and maybe got under 12 hours. But there's always next year.

Thanks to Jon, Shirley, and all the Hardmoors crew for another grand day out.

Feeding the Rat

January 2014, an email exchange with a Scottish friend;

"Hi Andy, I've been glued to the live updates on this race............Amazing how they are so spread out, and how far ahead the lead guy was. Amazing, full stop!.......I wonder if you would be interested in giving it a go?"

"Hi Murdo, Yes, me too, I've been checking every few hours ....................I'm torn, I've been thinking about it for a year or so. The distance and pace required to finish are my sort of thing but I'm not sure about the cold....."

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October 2014, a conversation with a Yorkshire friend as we make our way up to Sty Head through the wind and rain on the Lakes 3 x 3000:

"So then JV, I see you're up for the Spine, what prompted you?"

"Just a brilliant challenge, really looking forward to it. You ought to give it a go."

"Not sure I'd enjoy it, all that cold and snow. And I've already done my share of wandering around in the dark with spindrift going down my neck......"

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January 2015, glued to the live tracking for another year.  JV completes his trip,  the rat's gnawing away.

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March 2015, application accepted. Barring mishaps, I'll be on the start line 9 January 2016. Time to dig in the loft for the cold weather gear.

Mud and Castles

On 28 February the annual Belvoir Challenge celebrated its 25th year. Run on the Belvoir estate in Leicestershire, the format is always the same, two races with a common massed start, one around 26 miles and a shorter version at 15 miles. Both races are open to runners and walkers, the only time limit is that after the scheduled 9am start, everyone has to be finished before 6pm.  Interest is maintained year to year because (a) a lot of the course covers areas of the estate not normally accessible to the public and (b) the courses themselves vary from year to year. The event draws a crowd, and this year there were about 1300 participants at the start. I ran the full course two years ago, when it was almost 27 miles with a height gain of 1400ft; this year's comparable stats turned out on the day to be 26.3 miles and 2000ft of ascent.

I was just a little apprehensive to be competing because I hadn't run a marathon for a long time. I had done plenty of ultras, but for me these usually involve walking a lot of the uphills and generally taking life easy in preparation for the longer events in the summer. A marathon distance seems too short for this sort of wimping out, and as I knew most the course would be runnable I felt I should bite the bullet and give it a go.

The drive down was not uneventful, detours caused by road works and an accident turned the 110 mile trip into 140, but I still arrived in good time to check in at Harby Village Hall, the base for the event. The road accident, not far from here, had apparently caused delays for many competitors so the start was delayed until just after 9.15am. The event is apparently famous for mud but on my only other acquaintance in 2013, the weather was cold and crisp so the majority of ground was frozen and we were treated to a snow shower at the finish. Today was going to be different, temperatures around 7 degrees and overcast with a bit of drizzle before the start.

We hit the first mud within a few hundred yards of the start. Enclosed green (now brown) lanes, ankle deep, gooey, slippery, and nowhere to escape. Keeping upright was hard enough, making forward progress even more problematic; energy sapping stuff. All this was made more interesting by the regular appearance of stiles causing a fair bit of queueing in the large packed eld. After maybe a couple of miles there was an interesting slither up a short steep bank to a stile leading into a field, then we lost the constraining hedges, the mud lessened and things got much better. I had forgotten about the mud. When the Rotherham race was held in December, usually immediately after ploughing, I used to take an old kitchen knife for quickly removing clods to keep the weight of accumulation on feet down, but now I had to resort to scraping on stiles and fenceposts along with everyone else. For most of the course though it wasn't too bad, we just kept coming across patches of a few hundred yards or so that gave us the treatment.

The stiles were interesting too. I suppose in Cheshire we must be getting soft; our Sandstone Trail used to have well over fifty of them but it's now down to half a dozen at most, the others being replaced by the seemingly ubiquitous kissing gates  -  a trend that I think we're seeing almost everywhere, but not at Belvoir  -  they like stiles here.

If all this makes it sound like the run was hard work at times, well it was. But once past the initial mud roads it was in pleasant undulating countryside, a mixture of field edges, woodland, farm tracks and country lanes, going through occasional small villages where you often came across a checkpoint. The checkpoints were brilliant, friendly marshals and great homemade cakes. During the course of the run I made my way through chocolate brownies, muffins, tiffin, scones and spongecake  - although I was warned of this because it does say on the event's website that it's definitely possible to put on weight during the course of the race.

I had thought that I might go for a 10 minute mile average for the race, but pace on the really muddy bits soon came down to something more like 12's, so with the stiles and checkpoint distractions I decided to go for 10.30 as a target, and managed to get to then hover around this for the duration. It meant running a lot of long slow uphills but I hadn't done that for a while so I'm sure it did me good.

The land hereabouts seems to consist of long ridges and troughs, with good views from the ridges. After 15 miles or so we were on a ridge top and could see Belvoir Castle on an adjacent ridge across the valley, a fine looking pile. I was sure that we had passed by the front gates in 2013, but not this time, though we eventually reached the ridge that it was on a little further along. There was a great bit of track along this ridge with woods on one side and views out over Harby and the adjacent villages on the other. By now we had also rejoined the 15 mile course which had taken a "short cut" half way along ours, so there were plenty of people to target and overtake. I had been surprised that on the more remote stretches of the 26 mile loop you could be completely on your own at times in spite of the large field.

At 23 miles there was a long easy descent through another small village, but there was a final little sting in the tail with another couple of miles of "mud road" back to Harby. But overall, an enjoyable and well-run event.

I finished in 4 hours 37 minutes. Not sparkling for a marathon, even a trail run with a bit of climbing, but in the prevailing conditions I was happy with that compared with my 4 Hours 28 minutes in 2013, on a flatter course in much easier conditions. I was in 62nd place out of about 330 starters on the 26 mile option.

Well the warm-up for 2015 is now done. First "proper" event coming up in three weeks, the Hardmoors 55.

Runner or climber?

I suppose this post is mainly just for me, but of course you're more than welcome to come along if you're interested. It's neither a race report nor any sort of technical thinking or philosophy. Just a bit of wandering and reminiscing and musing if you like. And it will probably turn out quite long (well, very long I suspect) so be warned.

The thought started around last Christmas I think, when I was looking back over 2014.  If you've dipped into my blog before, you may know that I took up running when a job posting took me to the Netherlands in 1999, after being a climber for most of my life. I still carried on climbing whenever I could  during this exile, then more regularly on my return to the UK in 2006. Retirement in 2007 gave me time to pursue both sports more consistently, but in 2014 I only tied onto a rope on two occasions, and I wondered why. Have I changed from a climber who runs to a runner who climbs? Or both, or neither?

Descending Halls Fell Ridge, Blencathra, on the "Lakes in a Day " ultra, 2014

If you look back over the archive of this blog you'll find plenty of tales about running, and I hope some insights into why I do it. Nothing about climbing though, so I'll attempt to redress the balance just a bit. 

Climbing Black Slab, Stanage Edge in Derbyshire, in 1965

It was on a junior school outing to the Three Counties Show at Malvern, when my first ever view of the Malvern Hills seemed to fill the entire front window of the bus, that I suppose I knew that hills were going to be important. Hillwalking with friends in my teens lead to a first rock climb and I was hooked. Three years at university in the Fens only reinforced that I really needed to live near the hills, so I chose Liverpool for my postgraduate research mainly (but not entirely, I like to think) because of its proximity to Snowdonia, and that's when it really started in a bigger way. But I think the best way to give a flavour of my subsequent wanderings in the sport is to reprint an article I wrote for a mountaineering club journal in 1999. If you're a climber you'll probably know the venues involved; if you're a runner who has been to Scotland and Chamonix you'll maybe understand. I've put a couple of notes (in brackets) here and there in case it helps, and scattered some random photos from over the years (not necessarily connected to the text!) to break things up a bit.......

"Playing in the Second XV

To start with it was all about ambition. Fired with enthusiasm by Joe Brown's book, and guided by James, Rebuffat and Wilson, I had worked my way from Cenotaph Corner to the Walker Spur and many in between. After fifteen years climbing I had a lot of ticks, but also by then a time-consuming job, a young family and the dilemma of what to do next  -  carry on fitting the rest of my life around mountaineering, or quit while I was ahead.

With typical decisiveness I did neither; I couldn't really find the time for climbing but I couldn't give it up. So the next fifteen years were characterised by long lay-offs, snatched days or long weekends, a precious week in the summer and a constant struggle with fitness that rarely matched the game plan. But the "second fifteen" has in many ways brought higher rewards than the more active earlier years; not necessarily the achievement but the day out, the craic, the adventure, maybe just the fun of this rather irresponsible and unproductive game we play....

Shrike on Clogwyn d'ur Arddu in the 1970's

 

A stance on the Walker Spur, Grand Jorasses, Chamonix

On the Night Shift  (winter climbing in Glen Coe and Ben Nevis)

"Teachers Week" as the February half term was known to those of us who had to break into our meagre 22 day holiday allowance to join in for a day or two, was becoming unbearable. Breakfast in the dark, slither round the icy roads and sprint for the route, to end up fourth in the queue waiting on insecure, cramped stances while those above chopped ice on your head.

I was beginning to think that the whole business wasn't worth the effort, when one not quite fine day we stumbled on the remedy by chance. A walk up the Allt a'Mhuilin was halted just above the CIC hut due to our inability to stand upright on the path because of the wind. We descended disconsolately for a lunchtime pint in Fort William. Driving back to base in Glen Coe, Paul mused "Aonach Dubh looks good from here", to which Chas added "and the wind seems to be dropping". We stopped the car for a better look. I'm not really sure how the decision was made, but somehow we had donned boots, grabbed rucsacks and were off up the hill. It was after one o'clock.

By the time we got to Gulley Six it was deserted. Moving quickly, we caught up with some stragglers just finishing the last ice pitch but otherwise had a completely clear run. It was wonderful. We topped out just in time for sunset and stumbled back down to the car feeling pleased with ourselves. Gulley Five on the same cliff followed in similar style next day, and after that it was time to put our new approach to timetabling to a real test.

After a leisurely breakfast we parked at the golf club around 8.30am on a cold and perfect day, and reached the foot of Observatory Ridge some three and a half hours later. It's a long climb and still no pushover even with modern gear, but our team of four had a memorable and completely unencumbered afternoon kicking, pulling and teetering our way up the route. We reached the easy upper reaches of Zero Gulley in the last rays of the setting sun, and by the time we reached the plateau it was truly dark. As far as we could see (!) we were completely alone. A whimsical thought was voiced "Hey, we're the highest people in Britain" and a camera was produced to record the event.

We sloped off down the Red Burn to the halfway lochan, where I remembered from previous visits that the bearing back to the dam above the golf course is just about due North. Feeling by now like real night-time travellers, we left the compass in the sack, latched onto the Pole Star, and headed out across the frozen moor.

In the Couturier Coulour, Aiguille Verte, Chamonix

Swiss granite, Motorhead on Eldorado at Handegg

 The Pit and the Pendulum  (the Aiguilles du Diable Ridge on Mt Blanc du Tacul, Chamonix)

A grey dawn found us on the final ropelength up to the Diable ridge, where we were met by a cold wind. Shrugging into our collars, we set off across the pinnacles. This wasn't the sun-baked rock we had romped up a few days earlier on the Cordier Pillar before the bad weather came; though only grade four this was high, cold and hard. Brush snow from holds, move up slowly, repeat four or five times, pause for hot aches to return feeling to fingers, continue, slow but steady. Several ups and downs further on, a late breakfast on top of the Pointe Mediane saw the appearance of a watery sun, but he was still losing the battle to the clouds that swirled around.

All the books warn about the abseil from the Mediane. Assuming this meant you can get the rope stuck we prepared with care and down went the rope; we couldn't see where it went. Abseiling scares me even when I can see where I'm going, too much like having all your eggs in one basket, so Malcolm looks after me by going first on the worrying ones. For reasons which would only complicate the plot, we hadn't equipped ourselves with descendeurs on this trip, so he looped the rope over his shoulder and disappeared. A few moments of silence were followed by a strained "shit a brick!" floating up. Hanging from the anchor, I daisy-chained the sundry slings left to me and leaned out to survey the scene.

Malcolm had missed the landing point, a knife-edged snow crest, by a good ten feet, and was dangling free, rotating slowly, above what could only be described accurately as a Black Hole, formed by a deep, steep gulley and a large capping boulder. By a great effort he managed to get the rope to start swinging, and after what seemed like a very long time but was probably only two or three minutes, he managed to lodge himself on the snow crest. Excitement over, he found a belay, I slid down to join him, and we relaxed.

Without thinking too hard I started to pull down the rope and almost immediately it jammed solid. A quick curse, a longer look, and the true nature of our predicament became only too apparent. We had abseiled maybe 80 feet. The rope I was pulling went from me, up to the anchor above and then directly downwards ten feet out in space and into the depths of the Black Hole, which was clearly where it was jammed. We now had control of less than a quarter of our 300 feet of rope, and no amount of tugging or twitching at the end we had could change the situation.

The solution was obvious of course. As Malcolm lowered me into it, I discovered that the only face of the Black Hole which didn't overhang consisted of holdless, verglassed slabs, interspersed with short roofs which I bumped over at intervals. Just as the rope ran out, I reached the jam in the other end; six inches from the end it was neatly held fast in a perfect rock vee in the darkness. Climbing out of the dungeon was impossible, especially as I'd left my crampons back up on the snow crest, so the resulting prussic was long, cold and tough on the knuckles. When I got back to the top, the abseil from the Mediane had taken over two hours, but we were back more or less in control.

Hours later, up and over the Tacul, wearied by the climb, the weather and the "affaire Mediane", we made our way oh so slowly up the last few hundred feet of snow ridge towards the Aiguille de Midi summit. Those who have been there at the end of a long day will understand. Out of the mists above, a badly distorted loudspeaker announced "La derniere telepherique................en cinque minutes".  Our boots grew wings, and we flew.

NE Face of the Piz Badile (Cassin Route) - a 60th birthday treat in 2008

N Ridge on the same mountain (Piz Badile), 33 years earlier!

The Peak 14 (a club meet devised as an antidote to the annual outing over the "14 peaks"  - the Welsh 3000's)

 The idea was probably contrived to get one back on "the walkers", wizened, grey-bearded men who appeared each year in the Aber dawn, loped off over the Carneddau and were not seen again until many hours later in the pub (twelve or less for them, sometimes fifteen or more for me). To tip the balance back rock climbing would be required, so the plan was to walk the 14 Eastern gritstone edges, climbing a classic VS on each along the way. It sounded a good day out and I drove down from Yorkshire to join the meet at the Robin Hood on Saturday morning. By the time I arrived the ever-competitive Chairman Eldridge had turned it into a race against the clock, with bonus points for grades and star ratings. "And" he added significantly, "the others have over an hour's start already!".

It didn't begin well. Parking at Cutthroat Bridge we made our way wetly over the moor to a dripping Derwent Edge. Our chosen VS definitely didn't look inviting for starters, so we made do with the severe Brown Windsor (since that time upgraded to VS!) and turned tail. Bushwhacking through the bracken to Bamford Edge we were aware that the rain had stopped and the sky was brightening. Quien Sabe seemed almost pleasant in the improving conditions and we realised the deal might just be on. By Stanage we had devised a system so we put it into practice on Goliath's Groove  -  leader dons rockboots while second uncoils the rope; leader climbs to halfway while second gets boots on; leader places "the runner" and carries on to the top, now belayed; second follows with sack; coil up, pack up and away  -  the whole thing had taken rather less than ten minutes, and as we trotted off along the top the watching galleries appeared amazed.

The File at Higgar Tor and Knight's Move on Burbage North came and went, and by Byne's Crack on Burbage South we were moving through the field (about a dozen CMC stalwarts had started this enterprise). Malcolm led the Mall at Millstone in fine style and I shot up Excalibur at Lawrencefield, unable to rest, place runners or even pause without uncurling fingers, thanks to the latest three-month lay-off. Tea and buns at Grindleford station helped, as did the absence of a VS on the next crag, though Tegness Pinnacle still gave us an entertaining summit. For tiring muscles, Sunset Slab on Froggatt was much more my style, which left Malcolm with the thuggery on Bel Ami at Curbar. Into the home stretch now and I celebrated by falling off, ten feet up Och Aye Wall at Gardoms. Luckily the ground broke my fall and Malcolm selflessly refused to take over, arguing that my confidence would benefit by returning to the fray immediately. The last bit of uphill brought us to Birchens and the classic Topsail, and it was almost in the bag. Walking past the door of the Robin Hood en route to the last crag required some willpower, but we held on and made it to Chatsworth Edge just as the heavens opened. This gave us the excuse we needed to race up the easy Choked Crack and get back to the pub, some twelve and a half hours after setting out. The beer was never better.

With daughter Julia (age 12) in the Vallee Blanche, Chamonix

Last day on the Haute Route, Chamonix to Zermatt

 Brave New World  (Pointe Gugliermina on the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey, above Courmayeur)

I had always wanted to try the Gervasutti Pillar on the Gugliermina, described by Rebuffat as "undoubtedly the most difficult route done in the Mont Blanc Range before the war", and one fine day we climbed the Aiguille Croux to get a better look. The approach to the Pillar from the Monzino hut goes over the Col de l'Innominata behind the Croux and across the tortuous Freney Glacier to the Schneider ledges at the foot of the face. We intended to bivouac on these ledges as, according to the current English guidebook, "a confident party can leave their bivouac gear here".

On top of the Croux we chatted to a French guide about our plans, and together we traced the line of the route, laid out before us on the far side of the glacier. He pointed out what he felt was the best descent from the Gugliermina summit back to the Schneider ledges. It seemed very roundabout, and why, we asked, should we not come down the obvious snow-filled Schneider Couloir? "Because", he said, "you will be wearing your rockshoes".

Now this was news to us. Climbing in the Alps had always meant big boots, big rucsacks and bivvies. Rockshoes were kept in their proper place, at home in England. The pre-war greats, our guide friend mused, would be amazed at how we treat their epic climbs, like roadside playgrounds, fun in the sun. And the bivouac on the Schneider ledges? "Not at all necessary  -  you will go from the hut, back in the day."  Back at the Monzino that afternoon we pondered the situation. Should we really be adding another six hours activity to a trip which we were already unsure of completing in a day? And the rockshoes were out, as we didn't have any. Still, if that's what the boys do nowadays........

At 4am we threw cameras and water bottles into our sacks and burned off into the starlight. The Pillar was magical, the climbing sustained and elegant, the weather perfect, the freedom without the heavy rucsack intoxicating. The ultra-light bivouac on the Col de l'Innominata on the way back, when we realised we could go no further, was something else. But the corner was turned, next year we brought the rockshoes.

Climbing in Morocco

 

Fun rock in the Ailefroid, France

 
Rock Around the Loch  (rock climbing in Scotland)

Summer had come and gone with no climbing so when Mike Dennis suggested a few days in Scotland in mid September I agreed at once. I seem to climb a lot with ex-Chairmen of the CMC, they don't necessarily perform any better than you or me but their contacts are always good. We had a leisurely drive up and pitched our tent by the side of Loch Morlich. That night the water bottles froze.

The first day was scheduled as an easy introduction (on account of my general unfitness), so we winged our way up the Cairngorm chairlift, slid down the other side and on to the Shelter Stone and its Needle. Mike offered to lead the first pitch, not realising that this meant I got all the good ones, the Hanging Rib, the Crux, the Crack for Thin Fingers and so on. I was tiring however by the time I engaged the final steep crack and Mike was forced to be very patient while I struggled. He got his own back on the very last pitch by craftily untying and threading one rope behind all the chockstones, a topological problem my brain couldn't cope with for several minutes when I reached it  -  I found him chuckling quietly to himself on the top. Slogging back to the top of Cairngorm, we declared ourselves knackered but probably competent enough for a good week.

From then on we wandered about the place enjoying exciting drives, long walks to big remote crags, great climbs, good weather and probably more than our fair share of beer. In two days at the Dubh Loch we saw one other party, on the other crags we visited, none. On a "rest " day we played on Creag Dubh at Newtonmore, where Mike led me up the bold Haston route "The Hill", but the whole mood of the holiday was encapsulated perfectly by our day out to the West coast..

I had fancied The Big Top ever since I saw Brown and Bonington squelching their way up it on the TV all those years ago, but Mike had already done it so we settles on Trapeze instead. We scrambled up to the foot of what we had by now come to expect  -  a big deserted crag in the sunshine. I quickly rattled up the short crux corner and we thought it was all over. Not so, for this time the plum was ready for Mike to pick;  the penultimate pitch, a full ropelength, always testing, never desperate, almost enough protection, and surely one of the most perfectly positioned bits of climbing in Scotland. We sunbathed on the summit and eventually set off down. As we dropped down the last rocks to the scree, I remarked that all we needed to complete the day was a shower and a good meal. "Well, there's the shower" said Mike, pointing to a waterfall a few yards away, falling free from an overhang to a pool twenty feet below. A minute later, we were in.

Mike knew a man (he always does) who had just opened a restaurant in Inchree.  Now clean, but still in our ragtag climbing clothes, we wandered into this rather smart place and were welcomed like family. The poached salmon was superb, and, as it was Mike's turn at the wheel, the return to Aviemore not even a  memory.

The place to oneself in Kyrgyzstan

Goodbye to All That  (Route Major on the Brenva face of Mont Blanc)

We bivouacced in traditional style at the Sentinelle Rouge and scuttled across the Great Couloir by starlight. We hit the crest of the ridge to the dawn of a perfect day, cold underfoot, cloudless and completely calm. As we drifted up the ice aretes, we could see Eric Escoffier and friends engaged in some deep play on the Eckpfeiler, but between them and the steady procession up the Old Brenva route we had the whole huge face to ourselves in the silence. At the rock step we ignored the modern full frontal and followed Smythe and Brown down to the right, round and up, like a Scottish gulley in the sunshine. The serac barrier was easy that year, the top slopes tedious, and we arrived in some time at the summit. We lingered, brewed up, savoured the scene, reflected on other climbs, other days. There was no hurry that afternoon, just some sort of understanding that this was probably the last of the Alpinism in us. We started down.

Two years later we were back, on the North side of Les Droites; but that, as they say,  is another story."

On Cathedral Peak in the Sierra Nevada, California

On El Capitan in Yosemite

Of course in my third fifteen years I carried on climbing as the family grew up and I had more time again. Half a dozen visits to the Yosemite valley, Springs or Autumns on the sunny rocks in Spain, Italy, Croatia;  occasional summers in the Alps still, and an expedition to Kyrgyzstan to bag a peak of one's own; Snowdonia, the Lakes, the Peak, and all the other climbing areas in Britain were still there. As with most technical sports, the gear gets better year on year so one's declining abilities are quite well disguised.

Until last year. Two evening's climbing. Even now, I'm not sure why. Maybe I was preoccupied by the injuries that somewhat messed up my running year, maybe I was just ready for a year off, I don't know. But this rather indulgent trip down memory lane has definitely conjured up some enthusiasm for getting going again, so I think this year the rope will come out a bit more often.

Islands in a sea of cloud

A week or so ago I went down to Wales with a friend from my climbing club. We were meeting a local builder at our hut in Llanberis to discuss some repairs we need on the roof of the building. Business concluded by lunchtime, we decided that as we were there, we shouldn't waste the rest of the day so we spent the afternoon on a walk up Snowdon. It was a day of low mist and general murk when we set out, typical Wales in February, but the exercise would no doubt do us good. Just above Halfway House we came out of the mist into a perfect inversion covering the whole landscape and the next couple of hours or so turned the day from ordinary to memorable. Above about 2000ft the hills were covered in a later of hard neve, the sun shone and the air was almost perfectly still. We lingered on Snowdon summit for half an hour, picking out islands in the sea of cloud. Moel Hebog, the Nantlle Ridge, the Moelwyns, the Rhinogs, Cadair Idris, and was that even Plynlimon far away on the Southern horizon?  We had intended to come down the long rollercoaster ridge to Moel Eilio, but another opportunity just to sit and gaze on the top of Moel Cynghorion made the chance of being overtaken by darkness on that route a near certainty, so without torches we plunged back down into the mist to return by the good track long known in our circles as the "Telegraph Road". Reflecting on the afternoon as we covered the last two or three miles in the gloom, it occurred to me that while the activities we pursue are interesting, sometimes challenging and often satisfying, the real reward we get from these things is in the places, just the being there, whatever we do.

So runner or climber................who cares?

South Devon Coast Ultra

On the SW Coast Path

Not even the almost endless traffic hold-ups on the Friday evening M5 could spoil the stunning sunset as I travelled down to Devon under a cloudless sky. I made it to the pub near Kingsbridge just in time to catch the Wales-England match on the big screen in the bar  -  the weekend was looking good already.

The South Devon Ultra was the next event in the Endurancelife coastal series, following the Anglesey race which I had run three weeks earlier. 260 plus miles was maybe a long way to go for a 35 mile run, but I had really enjoyed the North Devon scenery on the Exmoor event two years ago and was hoping for some more on the south side of the county. I wasn't disappointed. 

Fortunately I had already  discovered on Friday evening that the direct road from Kingsbridge to the event base at Beesands, near Torpoint was closed. A bit of a shrug at this from the locals, I think it's been closed before. They were more concerned that the recent high seas caused by the fierce Easterly winds had removed a lot of shingle from Torpoint beach, shingle that had been shipped in to protect the sea wall. This area of coast has had a bit of a battering over the last year or two. So I started Saturday with a careful drive through the dark, frosty and very narrow lanes to get to the 7am check in. The forecast promised us a dry day, 2 degrees rising to about 6 under a cloudy sky, with a brisk East wind. They were right about everything except the clouds which didn't arrive until about 2pm, so just about as good as it gets for winter running.

All the formalities done, a couple of cups of coffee in the registration tent, a longish briefing then 100 of us hit the trail at 8.30am.

The course started by following the South West Coast Path for ten miles or so, past Start Point and Prawle Point then round into the Salcombe estuary. All of this territory was brilliant, a varied, undulating but not difficult track, great views and full sunshine with the wind at our backs. The event was billed as 35 miles with just under 5000ft of climbing - both figures more than in the Anglesey race but slightly less technical underfoot. I had decided it was time to try and up my game a notch by keeping an average 12 min/mile pace going for as long as I could, and so far it felt comfortable. There seemed to be a checkpoint or a water station every 5 miles or so, so I really didn't need to carry the litre I had brought and just kept refilling one bottle once I had used the initial amount.

After Salcombe the course turned North East and inland through a wooded section, then apart from a brief revisit to the coast for a mile or two, stayed inland for the next 15 miles, following the famous Devon tracks and lanes and their equally well known hills. The coast section had been nicely undulating, but here inland was where the majority of height gain was made. We had the wind in our faces now, but apart from the exposed sections on the crests of the hills it wasn't too troublesome. Eventually the course wound its way back down to the sea, reaching it at the Northern end of Slapton Sands.

Here, in complete contrast to the rest of the race, we had a completely flat couple of miles along the causeway separating the inland lake from the sea. One or two of the hills had made a mess of my 12 minute average, but a solid run along the flat here brought it back to 11.50 by the time we reached Torpoint. This area was the scene of a wartime disaster when American troops were attacked by German gunboats during training for D-Day, and we ran past a WWII tank on the approach to Torpoint. It was then a quick up and over round the next bit of cliff back to the event start in Beesands. For competitors in the "marathon" distance (at this event 28 miles) who started 30 minutes after us, and the more competent of whom had been passing us for the past three hours or so, this was the finish; but, following the pattern of all the "Coastal Series" events, the ultra then goes on to repeat the "10k" (ie 7 miles) course.

Part of this, out to Start Point lighthouse, we already knew, but then we turned back inland earlier this time to go up to the highest point on the course, then one final down-up-down and back to the finish. By this time I was walking most of the uphill but still going fairly well on the flats and downhills, and chugged into the finish in five minutes under the seven hours, in 46th place out of the 100 starters. This was 40 minutes faster than my time in Anglesey three weeks ago, so I think I'll take that as a bit of real progress. Nice to be back.

Spinewatching and Thinking

I'm sure there were dozens if not hundreds like myself who have spent a week of the last two Januarys following the hardy runners battling it out on the Spine Race  -  a continuous journey of some 268 winter miles along the whole of the Pennine Way trail. The "live trackers" carried by all of the runners makes this event a superb and somewhat addictive spectator sport; I felt compelled to check on where everyone was every few hours.

Congratulations to all who finished; in a world where almost all 100 mile ultras claim what a huge challenge they are, the Spine is clearly in a different league. To reach the finish is a real achievement, even by our normal ultra standards. I'm still thinking about whether it's something I could, or would even want to, take on. But while I wrestle with that little problem, the performance of all the runners in this year's race presents an interesting question; in long races where the clock is always ticking, how much time should you spend resting and/or sleeping? 

This question only kicks in for continuous races that are going to take you say 48 hours or more. Experiences in the UTMB, the Lakeland 100 and so on suggest that if they have to, then  most runners can get through two nights without any lengthy breaks, maybe just a half hour or so to get a good meal occasionally. You might get the odd hallucination and feel pretty whacked at the finish but in general you'll be OK. But this strategy won't get most people any further, after 48 hours on our feet non-stop we're generally fit for nothing next except a long sleep. No good if the race carries on for another four or five days.

My own single experience of a longer continuous race was in the Tor des Geants in Italy, at 200 miles a lot shorter than the Spine but with more climbing, but in early September potentially better weather and shorter nights (about 10 hours). Still I think it presents the same problem of what strategy to adopt to keep going for a long period, as it took me five and a half days (ie five nights out).  I had assumed before I started that I would need to sleep for 5 or 6 hours at each of the major checkpoints which should turn up every 24 hours or so. In the event, I found that these were noisy, crowded places in which it was impossible to get any useful sleep. The other options were sleeping on the trail during the daytime (not really possible at night as the trail is high and night-time temperatures were often cold - water bottles carried outside a rucksack normally froze), or using mountain refuges, in which there was a two hour maximum stop time so that all runners got a fair crack at the available beds. Not wanting to miss out on daylight, I went for the refuge option. Apart from one night where we were held in a hut for five hours while some bad weather moved through, I never had more than the two hours sleep allowed, and my total was about 13 hours for the five nights. The big learning for me was that this was enough, I felt I was still going fairly strongly at the end of the event. Many people around me in the race seemed to have the same approach.

Reading the blogs, this seems also to have been the strategy of most runners in the Spine race over the years  -  move until you're tired, get two or three hours sleep then carry on. Until this year that is, when things were rather different. On the Pennine Way in winter you can normally expect weather, but this year exceptionally high winds combined with periods of snow and sleet made conditions even more problematic than usual. Runners were held at indoor locations on several occasions to allow the worst of the weather to pass through. The majority of finishers ran up a total "dead time" of around 20 hours of enforced rest. As with all major challenge events, a high proportion of the finishers in the Spine normally come in very close to the final cut-off time, so one might have expected the enforced stops to have pushed them well over the basic 168 hours allowed (with their enforced stop times to be subtracted at the end). In fact, almost the opposite happened. A brief summary of the results for the past three years shows that:

In 2013, there were 6 finishers in under 168 hours, the fastest in 124:52 and the slowest in 153:47

In 2014, there were 30 finishers under 168 hours, the fastest in 110:45 and the slowest in 167:25, with 20 of the finishers taking more than 150 hours.

In 2015, There were 45 finishers under 168 hours, the fastest in 81:34 and the slowest in 147:16. So even adding back their stoppage allowances, all these runners made it to the end within 168 hours real time.

Now we could speculate that the improved performance this year in spite of the weather is because there is a growing "lore" about the event, how to prepare, what intermediate stops to aim for, how to manage food, etc, but there is no getting away from the fact that this year when the runners spent more time resting, they actually covered the ground faster including their resting time.

I'm not suggesting that this is grounds for a new strategy in longer ultras, just an observation that might warrant a bit more understanding. It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of anyone who has competed in the race for two years including this year. And I'll just add the paraphrased comment of the Race Director of the 145 mile Grand Union Canal race, who places a limit of 40 minutes stop at any one time on all runners on the grounds that "this is a continuous race, not a series of sprints", suggesting that he feels that longer stops might give runners some sort of advantage.

In a game where the mantra is normally to keep going, just put one foot in front of the other and avoid all "wasted" time spent sitting still................food for thought?