UTMB 2011

jeffontour

Enduro going well, in 64th position from what I saw last.

Zuppy

Did they change the course as well as the start time? Had heard there was a delayed start.

jeffontour

Course was changed in advance of the dart, as well as the start time moving.

I think they have also changed the course during the race.

nerraw1111

Changed course during race. Apparently it adds an extra five km and several hundred metres of climb. @iranfar is giving updates of the race every 10 mins or so on twitter. Sounds like a pretty epic battle at the front. Lizzy Hawker could be on for a top 10 overall.

Jornet has won it

http://yfrog.com/h6pvsrkj


How's enduro doing now?

jeffontour

Enduro up to 39th now I think.

donothoponpop

Seems like you can follow his progress here

Great to see you back at the coalface Eoin!

nerraw1111

34th for enduro. What a performance! Incredible stuff.

jeffontour

Coverage on Eurosport tonight from 22:45 to 23:15 for those interested.

Timmaay

Well done Eoin, was great to track your progress on FB. Nice the way you started out well back the feild, in 300th place or so, and just kept on picking off everyone!

Fi H

Huge respect
well done eoin!

nerraw1111

Some interesting blogs regarding the performance of US ultra runners vs European at UTMB given the high profile DNFs from the Americans.

http://polyenios.blogspot.com/2011/08/runblog-utmb-2011-comparison-of-us-and.html

Blog of Nick Clark who blames the organisers for his DNF. The comment section gets a bit youtubey with fanboys etc but some interesting perspectives and he comments a couple of times.

http://irunmountains.blogspot.com/2011/08/utmb-dnf.html#comments

ThisRegard

That Nick Clark blog makes for intersting reading, only some critical posts, one of which included this pic
http://i.imgur.com/umsH2.jpg

TFBubendorfer

ThisRegard wrote: »

That Nick Clark blog makes for intersting reading, only some critical posts, one of which included this pic
http://i.imgur.com/umsH2.jpg

That pic is low. Whoever did that should be ashamed of himself.

grahamor

Were there any Irish runners doing the CCC race ?

It's my dream to do the CCC in about 3 years. The Mourne Way ultra can be used as a qualifying race.

Anyone else interested in doing this ?

Enduro

jeffontour wrote: »

Course was changed in advance of the dart, as well as the start time moving.

I think they have also changed the course during the race.

That's exactly what happened. As a result of a storm forecast the start was delayed from 6:30pm until 11:30pm. The last leg was adjusted to be the original 2003 route straight down the Chamonix valley, cutting out one climb. We were notified by text message in the middle of the day.

We then received texts during the race (14 hours in, maybe) saying that Bovine (A big technical climb beyond the 2/3rds point) was impassible due to the previous night's storm, and as a result this section would re-route down to Martigny and then climb to Trient. That took the total race distance and climb to 170km and 9700m (making it the biggest course in the event's history, AFAIK). All of these changes were fully marked.

Enduro

grahamor wrote: »

Were there any Irish runners doing the CCC race ?

It's my dream to do the CCC in about 3 years. The Mourne Way ultra can be used as a qualifying race.

Anyone else interested in doing this ?

There was a scattering of Irish Runners in each event. One old friend of mine did the CCC. There may have been a few more. Plenty of others have done it in the past. Go for it!

Enduro

Timmaay wrote: »

Well done Eoin, was great to track your progress on FB. Nice the way you started out well back the feild, in 300th place or so, and just kept on picking off everyone!

The facebook app was a fantastic idea! It seemed to work really well. I'd say I actually started even further back. It genuinly felt like I overtook about 1000 people before we hit the first aid-station / timing mat. After that there was plenty more overtaking, but also a fair amount of runners ahead dropping out. Having said that, my last leg was definitely one of my strongest, so overall pacing was pretty good.

If I get a report written I'll post a link here. In the meantime, here is a nice video from Saturday morning!

jeffontour

Enduro wrote: »

We then received texts during the race (14 hours in, maybe) saying that Bovine (A big technical climb beyond the 2/3rds point) was impassible due to the previous night's storm, and as a result this section would re-route down to Martigny and then climb to Trient. That took the total race distance and climb to 170km and 9700m (making it the biggest course in the event's history, AFAIK). All of these changes were fully marked.

I'd be interested to hear your take on the course changes and how they were communicated by the organisers. There seems to be a fair bit of negative comment around how it went on some of the US blogs.

Whilst I understand that at the head of the pack the racing is much more intense and 6km additional distance could make or break a race but I also find it hard to believe anyone ever has a 20 hour race plan work implemented perfectly during a race. Ultras are all about changing conditions(mental, physical, environmental, course). Surely not all the higher profile DNFers have themselves that finely tuned they cannot get round if the course changes.

Enduro

I read the links posted, along with some of the comments. It sounds like a crap execuse to me. He seems to have a wilful disregard for the way that the race communicates information.

As I say, I found everything to be very well organised. I'm also well aware of potential communications issues that arise from the fact that English is not the language of the race, and a large section of the race passes through Italy. I don't expect anyone else to compensate for the fact that I don't speak their language in their country.

I got 2 texts from the race, both in good time, both in English, informing me of the course changes.

For the mid-course change (the one that seems to have caused the meltdown), I personally would have adapted on the fly even if I didn't find out. There were quite a few runners on the changed course asking me did I know what was happening, so I communicated it to them as best I could. They took it on board and carried on running happily.

Adaptability is a huge component of being a good ultra trail runner. Weather changes can almost instantly change the nature of a course and make it significantly more difficult at any given point in time in a mountain race (particularly a high alpine one). It's a pretty poor excuse to use an inability to adapt to on-the-fly to changed circumstances as an excuse to DNF. 1100 runners were able to deal with it.

So I absilutely agree with you. It would be ridiculous for any runner to be so finely tuned in an ultra trail race as to have to DNF because of change in course conditions. That's not fine tuning. That's a significant weakness, IMO.

BTW, I do think that the slagging being waged on the American runners in general is totally unfair. All American ultra runners I've met are absolutely sound (And there are some nations I couldn't say that about). And the likes of Scott Jurek etc are world class runners who have proven their ability multiple times.

Vitamin T

I know its been three weeks now so the buzz might have died down and all but the link to the eurosprt review program is here for anyone who missed it!

Concentrates mainly on the leaders as you'd expect but still has some nice coverage.

grahamor

Vitamin T wrote: »

I know its been three weeks now so the buzz might have died down and all but the link to the eurosprt review program is here for anyone who missed it!

Concentrates mainly on the leaders as you'd expect but still has some nice coverage.

Thanks for the link, it's excellent coverage.

My dream is to do the UTMB CCC race in 2014 using the 2013 Mourne Way Ultra as my qualifying race. I'm being realistic about the time involved in preparing for something like this !!

Enduro

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen it!!! Killian Journet is just phenomenal. Such total control of one of the hardest running races around.

grahamor, that sounds like a pretty good plan. The Mourne Way Ultra is probably the best of the ultra races in Ireland to use to prepare for one of the UTMB races. Find the steepest hill you can and get training on it!

nerraw1111

Enduro wrote: »

Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen it!!! Killian Journet is just phenomenal. Such total control of one of the hardest running races around.

grahamor, that sounds like a pretty good plan. The Mourne Way Ultra is probably the best of the ultra races in Ireland to use to prepare for one of the UTMB races. Find the steepest hill you can and get training on it!

At least we know how Jornet got on, where's your race report?