Life is an ultramarathon

As you probably already know, three runners died [fr] about ten days ago on the Grand Raid du Mercantour (82km +6,600m in the Alps). The preliminary survey suggests that they've died of hypothermia after taking a fall and/or getting lost at 2,300m. Beyond the pain, this adverse event raises a number of questions about the safety and responsibility on mountain trail races.

At this point, it's not clear whether this could have been avoided [fr]. The organisers decided to stop the race when the weather conditions went suddenly wrong, but was the decision taken too late? Did the runners have the compulsory equipment, and was it checked? Is the compulsory equipment simply enough to handle a snow storm high in the mountains anyway? Is it just bad luck?

1. When should the organisers decide to stop the race?

As often, people not related the race suggest the organisers could have avoided that by stopping the race earlier because of the bad weather. A row that looks somehow similar to the Original Mountain Marathon (OMM) 2008. The runners on the OMM happened to be generally much better equipped and shelters/escape routes were probably more accessible than in the Alps, and therefore nothing dramatic happened there. It's also interesting to note that the media made the OMM organisers appear very irresponsible (in a sensationalistic way, hoping to sell more), whereas later comments from the runners on this subject were rather positive. In events organised in the mountainous, there is always a fine line between safe and unsafe conditions. After all, even in good weather, there is a risk of fatal fall. Moreover, a number of people entering mountain ultra expect to deal with bad weather and that's part of the game.
Similarly, there is also sometimes a need to stop individual runners (rather than the entire event), if not deemed fit enough to carry on. This is not a easy issue to deal with, as this would involve checking every single individual for symptoms that might not be very obvious. In this respect, the UTMB organisers recently decided to stop providing light paramedical treatments (blisters, tendinitis, ...) and to focus their medical teams on the more severe cases. Every single medical intervention can now potentially send you off race if the staff decides so. Again, it's not an easy decision, as from a medical perspective, most doctors wouldn't recommend the majority of runners to even start the race anyway...

2. What is the ideal compulsory equipment list?

Following last year's minimalist yet legal compulsory equipment carried by the UTMB winner Kílian Jornet, the UTMB organisers are getting tougher on compulsory gear specifications. In particular, the total equipment weight has to be higher than 2kg when getting out of an aid station. But nevertheless, this list is really the bare minimum, and I don't think you'd survive very long with a pair of long tights and a light poncho by -10°C with a bit of wind, should you be unable to move.
This is somehow related to the previous question, as the quality of equipment carried by the runners will influence greatly their survival capabilities.

3. Who is responsible for what?

This is actually the main underlying question. Two families have decided to sue the organisers [fr], arguing that the race should have been stopped and the alert given earlier.
By entering the race as a runner, do you assume that everything is done for you to finish in safe conditions? Or do you feel responsible enough to decide when you should stop? In particular, is it fair enough to consider as responsible a runner who hasn't slept in 40 hours?
When should you, as a runner, withdraw from the race? When you know a priori that the organiser will stop the race if necessary, you will naturally assume that you can carry on in the current conditions. In other words, you leave the responsibility to the organisers. If you were alone, you couldn't make such assumptions and would have to take your own, good or bad, decisions.
Even if the organisers try more and more to "responsibilise" the runners, they nevertheless have a role to play with your safety. If they were not here for your safety, why would they be here for then? This is particularly obvious on the PTL, where only a GPS tracking service is offered (no food, no shelters, no official rankings). In these conditions, you might as well go on your own if not for safety reasons, shouldn't you?

What do you think?

Ultra questions...

Following a few outings in North Wales recently, I started to be interested in the meaning of the Welsh location names. I used the English-Welsh dictionary provided by the Cardiff School of Computer Science and was surprised to realise that most summit names actually carry a meaning. For example, "Rhyd Ddu", where we finished our Paddy Buckley Round attempt, means "black ford". Even more interesting, Pen Llithrig y Wrach near Capel Curig means "Slippery Peak of the Witch" . Next time the navigation should be easier when we'll know straight away that "allt", "bryn", "foel" and "moel" are hills, but a "bwlch" is a pass.

I'm also working on the prononciation, which requires a bit of knowledge for places like that:


(which might mean something like: "pass of the awkward cirque").

I've compiled a couple of interesting findings in the following table (selected mountain-related meanings only):

Welsh English aber estuary, stream allt hill bach (fach) corner betws oratory, chapel bryn hill bwlch pass, gap capel chapel carnedd cairn cerrig stone clogwyn cliff coch(-ion) red coed tree, wood craig crag, rock crib(-au) ridge crwn (gron) round cwm cirque cyngor (cynghorion) advice Dafydd David dau (dwy) two ddu black drws door dysgl platter eilio second elor bier garn cairn glas blue

Welsh English gwyn (wen) white hebog hawk, falcon helgi hound hydd stag llan church, village llew lion llithrig slippery llyn(-nau) lake maen stone march (meirch) horse mawr (fawr) big, high moel (foel) hill mynydd mountain ogof cave pen top, peak perfedd gut rhyd ford trum ridge trwsgl awkward uchaf highest ugain twenty wrach witch ysgafell ledge ysgafn stack ysgol(-ion) ladder

Ultra translation

Last week-end, I went to Snowdonia with the Chameleons in order to attempt the Paddy Buckley Round. This is an arbitrary tour of most of the highest summits of the Snowdonia National Park. It features 104km for 8,700m of ascent. Runners usually aim to visit all 47 summits in less that 24 hours, but it can alternatively be completed as a 4 days fast hike. Our overall idea was to train for the Petite Trotte à Léon (PTL) in close-to-reality conditions. In short, a team effort over several days, with the same equipment, and including navigational aspects. With that in mind, the goal wasn't to be as fast as possible, in particular as we would try to spend a night out.

The Moelwynion

We started on Saturday at 12 noon from Capel Curig towards Moel Siabod and soon realised we wouldn't be fast enough to make it home reasonably early on Sunday. With that in mind, I felt slightly demotivated very early in the run, which is not a good thing in ultra. The main reason for such a slow progress was the very boggy terrain, forcing us to meander a lot and wasting energy at every step. At some point, I managed to sink up to the crouch... Our feet were soaked from the start to the end. The weather was slightly adverse, with occasional drizzle and hill fog, but it wasn't too bad. The Moelwynion range doesn't seem very touristy compared to the northern mountain ranges and we only saw a few hikers.

Night with the bothy bag

We decided to stop at midnight near Aberglaslyn. The night was rather unpleasant. The bothy bag is a kind of large waterproof bag to be used in case of emergency, and this one is designed for 4 to 6 people to sit. It is very small for 3 people to lie down, and you end up very intimate with your run mates... Good point for team bonding .We used our walking poles to raise a bit the "roof". Because of its waterproof nature combined with very poor ventilation, it got very wet inside, and the cold condensation water dripped on our faces the whole night. On top of that, I felt like I couldn't breath properly (not sure whether this is just an impression or if the level of CO₂ was that high), so I ended up moving outside, as Leo did earlier in the night. I got quickly welcomed by a swarm of midges, which forced me to sleep face down with only my mouth out. Nice.
To make things a bit more lively, Sven woke up as I was still inside and shouted: "Shhhhhhhhhhh!!!", and then "Haven't you heard?". The night was dead silent, but Sven seemed extremely preoccupied, and carried on shouting "Shhhhhhhh!!!". I replied that really there was nothing wrong. Only after a bit more shhhhhhing, Sven drifted back to a quieter mood. He told us later he had dreamed he heard a strange noise, and as he poked me with his arm, he though I was ... a pig attracted by some food in the tent and he wanted to scare it away! Nice to know I feel like a pig when I sleep. Thank you Sven.
Nevertheless, the night helped us to recover, and although we had planned a 4-hour break, we stayed there for five-and-a-half.

The Eifdnydd

Our legs were not too bad in the morning. However, the navigation became harder as we were more tired and not too keen on taking prompt decisions. Moreover, most of the time there was no clear path and apparently very few people were attempting some of the minor summits. Therefore we spent quite some time in route planning, wondering on top of each hill what would be the best route to get to the next one. I can't imagine how we would have done that with a bit more hill fog. On top of that, the midges were following us, buzzing around every time we stopped, and thus forcing quick decisions - I'm not sure whether this is actually a good or a bad thing. We had some repellent, but the evil creatures didn't seem to be aware that it was supposed to scare them away Anyway, I'm still itching three days later!
Slippery wet stones near Y Garn slowed us down a bit further. When we finally arrived in Rhyd-Ddu, Snowdon was in the clouds (as it's been the whole week-end), we lost a bit more motivation due to the miserable weather and eventually decided to come back home...

Split times

Distances and summit list adapted from the wikipedia page. Note: we actually went through all the summits, but I didn't bother recording the times of some of the minor ones.

Summit	Altitude	Distance	Clock time	Time
Capel Curig	200	0	12:15	00:00
Carnedd Moel Siabod	872	4	13:30	01:15
Clogwyn Bwlch-y-maen	548	7
Carnedd y Cribau	591	8	14:15	02:00
Cerrig Cochion	550	11	15:15	03:00
Moel Meirch	607	12	15:30	03:15
Ysgafell Wen	650	14
Mynydd Llynnau'r Cwn	669	14
Three Tops	672	15	16:20	04:05
Moel Druman	676	15	16:35	04:20
Allt-fawr	698	16	16:50	04:35
Bwlch Cwmorthin	470	19
Foel Ddu	458	20	18:15	06:00
Moel-yr-hydd	648	20	18:30	06:15
Moelwyn Bach	710	23	19:15	07:00
Craigysgafn	689	23	19:30	07:15
Moelwyn Mawr	770	24	19:45	07:30
Cnicht	689	28	21:15	09:00
Aberglaslyn (arrive)	5	35	23:30	11:15
Aberglaslyn (depart)	5	35	05:00	16:45
Bryn Banog	529	38
Moel Hebog	782	40	07:45	19:30
Moel yr Ogof	655	41	08:25	20:10
Moel Lefn	638	42	08:45	20:30
Y Gyrn	452	44	09:45	21:30
Mynydd-y-Ddwy-elor	466	44
Trum y Ddysgl	709	46	10:35	22:20
Mynydd Drws-y-coed	695	46
Y Garn	633	47	11:30	23:15
Rhyd-Ddu	190	50	12:15	24:00

Gear testing
Fundamental pieces of new equipment were tested on the week-end:

• The Quechua S10 Ultralight sleeping bag served its task pretty well. Rather warm despite being slightly damp and packed in only 900g, Decathlon ends up doing good stuff sometimes.
• I bought a OMM Classic Marathon 25L backpack (*), as I needed something a bit bigger than the one used on the UTMB in order to get the bothy and sleeping bags in. It's quite light (725g), well conceived and looks good. Pockets and nettings are easily accessible, relatively waterproof, and a half-length sleeping mat is included in the back! It's also quite comfortable. But I'm not sure how rip-resistant it is, as I managed to tear a bit of netting on a fence already. I have to admit I'm usually tough with my gear.
• The Lifesystems Bothy 4-6 does the job it's designed for. And nothing else.

Lessons

Team effort - no big clash and we managed to stick together the whole time, so that's positive overall. However, we should probably rely more on each other for motivation. Also, I've been leading the way quite a lot, and I guess it would be better if we took more even turns. The decision taking process is far from optimal and rather slow. The route choices were especially difficult, as we had different priorities: shortest distance, safest route, minimal ascent, less technical, ...
Navigation - paper maps should be laminated! My old OL17 has seen quite a lot already (then, and then), and is now turning into papier maché... Or better, small route cards with pre-marked bearings should be used. I already knew that from the Hardmoors, but it always takes time to learn the lesson.
Night - the bothy bag should be used only if required (that's what it's intented for anyway). We'll probably try to sleep in refuges when/where possible.

Conclusions

In the end, we covered only of 2 the 5 main ranges of summits and half the distance (ie. 50km). We missed Snowdon, the Glyderau and the Carneddau ranges, which are more rocky and probably more similar to the alpine conditions on the PTL. We ran for 18 hours 30 minutes, plus longish break on challenging terrain, so it's not all too bad. But it's a bit disappointing to be fair. We could probably have done the Snowdon range as well in under roughly 24 hours (not considering the night).
According to the guide book, there are three kind of runners attempting the route: those who know every single stone on the route, the navigation geniuses, and those who don't really know what they're doing, ie. us ... This was quite clear. We came there relatively unprepared for the task (route planning, maps, ...). As Leo said as we started running: "Don't forget who's idea it was to do this". Well, it was mine, and I should probably have planned it better.
Anyway, now that we've tried, I can't stay defeated. It's getting personal... There will be more attempts, and there must be a success one day! Hopefully, further attempts could be much easier, given that we know most of the route (I'm already familiar with the Glyderau and Carneddau).

Ultra team training.

(*) I bought the bag online at backpackinglight.co.uk, as many retailers were out of stock until late July, and I have to say I'm pretty happy about the company. Apart from the free podcast CD and free sweets shipped with the parcel, they also bother to include a short hand written "personal" note and call you a couple of days later to make sure the parcel has arrived. That's what I call working on customer relationship!

Benoit at osa-ultratrail reported this morning his estimations of the PTL characteristics calcuted according to the GPS trace provided by the UTMB organisation. The PTL would then feature 245km and an incredible 21,590m of ascent this year... That's nearly 2.5 times the Everest, 4.5 times the Mont-Blanc or 20 times Snowdon... It comes a bit as a surprise as the official page reads an estimated 18,000m. Well, I guess we'll have to work hard on ascents repetitions...

Ultra ascent

Yesterday, life-is-an-ultramarathon.org saw its 100,000^th unique visit. Thanks for reading!

Ultra visits

I've just finished reading "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christpher McDougall, as recommended by Jon. I have to say I didn't get caught immediately into the story, as the start seemed a bit too random to be true but too slow for a fiction. But once I got into it, I couldn't let the book down!



The story line is build upon the succession of events leading to the first Tarahumara long-distance race where some Gringos were invited. The Tarahumara live in the Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) in the Sierra Madre mountain range in Mexio, and are well-known for their superior abilities in long-distance running. In fact, running is still an essential part of their lifestyle. This frame allows the author to bring together a large number of facts and anecdotes about ultrarunning that are more or less related to the race. Those include for example famous runners, (Emil Zápotek, Ann Trason, Scott Jurek, ...), coaches, sport scientists, and mythic races (Leadville 100, Badwater, ...).

The book is clearly on the same line as "Survival of the fittest" (Mike Stroud), as they both argue that the human is designed to run, and our current lazy lifestyle is the cause of a large number of diseases. Although both authors are keen on anecdotes, McDougall writes in a much more colloquial American style compared to Stroud's doctoral British English. Their approaches differ significantly as well: rather than scientific and teleologic evidence, we're provided with a converging beam of examples. Furthermore, while "Survival of the fittest" argued that the human body was designed to run, the key contribution from "Born to run" is to precise that it is designed to run barefoot.

Indeed, the Tarahumara run in extremely thin sandals and don't seem to get into any trouble without protective cushioning and motion control technologies. Barefooting is advocated throughout the book through the voice of Barefoot Ted, a barefooting/Vibram Five Finger aficionado. The logic is quite simple: the human have been running for millions of years without shoes, and running in cushioned shoes alters the natural stride, leading to problems that may even never have occurred otherwise, and that might need to be compensated further...

To be read again!

Ultra I-want-to-go-running book

After the initial "unit" tests (read the first part), I tried the Five Fingers in more varied contexts.



Trial 4: hill walking
First I went for a stroll on the coast near Eastbourne. As I started to get used to the concrete, the section in town was not so much of an issue any more. Good to have friends walking a couple of meters behind as well to collect the reactions and comments from people in the streets. Some said they were cool . The grassy rolling hills rendered a good sensation. The grip was decent enough to climb trees. I didn't hesitate to walk a bit in the sea, which would be less tempting with conventional shoes. Round pebbles are fine, but sharp ones are not very comfortable to step on. Therefore I'm not sure I'm ready for rocky mountains with them. Last but not least I got sunburned on the top of my foot...

Trial 5: indoor climbing
Then I went climbing indoor at Craggy Island. I obviously didn't expect anything from the Five Fingers on routes with tiny footholds, as my big toes would have to support my whole weight. So I tried a couple of easy routes on which smearing (ie. pushing into the wall instead of relying on footholds) might have been useful. Again, the general feeling was good, you can sense very well the shape of the foot holds. But the grip is really poor compared to my climbing shoes soles made by... Vibram. You really have to push orthogonally the wall when you smear, slipping otherwise.

More opportunistic tests will be posted later this summer, as I will engage in various activities.

Ultra thin soles 2

It's all in the title, I'm registered for the Marathon des Alpes-Maritimes, running along the seaside from Nice to Cannes via Antibes. I've got a revenge to take on the Promenade des Anglais after the painful experience at the Nice Ironman last year. My sunburn marks are still visible... And I've also got to motivate Bastien!

Anyone keen?

Ultra ready for the revenge

Updated 06/05/2009

On Sunday I went to run the Three Forts Marathon for the second time. Featuring a distance of 27 miles and about 1000m of ascent run over non-technical off-road paths, this race is intermediate between a marathon and a trail. The original plan was to run with my fellow Chameleons Sven and Leo, but Leo injured his back a day earlier, so we were only two of us.

I ran the first half up to Devil's Dyke with Sven, but given my nearly-inexistent training due to my PhD thesis writing-up, I let him go ahead at that point. Everything went well until the second ascent from the Adur River that left me with a bad hypoglycemia. I reacted a bit too late, thinking I could reach the next water station before things would be too bad. I eventually decided to let a Honey Stinger melt under my tongue and once again, it saved my day.

Unfortunately, once my blood sugar level was back to normal, I started to have cramps in the quadriceps, especially downhill. The end was quite hard in these conditions, and I had to stretch and take short walks quite often. I finished in just 3:59:43, ranking 29^th out of 149 finishers, which is not too bad in the end (I did 3:56:35, 31^st, in 2007 with a much better training).

Once arrived, I was surprised that Sven wasn't around. Indeed, he had got lost following a group of five. Surprisingly, the marshal posted at the path junction saw them going the wrong way and didn't say anything. Sven reckoned he lost about 10 minutes there.

Overall, it was a good day out on a friendly race. The weather was windy and sunny (I got mildly sunburned...).

It's also nice to see that I can run a (hilly) marathon even with a very poor training. Although obviously this was far from optimal.

Ultra restart of the season

After a long period of indecision, I've eventually decided to buy a pair of Vibram Five Fingers shoes (sprint model). I guess they can be best described as a pair of gloves for the feet.

I've been attracted by them for several reasons, so many that I actually feel like I've been naively caught into excessive consumerism by some clever marketing teams

1. Novelty factor and the satisfaction to try something singularly different.
2. Sensations, following the idea I've developed in "The tortoise and the hare" about seeing every single meter of ground between London and Brighton, I hope to additionally be able to "feel" every meter of ground. It is not clear yet whether I'll be able to run long distances with them or not, but the principle applies to shorter runs too. Gaining extra feeling on the feet will hopefully contributes to this idea in two ways. On a physical level, I hope they will provide an extra source of sensation, just as the Inov8 Flyrock were surprisingly a lot of fun to run with on slightly adverse terrain (sand, mud, snow, ...). On a more psychological level, they might help with the "connection with the Earth" type of feeling.
3. Injury prevention: there is increasing evidence that modern, massively cushioned running shoes are not necessarily better than their cheaper counterparts, with studies showing that people running in expensive shoes are more that twice as likely to get injured. Cushioning gives the human body the impression that it can land heavily, which inevitably alters the walking/running style way. Whether this is problematic or not is still up for debate amongst sport scientists. Beside, several studies have shown that induced stress on the bones triggers bone growth, which will later delay osteporosis. Now, where is the limit between beneficial stress and harmful shocks is not clear. But after all, the human body was originally designed to walk and run barefoot.

I guess I can only try them in various conditions and see whether they meet my expectations.

Trial 1: shopping at the local supermarket
The first thing I noticed when I went out was that I could very easily tell apart the different kinds of concrete and asphalt I was walking on, which is rather nice. The second thing is that the impact on the heel and on the metatarsals feels fairly hard compared to using typically cushioned shoes. And the third thing is that you don't walk unnoticed - lots of people literally scrutinised them. Some people say they look silly. That said, millions of people have bought the Crocs which look ugly even to my underdeveloped sense of fashion. Personally, I think the Five Fingers look rather funny.

Trial 2: commuting walk
I then decided to walk 5km in them to see how they feel on longer distances. Again, the heel contact is rather hard, unless you try to land mid-foot or even on the toes. However, I couldn't sustain that for very long as I not only looked like I was training for a catwalk, but it's also fairly hard to balance on landing. Towards the end, I started to get blisters under my heels, which is fairly unexpected. Furthermore, I took a couple minutes longer than my usual commuting time, which can be impeded on the shorter stride required to reduce the ground reaction force during the initial heel contact. Walking a bit on the grass in Hyde Park felt so much better than the concrete. I guess humans were designed before the roads.

Trial 3: short run in the park
I then went for a 6.3km short run in the park. At first it felt pretty good, as it's much easier to land mid-foot or on the toes while running than walking. Soon, I managed to bounce on my arches, with my heel barely touching the ground, as if my feet were mounted on springs. That led to a great feeling, just like I was moving effortlessly. The concrete felt rather hard, the grass was nice, and the sand (for the horses) was great. Little by little, though, I started to feel the tiredness in my arches, and when I eventually stopped I thought my calves would seize up - they didn't.

The outcome of these preliminary tests is rather positive, but I don't think I will suddenly change completely my habits and drop all my other shoes for this new pair. I will just gradually replace some (short) training sessions or commuting walks. That should help to strengthen some muscles of the lower legs and feet. And that will diversify even more my running and walking habits, which in my opinion is the best way to prevent injuries. Indeed, variety in running session characteristics such as distance, speed and surface reduces the risk of injuries.

Further tests are to come: hill walking, trail running and maybe climbing, open water swimming and canoeing. I guess they might be more suitable for these activities that do not take place on concrete, although it's hard to guess what their grip will be on wet/muddy terrain.

> Tests continue in part 2.

Ultra thin soles

PS: Note that the brand name "Vibram" has nothing to do with anti-vibration insoles as I've heard sometimes. It's derived from the company founder's name, Vitale Bramani.