Looking for an Ironman-distance triathlon incorporating mountain trail running? Check out Norseman.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Rise of The Planet of the Fruits
'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' is a great movie, but there is a better, or should I say healthier alternative...
'My Ancestral Health Symposium Presentation' by Don Matesz. This is not about humans vs. chimps anymore, but "the presumed main foods of common ancestors of humans and chimps". Rise of The Planet of the Fruits!
Long story short, we humans and our cousins chimps are genetically 98% the same, and in the course of millions of years we have been adapted to a diet high in fruit (fructose, vitamin C) and low in meat (sodium, fat).
When the ideas are thrilling, the movie does not have to be that special. Watch and think for yourself!
"Ancestral nutrition: An alternative approach" by Don Matesz, MA, MS from Ancestry on Vimeo.
Now all those paleo businessmen, who squeeze money out of the outdated concept that paleo diet is all about meat and dead stuff like that, are probably going ape s%!t. As they are unlikely to change their minds in the near future, Don's blog Primal Wisdom recently announced his Farewell to 'Paleo':
'My Ancestral Health Symposium Presentation' by Don Matesz. This is not about humans vs. chimps anymore, but "the presumed main foods of common ancestors of humans and chimps". Rise of The Planet of the Fruits!
Long story short, we humans and our cousins chimps are genetically 98% the same, and in the course of millions of years we have been adapted to a diet high in fruit (fructose, vitamin C) and low in meat (sodium, fat).
When the ideas are thrilling, the movie does not have to be that special. Watch and think for yourself!
"Ancestral nutrition: An alternative approach" by Don Matesz, MA, MS from Ancestry on Vimeo.
Now all those paleo businessmen, who squeeze money out of the outdated concept that paleo diet is all about meat and dead stuff like that, are probably going ape s%!t. As they are unlikely to change their minds in the near future, Don's blog Primal Wisdom recently announced his Farewell to 'Paleo':
"I have experimented with eating a so-called “paleo” diet for at least 14 years...
...over this time period I have experienced myself, and seen in others, mostly gradual and sometimes sudden development of disorders that I can directly attribute to attempting to consume a high fat, excessive protein diet...
...I have returned to eating a whole food... plant-based diet, with much smaller amounts of animal products...
...I now believe that reverse engineering from presently observable human biochemistry and physiology suggests that modern humans are adapted to a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet with relatively low or intermittent intake of animal foods."
Monday, August 29, 2011
What it takes to finish UTMB?
1131 of the 2369 competitors in UTMB 2011 were able finish within the time limit of 46 hours. That means only 47.7% were successful and the majority DNFd. As I'd like to participate in this race one day to experience the fantastic atmosphere there, I was wondering why people quit? Is there a pattern to be found for a DNF? What it takes to finish UTMB?
First, it's clear that running speed does not play a major role. The last one to arrive in Chamonix on Sunday 21:14 PM was Dominique Diffine from France. His time was 45 hours and 45 minutes. That averages 16.16 min/km for the distance of 169.9 km. In other words, a comfortable walking pace of 3.7 km/h. One would think that anyone could do this. However since most of these seasoned runners could not accomplish this, there must be other reasons.
By the way, Chamonix Meteo has some fine videos, including some of the last finishers. Age or gender does not seem to play a big role in finishing ability. For example, Roland Poly won the 60-69 year age category with 34 hours 18 minutes - and he placed 125th overall. Daniele Rolland won the same age category for females with 44h 42min.
Probably the answer is a combination of:
The answer: numbers 3249 (in Arnuva) and 2145 (in Courmayeur) DNF'd (5th and 8th from the left). The others finished in 40-45 hours. It's mind boggling to think that most of these people did ultimately beat a world class ultra trail runner like Miguel Heras - who had passed this mountain top over four hours earlier, and was moving twice the speed of these ordinary runners until he crashed totally.
I think Lizzy Hawker gave one of the most comprehensive answers ever towards explaining 'the magical side of trail' after crossing the finish line first in Chamonix despite an agonizing hip injury:
First, it's clear that running speed does not play a major role. The last one to arrive in Chamonix on Sunday 21:14 PM was Dominique Diffine from France. His time was 45 hours and 45 minutes. That averages 16.16 min/km for the distance of 169.9 km. In other words, a comfortable walking pace of 3.7 km/h. One would think that anyone could do this. However since most of these seasoned runners could not accomplish this, there must be other reasons.
By the way, Chamonix Meteo has some fine videos, including some of the last finishers. Age or gender does not seem to play a big role in finishing ability. For example, Roland Poly won the 60-69 year age category with 34 hours 18 minutes - and he placed 125th overall. Daniele Rolland won the same age category for females with 44h 42min.
Probably the answer is a combination of:
- general health and fitness
- endurance (it's a long way around Mt. Blanc, even if you walk - tourist hikers take about 10 days for the tour)
- gear (there is a list of compulsory gear, but still the quality and quantity of gear varies a lot among competitors - I heard that some extremists carry extra small sizes of clothing just to shave off a few grams!)
- nutrition (energy), hydration and mineral balance
- mental/mind/thinking (like many ultra runners have said, it's 90% mental, and the rest depends on your head - most runners have to keep going through 2 nights)
- weather (it can be freezing/cold and hot/humid and changes can be rapid too)
- DNS : 9 competitors did not start in Chamonix
- Delevret (14.00 Km cum. distance, 948 m cum. ascent): 4 DNFs
- Saint Gervais (21.30 Km, 993 m): 41 DNFs
- Les Contamines (31.10 Km, 1544 m): 109 DNFs (incl. Nicolas 'Hoka' Mermoud, 3rd in UTMB 2007)
- La Balme (39.20 Km, 2110 m): 3 DNFs
- Refuge Croix du Bonhomme (44.70 Km, 2897 m): 1 DNF
- Les Chapieux (50.00 Km, 2909 m): 66 DNFs
- Col de la Seigne (60.40 Km, 3915 m): 15 DNFs
- Lac Combal (64.90 Km, 3922 m): 53 DNFs
- Arête Mont Favre (68.90 Km, 4389 m): the only control point with no DNFs!
- col Checrouit (73.40 Km, 4406 m): 14 DNFs
- Courmayeur (77.70 Km, 4406 m): 233 DNFs (Scott Jurek, Geoff Roes - they both happened to have a bad day)
- refuge Bertone (82.40 Km, 5215 m): 23 DNFs
- refuge Bonatti (89.60 Km, 5444 m): 9 DNFs (Dakota Jones, Topher Gaylord)
- Arnuva (94.60 Km, 5564 m): 203 DNFs
- Grand Col Ferret (98.90 Km, 6332 m): 2 DNFs
- La Fouly (109.60 Km, 6521 m): 283 DNFs, more than any other point! (Bryon 'iRunFar' Powell)
- Champex (123.70 Km, 7106 m): 103 DNFs (Bib No. 1 Jez Bragg down)
- Martigny (137.40 Km, 7831 m): 18 DNFs, this is the aid station that replaced the one that was "destroyed by the storm". Many participants have reported that they were not informed/aware about this course change, however the organizers sent a text message about this during the race, and according to the rules you must carry a mobile phone that is turned on.
- Trient (145.20 Km, 7911 m): 17 DNFs (Nick Clark, and Miguel Heras, who incredibly lead the race on four different occasions and stayed in top 6 the whole way, until his wheels came off here big time!)
- Catogne (149.90 Km, 8617 m): 4 DNFs
- Vallorcine (154.90 Km, 8631 m): 15 DNFs
- Argentière (161.20 Km, 9552 m): 6 DNFs (incl. Fabien Courrier, who still had 4h12min to walk the remaining 8.7 km - he must have hurt really bad)
- Chamonix (169.90 Km, 9586 m): the previous DNF numbers add up to 1,231, so 7 more must have DNFd along the way to Chamonix to make the total 1,238 DNFs.
In the end it's difficult to say who can finish and who will DNF. For example in the photo below, which is taken 8:20 AM on Saturday morning after 44.7 km of running on Refuge Croix du Bonhomme at an altitude of 2,443 m, there are 10 competitors more or less visible. This is a still from the video with mountain goats (I guess that's what they are watching/photographing), which was featured in my previous post. Can you tell who made it to Chamonix and which one/ones DNFd?
The answer: numbers 3249 (in Arnuva) and 2145 (in Courmayeur) DNF'd (5th and 8th from the left). The others finished in 40-45 hours. It's mind boggling to think that most of these people did ultimately beat a world class ultra trail runner like Miguel Heras - who had passed this mountain top over four hours earlier, and was moving twice the speed of these ordinary runners until he crashed totally.
I think Lizzy Hawker gave one of the most comprehensive answers ever towards explaining 'the magical side of trail' after crossing the finish line first in Chamonix despite an agonizing hip injury:
"My first trail in 2005 was here. Each race is never the same and you have to do them with great humility. You can be betrayed by bad weather conditions, your mental or your organism. And it could have happened to me at la Fouly when my hip was really aching. I took analgesics, but the most relieving was my team support. From that I could feel some alchemy, which gave me strength to go on. That is the magical side of trail. Your first opponent is always yourself. You have to search for the limits. Before the race I thought to myself that I would have to run with passion and courage, and indeed that is what helped me to cross the finish line."
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Super challenging and exciting UTMB 2011
Thousands of ultra trail running fans were glued to their screens to follow the super exciting and challenging UTMB 2011.
Long story short, Kilian Jornet and Lizzy Hawker won. That wasn't a surprise, since both have won the tour a couple of times. Hawker also won last year's shorter replacement event.
Kilian had some serious competition, which made the race exciting to follow. Ultimately others could not climb and descend like him. His finish time was 20:36:43. Iker Karrera was 2nd and Sebastien Chaineau 3rd, each about 10 mins apart. Here is a video of the three first men arriving in Chamonix.
Also Lizzy Hawker had her share of fun by catching and beating men in top 20. Interestingly many of them DNFd after getting chicked by her. She was easily the most inspiring star of the race. After 5 hours she fell to 27th place overall, but then she started to rise again. She finished 13th overall in 25:02:00.
The weather turned bad once again just before the start. A heavy storm with snow and all caused an annoying delay of five hours (from 6:30 PM to 11:30 PM) on Friday. Somehow both the organizers and the toughest competitors seem to have pulled it through. However there were no Americans in top 10 (France 4, Spain 2, Japan 2, Portugal 1, Hungary 1). I guess the unpredictable Alpine weather and equally complex French organization broke their spirits eventually.
The course was slightly changed from last year. It was the longest route in UTMB history: 169.9 km (105.6 miles) with 9,586 meters (31,450 ft) cumulative climbing. From Champex they had to run via the aid station in Martigny, because the storm had destroyed the one in Bovine.
By 9AM Sunday morning - after two cold nights of running - only 113 out of 2,369 registered competitors had finished. And keep in mind that they are all accomplished, well-trained ultra trail runners. There's still 12.5 hours time left, but we might see a big DNF percentage in this year's race, certainly over 50%. Anyone who can finish this race is a hero with unlimited bragging rights.
Long story short, Kilian Jornet and Lizzy Hawker won. That wasn't a surprise, since both have won the tour a couple of times. Hawker also won last year's shorter replacement event.
Kilian had some serious competition, which made the race exciting to follow. Ultimately others could not climb and descend like him. His finish time was 20:36:43. Iker Karrera was 2nd and Sebastien Chaineau 3rd, each about 10 mins apart. Here is a video of the three first men arriving in Chamonix.
Also Lizzy Hawker had her share of fun by catching and beating men in top 20. Interestingly many of them DNFd after getting chicked by her. She was easily the most inspiring star of the race. After 5 hours she fell to 27th place overall, but then she started to rise again. She finished 13th overall in 25:02:00.
The weather turned bad once again just before the start. A heavy storm with snow and all caused an annoying delay of five hours (from 6:30 PM to 11:30 PM) on Friday. Somehow both the organizers and the toughest competitors seem to have pulled it through. However there were no Americans in top 10 (France 4, Spain 2, Japan 2, Portugal 1, Hungary 1). I guess the unpredictable Alpine weather and equally complex French organization broke their spirits eventually.
The course was slightly changed from last year. It was the longest route in UTMB history: 169.9 km (105.6 miles) with 9,586 meters (31,450 ft) cumulative climbing. From Champex they had to run via the aid station in Martigny, because the storm had destroyed the one in Bovine.
By 9AM Sunday morning - after two cold nights of running - only 113 out of 2,369 registered competitors had finished. And keep in mind that they are all accomplished, well-trained ultra trail runners. There's still 12.5 hours time left, but we might see a big DNF percentage in this year's race, certainly over 50%. Anyone who can finish this race is a hero with unlimited bragging rights.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
"Ich bin Berchmo"
"Ich bin Berchmo" - I'm the Mountainman, Dieter Ulbricht from laufkultur.de can now finally say without any doubt.
Somehow he managed to take lots of pictures while finishing MountainMan Ultra 2011 50-miler in 12:47 - well below the 15-hour cutoff. Maybe it helped that he has already accomplished more difficult challenges like UTMB 2008.
Anyway, check out his 7-page photo reportage (in German) here.
Somehow he managed to take lots of pictures while finishing MountainMan Ultra 2011 50-miler in 12:47 - well below the 15-hour cutoff. Maybe it helped that he has already accomplished more difficult challenges like UTMB 2008.
Anyway, check out his 7-page photo reportage (in German) here.
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