Thursday, March 13, 2014

Is this one of the Hardest Races in the World??

This past weekend I ran along side some brave athletes who were tackling the 100 mile event at Peaks.com's annual snowshoe races in Pittsfield, Vermont. Some quick approx. stats

Finish rates-
125 people in the 10km fun run, 1 loop with 100% finish rate

 125 people in the half marathon, 2 loops, 92 % finish rate

 66 people in the marathon, 4 loops, 58% finish rate

10 people in the 100 miler, 16 laps, 0% finish rate

100 mile race stats required to finish-
16 laps(10km or 6.5 miles x 16)
36 hour cut-off (average of 2 hours and 15 min per lap)
4 finishers on old course with 1200 gain/loss per loop
0 finishers on new course with 1900 gain/loss per loop

100% of course is snow
100% of course run on snowshoes


100 mile race profile-
This year's course  had approx.1900 feet of gain and loss per loop
Recent past years course had 1200 feet of gain and loss per loop
Original course had 1900 ft. of gain per loop
 
Profile(in metres) of one lap of the 2014 Peaks Races snowshoe course.
Approx. 1990 ft. total gain/loss per lap

Other Hardest Races in the World for comparison(I left the comparison for you to do)

Barkley Marathon's

Hardrock

HURT

race name??????

race name??????

So what do you think? Does this course really measure up to the BIG BOYS of Hardest Race in The World Fame?

2 comments:

Lakewood said...

Ugh...that sounds brutal. I remember running a 50-miler back in 2008 on the Pittsfield course and it was ridiculous. Still to this day one of the toughest 50's I've ever done. I can't imagine it on snowshoes. Sheesh.

Eliza Ralph-Murphy said...

2008? Was that like your first ultra?
One thing about running in the snow on snowshoes is the snow softens everything including the downhills, rocks and roots. It also makes it easy to follow the course and not get lost once the leaders make a path. Down side is it's cold, wet, and let's not forget all of the yellow snow graffiti.