Ultra Chicken

Ultra chicken loves to run,
She runs around the world for fun.
Come scorching sunshine, rain or snow
It's Ultra Chicken; go, go, go!

Now here's a very silly thing,
This race is called the Piece of String.
You must run, and run, and then
Go out and run, and run again.

No one knows quite when to end,
S' enough to send you round the bend.
But focus, try, and persevere...
You'll likely fail - so try next year!

The mountain race UTMB
Is held each year in Chamonix.
In the mountains way up high,
It's clucking tough, and you might die.

Western States 2013 - Live

So, being the incredibly cool guy that I am, I am currently spending my Saturday night watching the Western States Endurance Run unfold live overnight with a cold cider. Because I'm just the coolest, I have been playing around with the times to see what the field looks like to get an idea of who might take the win. Yeah.

As it stands, 6 runners have gone through 70 miles (Peachstone), in the following order:

Timothy Olson	10:43
Rob Krar	10:56
Mike Morton	10:58
Dylan Bowman	11:09
Ian Sharman	11:10
Nick Clark	11:22

Timmy Olson has held the lead for most of the race, but Rob Krar has been hot on his heels, Mike Morton has been edging his way up the field, and the rest of the chasing pack are not far behind. The heat is immense in California at the moment, so the question is; who's going to blow first? Can Timmy hold on until the end, or will Mike's pacing win the day?

This is a figure showing the speed between each checkpoint up to Peachstone for each of the 6 runners in the lead pack. Hal Koerner was in there as well, but something seems to have happened to him since Foresthill. I hope everything's okay. Anyway, take a look and see what you think.

My interpretations are as follows:

1. Timmy has been running incredibly strong so far and has built up a great lead. Of course now we need to see if he can hold this amazing pace.
2. The pace of these 6 runners has been fairly consistent, but in the last 20 miles we have really seen the differences start to creep in
3. Mike's pacing may well be the clincher here - he started off as the slower runner, but now his pace seems to be the fastest. He's slowly creeped up the field, and now is able to hold his pace whilst others are dropping theirs.
4. Similarly, Rob is running at a fantastic pace and could hold this to the end now. 
5. Top 5 for Brit Ian Sharman? Go Ian!

As we enter the final 30 miles, the real race begins. Now we see if people have set off too fast, or if the hot weather is going to affect things. My money is on Mike Morton coming through in the final hours as Timothy's pace slips. But I could be completely wrong, and we might see another epic finish from Olson! In particular, will he pick up the pace when Morton and Krar attack? Let's see!

It's looking like we will be seeing a podium of Timmy, Rob and Mike, but as to the order; I couldn't say. Whatever happens, I look forward to seeing the results. Maybe we'll see a sprint finish at the Placer High School track?!

Good luck guys!

Update:
Hal has now been updated as being in 7th through Peachstone. Not sure what happened, but his pace has dropped dramatically on the last section. Also, Olson, Krar and Morton are through the Rucky Chucky river crossing. Olson is still 10 minutes up.

Pacing the Western States Endurance Run

I recently saw a post on the Runner's World Sweat Science blog regarding pacing of swimmers and runners, and how this affects their performance. One of the papers that is discussed is this paper by Tucker et al. (2006), which shows pacing over a number of intervals for world record times at a variety of middle distance events (800m, 5 km, and 10 km). The results of this study seem to suggest that the optimum way to run these events is to go out strong at the start, settle into an even pace for the majority of the event, then finish strong again at the end (a so called parabolic profile):

A "parabolic" pacing strategy seems to be optimal for middle distance events (from Tucker et al.  (2006) c/o Sweat Science)

So I got to thinking - is there an optimum way to run a 100 mile event? Now, I think that this is a very difficult question to answer. Unlike track events, the terrain and conditions for a 100 miler event are so variable that judging pacing becomes a complex interplay between many different factors throughout the race; weather conditions, ground conditions, elevation change, fueling, hydration, navigation, gear choice - there is just much more to consider, and much more that can go wrong. Even ignoring the variable effects like weather, the elevation profile and terrain is so different between any two races, coming up with a simple strategy that would apply to all races is likely impossible. The optimal pacing strategy for UTMB (31,496 ft of ascent) is unlikely to be the same as that for the Thames Path 100 (2,100 ft of ascent) for instance.