Damian is trying to break the 30 year old record for this......live tracking....
Love a bit of dot watching, best of luck to him!
This is going to be good.
What has struck me is what an exceptional runner Mike Hartley was, given the 20 year gap (and huge improvements in training, nutrition and kit) between his records and the current attempts.
Not to mention that the Pennine Way is in far better nick nowadays with all the slabs (well, from a speed perspective) than when he did it.
He has been going great guns, looking like bringing the record down by hours.
But....The tracker has not moved for a while. I hope this is just a comms glitch.
Trackers are always sketchy in that bit of the Pennines. He's heading for Northallerton now, 1hr 50mins ahead of target at the last CP.
He's now about to headup onto the Cleveland hills.
I normally have a fantastic unobstructed view of them. This morning not so much - thick as a bag and persisting it down. Will make the descents/climbs of the hills slippery (they're pitched) but from Clay Bank over urra moor to Blakey ridge they're big landrover tracks and good running - 6 miles gently downhill from Urra moor will feel like heaven to the legs (if a bit dull).
At Danby Wiske this morning he was 1h50 up on schedule.
He's now dropped down to lordstones (shitty pitched path, horrible in the wet) and is now 'only' 1h10 up. 40 minutes 'lost' in about 4h of running.
Be interesting to see if this is a schedule error, just a bad patch, or the start of a downward trend.
What sort of pace (min/mile) will he be running at?
Mike Hartley's record was an average of 5mph (12 mins/mile), so a bit quicker than that
Very lumpy section he is on now, once he gets to Round Hill in a mile or two it is mostly flattish and downhill for a good few miles
It's fascinating watching the Mike Hartley icon on the trail as well as Hall's own progress. I have a feeling the gap is closing a little.
"bump" to keep this interesting thread higher up on the My Forums/home page list
I note the record pace is set at an even pace for the whole distance, so some variation guaranteed.
He looks to be back at c. 1h40 up at Lion Inn, so going well again.
yes it is (what with not having GPS trackers in '91) but OpenTracking say that, looking at the timings from Mark Hartley's record, the tracker will be within 15minutes of where Hartley actually was.
On the back of this great thread which has obviously drawn some experienced runners to contribute I wonder if anyone can answer the following question or point me in the right direction. In a flat 50k Ultra what pace would the winner be running and what pace would the middle of the field be recording? Hope I have framed the question properly. Thanks.
> On the back of this great thread which has obviously drawn some experienced runners to contribute I wonder if anyone can answer the following question or point me in the right direction. In a flat 50k Ultra what pace would the winner be running and what pace would the middle of the field be recording? Hope I have framed the question properly. Thanks.
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/news/a36517971/ketema-negasa-50k-world-reco...
3:15 min/km for the winner. Wow. Not sure I can do that for 1km!
If you Google it, the average time for 50k is 4h 33m. As it happens, I ran 4:30 for the first 50k of 100k and I was an average performer. You can do the pace calculation yourself...
It depends how flat and how high quality the field is.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.runnersworld.com/uk/news/amp36517971/ket...
world record pace is 3:15 min/km.
my guess would be that mid pack would be around 4-5hr marathon pace.
Damian is slowing & Hartley is closing the gap.
Damian should still break the record, but not by hours and hours.
Yes it is starting to look a bit tight...gulp....
Got to remember 50k is less than 8k more than a marathon and world class marathon runners are doing 2:55 minutes per k. Not than many top marathon runners are doing 50k races. Des Linden is perhaps an exception.
What's the weather like for Damian there on the East coast?
Weather now is fine according to bbc.
> On the back of this great thread which has obviously drawn some experienced runners to contribute I wonder if anyone can answer the following question or point me in the right direction. In a flat 50k Ultra what pace would the winner be running and what pace would the middle of the field be recording? Hope I have framed the question properly. Thanks.
Do you mean off road trail, or battering the tarmac?
Thanks! Don't want to jinx it, but looking good...
come on Damo! Nearly there!
Lost an hour of his buffer on his schedule on this stretch. It's going to be tight
14 mins infront at the last checkpoint! Hope he doesn’t stop for a pint at the grosvenor at Robin Hoods Bay! It’s going to be tight! Hope he holds on!
> Got to remember 50k is less than 8k more than a marathon and world class marathon runners are doing 2:55 minutes per k. Not than many top marathon runners are doing 50k races. Des Linden is perhaps an exception.
Yes, so I guess 3:15 min/km pace for 50k isn't surprising but still!
My best marathon pace is 7:30 min/mile, my pace on a flattish trail 61k race was 10 min/mile (which still put me in the top quarter of the field I think). I slowed considerably towards the end (of course!), so I'm guessing I could probably have done 9 min/mile for 50k on that course at that time. But when I was at my fittest and on a flat road 50k I guess it might be under 8 min/mile.
Not sure this helps with Slackboot's question as, without trying to be bigheaded, I'm not middle of the pack, usually top 10-20%, but I think I'm an average slim person who trains. Not exceptional.
His schedule does have a 36m buffer built in, so a finish before 21:36:51 will set a new FKT.
Hartley is still closing. This must be so hard.
> His schedule does have a 39m buffer built in, so a finish before 21:36:51 will set a new FKT.
> Hartley is still closing. This must be so hard.
Ah thank you that makes sense now! The trophy is Hartley, the target times are just his schedule.
ah ok thanks for clarifying 😀
Livestream looks good. Should be finished v soon. Amazing effort!
> Livestream looks good. Should be finished v soon. Amazing effort!
Cool! There wasn't anyone there a few minutes ago...COME ON DAMO!
Damo (yes, I'm also a Damo!)
This is quite riveting. I'm watching the people milling around at Robin Hood Bay.
Likewise - having walked it in 13 days this is mind blowing!
He's over his target time and the tracker's stopped moving!
Actually it's moving. Looks like he'll do it, but not by much.
Signal might be dropping in/out
Bloody hell this is intense
Thanks to all for replies. ☺ He's just ahead on mine. I think he will do it.
This is like a test match decided in the last over.
Lost my video stream and can’t get it back....arrrgh
I think it can't cope with the number of people viewing!
Looks like he is about to finish
He's done it. Looks like he's got to run down to the sea!
Tide looks like it’s out too!
Congrats to Damo... brilliant, and that shows how strong the old record was. 30 years..
Maybe Mr Kelly will give it a go. At sub 40 hours he won't need any shut-eye.
It's so close, that I wonder who would've been quickest if they'd run on the same day (i.e. same conditions)
Like with the PW, I wouldn't be surprised if the record goes again soon-ish now that the Mike Hartley spell has been broken. Looked like Hall was injured towards the end, a back problem by the way he was holding himself, and he slowed dramatically in the last few miles. Plus the weather was pretty grim yesterday. So I would think other runners might think there is a bit of slack in the new record.
Tremendous effort by Hall though, he looked completely broken at the end.
I'm not sure how visible the C2C is/was seen by the ultratrail community. The record may have been 'forgotten' somewhat. The PW has more visibility in general as a national trail. The Spine race also seems more visible than the race over the C2C route - The Northern Traverse - which has only run twice from what I can tell, though there were adventure races based on it in the past. The Spine is annual (in fact twice a year if you include the summer race, though this is often swamped by other events), positioned in winter, when more people are at home dot-watching, following social media aspects of the PW race; the Northern Traverse is in April, when people are more likely to be out doing themselves, more competition from other events, and there's less (from what I can tell) social hype around it.
I guess a lot of it is due to prestige, "if <insert famous runner> has attempted a FKT then it must be worth it".
The Pennine way benefits from it's status as the oldest long distance trail and as you point out the spine race has a big following.
I've always thought that the southern upland way is massively overlooked, certainly less known than the PW or C2C but of similar length and terrain. Who knows, someone might read this and think its worth a crack at the FKT?
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