Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Movement in the Sky

Well then, the
International Skyrunning Federation (ISF) have just published their 2013 calendar. There’s a bunch of new stuff in
there, including a bit of an overhaul of the series format. A lot of people have asked me what I reckon, so here goes..

Passing into 2013 the Skyrunner
World Series (SWS) removes the "overall" WORLD SERIES category that we saw this year (mixing up the
distances and formats) and breaks things up, distinguishing three distinct
disciplines under three separate banners. There’s a vertical kilometre series, appropriately named VERTICAL, an ultra series, ULTRA, and a mid-distance series, called
SKY. The SKY series is evidently aiming to stick to Skyrunning’s (initially Italian) roots, as the races err towards the
original, classic, marathon-distance format of running up, along and back down
mountains. In this series you’re pretty much guaranteed a view! The original Skyrunning concept
was about ascending and descending mountainous terrain, at altitude. And that's
what it would seem that the 2013 SKY
series is aiming to create, but on an international level, rather than just
within Italy (1.). That said, I can’t really speak from experience of what the 2013 series races will
be like, having only previously competed in one of the five making up next
year's calendar. And that’s a great motivation for me to return to this original format,
which I’ve not fully completed
since my 4th place back in 2007, the year which included my first big win in
an absolute classic of Italian Skyrunning, the Sentiero 4 Luglio– I’d like to see that one back
in the circuit again! Altitude, ropes, chains, rocks and good views. That’s my definition of Skyrunning!(1. I note here that the ISF have been integrating international races into their calendar for some time, going abroad is not new, but the core concept has always been Italian, due to the available terrain and instant following of the sport there)

Next year then, 2013, I’m looking forward to returning to re-live the rocks, mud and
ambience of Zegama which kicks things off in the spring. After that it's eastwards to Alps and the Mont
Blanc Marathon - a French classic. From what people say it’s a very runnable course, but has magnificent views and again,
atmosphere. I’ll be missing Pikes Peak
for sure. It’s certainly a big race,
with big history, but there’s no way you can nip over to the States and be competitive running
up to 4300m without beforehand spending some serious time out there (or at least high up above sea level). The year my Dad came 2nd (1982) he’d spent six weeks in the Rockies getting used to the thin air. I’m not a teacher, so that’s not an option for me, unfortunately. Anyhow, I’ve heard it said that there’s a heck of a lot of switchbacks.... Returning to the SKY series,
I know next to nothing about the final two new-entry events, the Matterhorn
Ultraks and the Xtreme in Limone. The Matterhorn seems to have a profile of ups
and downs on well-trodden footpaths, probably fairly similar to the Mt Blanc
Marathon, but we’ll find out and confirm in
August. Lastly, the SKY series final is on
the edge of lake Garda. It’s in October, so understandably it keeps relatively low. 3000+m in
the Alps in late autumn means snow and ski rather than rock and run. So, with
this being a fairly short (23km) Sky race, climbing to just 1600m (albeit with
a fair chunk of overall elevation gain, 2000m) runners will need to keep some
speed in their legs to deal with a relatively short late-season burn out.

I’m not going to talk much about the VERTICAL series. It speaks for itself. Five races in five countries, each of which go uphill for 1000m. You can then walk down or sometimes
grab a cable car. If you're lucky you'll get a beer in a mountain-top
restaurant at the top. It’s a bit of a random challenge really, but I like the concept.
There’s no doubt that it’s one of the purest tests of fitness out there. 30 to 40 (or so...) minutes
of burning your lungs and quads. Just watch out for the chap in front of you – he may inadvertently stick a pole in your eye.

So, what do we think about
the ULTRA series then? Well, there
isn’t half a mix of stuff in
there! This is new domain for the ISF, a format introduced last year and being
expanded upon in 2013. They’re following the trend, hooking onto the global tendency in
trail-type running towards longer and further, more kilometres, more hours,
whilst trying not too loose their heritage, too much... Each of the first three
races of the ULTRA series are
mountainous European races. Whereas the final two are American-style. Now,
before I go any further, you may disagree with what I say next, in which case
what you could do is just put a “not” into my sentences every
now and again, and that way we’ll all be singing from the same hymn sheet. The ULTRA series then, as I was saying, it
has a right proper variety of stuff in it next year. If you’re used to shorter racing then you’ll view all these races as long, but upon closer inspection, we
have a vast range of disciplines in the mix. Transvulcania - not too long, not
too short, big climbs, some sections of semi-technical running, - this 83km
race kind of sits in the middle. Next up, Andorra. Well then, this is one
seriously long day out, right? 170km! From what I’ve heard it’s also pretty tough going underfoot. It’s going to have some brilliant scenery for sure, but at the same
time it’s the sort of race that
probably leaves you walking like a penguin for some time afterwards. Who will
be on the start line in the Pyrenees in June I do wonder? Next up, the Ice
Trail Tarentaise. It looks like a cracker, goes high - glaciers and proper big
mountains. The ITT appeals to fans of mountaineering and is definitely erring
towards the classic, Italian-style Skyrunning race. Then, well then it’s a return to Speedgoat. It’s less than a third the distance of Andorra and probably at least
three times as runnable. Nine times as fast then, right? (Actually the ratio of
winners’ times is closer to a
multiple of six). I have absolutely nothing against this race personally, I’m sure it’s great, but I have to say I was surprised to see it back in the
ISF’s line-up after last-year’s debacle of American vs Euro versions of the "right
way" to go up and down hills and the general feedback of this being very
much a trail-runner’s race, rather than a
mountain-runner’s race. To finish up the ULTRA series, Sky ultra runners will
then head to the final in Vail, Colorado. Now this is a new course, so we can’t rant on about UROC being a long, fast trail race as we don’t know exactly what’s in store with next year's route changes. However, although the
profile's looking a bit more jagged, I’d hazard a guess that the format will remain very much traily rather
than mountainy. So overall we start off with more classic Sky-style ultra races
and finish up with traily ultra races. I guess if we look back at this year
then we’re not that far off a
repeat format. The 2012 series finished with the French classic les Templiers,
which is basically the definition of
trail running. It sits at the opposite end of the spectrum of off-road running
to the origins of Skyrunning. Mountains and altitude aren't part of the vocab.
Yes the Templiers has climb in it, but like Speedgoat and (probably)UROC, it’s more about a culmination of many small undulations than
ascending mega mountains. The ISF have deviated from the roots of Skyrunning,
but this is part of the sport evolving and trying to follow the general, global (French, American...) trends. I think one of the main problems the ISF probably has is that it's
simply not possible to internationalise a format of racing which basically
doesn't really exist outside of Italy. I'm not aware of any country other than
Italy where we can race across such exposed, technical terrain. In Italy this
format is abundant, elsewhere it's non-existent. To really globalise the original concept of Skyrunning you'd just have to create new courses in new countries.

This year, 2012, I made the
Sky Ultra series one of my season's objectives. After my participations in
Transvulcania (2nd), Kima (4th) and les Templiers (3rd) I finally classed 2nd
overall, behind Kilian Jornet. On paper I was chuffed with this result, but to
be frankly honest, there really wasn't much competition at all amongst the
elite runners. Each individual race mustered up competitive enough fields, but
if we look at the final standings, only three men (and four women) completed
enough races to properly classify for the overall. There's no hiding that
there's some truth in the press statement released by the organisers of les
Templiers last week, that they wouldn't be applying to partake in the 2013
series due to a lack of credibility in such an uncompetitive series. As I said,
only three of the top runners completed the necessary number (3) of races this
year, and it was those three (Kilian, Philipp Reiter and myself) that hence
made up the final podium. Fabien Antolinos, who won the Templiers, only ran
this one event, and yet he finished 9th overall in the series. Why is this
then? I think there are two main reasons: Firstly ISF Sky ultra running is new
to the scene and secondly, it's simply not easy to be physically fit enough to
be repeatably competitive at ultra distance trail and mountain running right
through the duration of the year.

So, for the reasons above,
and an eagerness to run a little faster over rough mountains, in highly
competitive races, in 2013 I'll be mixing up my French trail and mountain
running with another crack at the ISF SKY
series. In terms of the ULTRA, whilst
I'm slightly doubtful as to the mixing of such different races under one series
and as to how many people this will appeal to and more so how many will
actually complete the necessary number of races, I do hope that I'm proved wrong. I hope that the ULTRA series really kicks
off into something big, that it will appeal to long-distance runners of all abilities all around the world, that it goes properly global. Real mountain running should be the authority in off-road running. It needs to hold its ground and not be tamed like football-field cross-country racing or the wmra's version of three-laps-of-the-park "mountain running".

1 comment:

Some detailed and comprehensive comments from an experienced, elite runner, Andy. Many thanks and anyone involved should sit up and take note. As an outsider with no detailed knowledge of many of the races I could never claim to give any expert opinion. But as far as I can see, this new ISF calendar is a mess, with no coherence. I trust that the individual races will still attract the elite in reasonable depth, but I cant see much interest in the series. Hope im proved wrong.