The Ultra Minute ⛰️ August 26, 2024
UTMB race times & coverage guide, Canadian National Trail Champ recaps her win, Huzzah Hub launches, Jeff Browning sets CT FKT, how to run in the heat, and more from last week in ultrarunning
Happy Monday, ultrarunners! It’s UTMB week, so in this week’s TUM I’ve included a special section for UTMB so you can have all the info you need to make sure you don’t miss any of the action:
UTMB Coverage
While UTMB started as one race, it’s expanded over time to be a full week of races, with the big three being the OCC (50k), the CCC (100k), and the UTMB (100m). The other races this week include the TDS (145k), the PTL (300k), the MCC (40k), and the YCC (youth series).
The OCC (50k) starts from Orsières, Switzerland on Thursday August 29 at 8:15 AM local time (2:15 AM ET).
The CCC (100k) starts from Courmayeur, Italy on Friday August 30 at 9:00 AM local time (3:00 AM ET).
The UTMB (100m) starts from Chamonix, France on Friday August 30 at 6:00 PM local time (12:00 PM ET).
📺 UTMB live coverage - UTMB will be providing live coverage with commentary, chase cams, and drone footage. Catch all the action here.
🚏 Freetrail daily UTMB coverage - Freetrail is in Chamonix all week providing daily coverage via their YouTube channel and Podcast. They’ll have a mix of preview shows, athlete interviews, race coverage for CCC and UTMB, and more. Get the full schedule here.
Last week in ultrarunning
🇨🇦 Jade Belzberg takes the win -
wrote a race recap after her win at the Squamish 50k, the 2024 Canadian National Trail Running Championships:
🦖 David Roche recaps his Leadville win - David Roche shared a series of posts recapping his historic Leadville win, including how he slurped his way to a new course record, how he predicted his finishing time within 26 seconds, and how he leveraged the bleeding edge of ultrarunning science.
🫛 Stringbean’s 20,000 calories - David wasn’t the only one slurping his way along the course recently, as Stringbean shared his own post documenting how he fueled his John Muir Trail FKT attempt:
⚡️ Huzzah Hub launches - Two Mega Megans (Dr. Megan Roche and Megan Hyland) launched Huzzah Hub with a mission to empower female endurance athletes by providing accessible sports science knowledge. Subscribe to their YouTube channel and follow along on Instagram.
🔥 How to adjust run pace in the heat -
wrote about adjusting race pace in the heat, including nerdy formulas, and some great tips. Living in Austin, TX, I took several notes from this one:
🧠 Lauren Beihoffer on what it takes to run 50+ miles - Coach and ultrarunner, Lauren Beihoffer, reflected last week on what she thinks holds most people back from running 50 miles or more. If you don’t have threads, the TLDR is not understanding fueling, not training at truly easy efforts, and not having a clear mental strategy.
⛰️ Jeff Browning sets FKT on the Colorado Trail - Last week we shared how you could follow Jeff Browning’s Colorado Trail FKT attempt. He finished yesterday, falling short of Kyle Curtain’s overall FKT, but setting a new fastest known time for the West to East (Collegiate West) route in 7 days, 9 hours, and 35 minutes.
🧭 5 Ultra Thoughts -
launched a new semi-regular series called 5 Ultra Thoughts. I really enjoyed this first issue where she highlighted that we should stop sleeping on New England, shared her goal to go all in on ultrarunning, kept things in perspective, shared love for ’s Singletrack Pod, and the little touches from race directors going the extra mile:
That’s it for this week. If you enjoyed it, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Have a great UTMB week and I’ll see y’all on the trail :)
Ken
Hey Ken, have you seen the run happening in Denmark right now? Stine Rex has just beat the record for distance run in 6 days for women, running laps across a lake. Really inspiring stuff.
Thanks for allllll the female representation in this issue! Can’t wait to give these gals a follow.