I was watching the live stream of AoA, have to say, that 100 miler looks truly truly miserable. The 50 miler looks interesting though.
Itās a good section the back 50. Bit of a boring section up around the estuary at Hayle, but the rest of it is a cracking bit of coastline.
My club managed to get 4/5 finishers. One lad was 5th and went sub 24. Amazing running! Was actually pretty good conditions for the Arc to be fair.
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So the Winter Spine Race sold-out really quickly then? That looks like a really tough one, with loads of DNFs (more than finishers?). Do they have quite a limited field? Just wondering why something so obviously hard (and time consuming) is so popular.
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It never used to be that popular. I have followed it for a very years with the vague notion of one day, maybe, having a crack.
After Jasmin Paris won it last year it was in the news a bit and got a lot of coverage. I think before that it was a bit of a mysterious race that only oddments and weirdos entered (in the nicest possible way). A lot more people have now heard of it.
I guess all the Type A people are done with Ironman and need new bragging material.
Its a massive commitment to enter it. Ā£1K entry fee, all the kit, the training, just getting/having enough experience to be accepted - I wonder though how many of those entering before it sold it will be rejected,
I think I said it before, but a lot of the ultras that Iāve done so far have a 50% or over dnf rate. Iām not saying they are as hard as the spine, but I guess theyāre quite tough ones but with a lot more unprepared runners. Spine has pretty tough minimum criteria to get in.
The price put the nail in the coffin for me not trying the challenger next year. Ā£500 plus lots of kit is too much for me at this point!
My ultimate bucket list race is about to start this weekend though. The Coastal Challenge in Costa Rica. Multi day stage race across the country. Iād love, love, love to do that one day. Just need to win thousands of pounds to pay the entry fee and also take the whole family out for a fortnight to make it worth it / get a heās from the boss! 
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I think weāve been here before on this threadā¦ I fancied challenge as a possible to stepping up to spine at some point but the kit & the price just make me baulkā¦ let alone the jump to the full price.
Plus for most away from the pointy end when does this become an endurance march not a running race ?
This looks truly terrifying but I canāt stop watching!
Itās not so bad. The hills are short and sharp. But there are long sections where you just canāt get a running rhythm. Every time you pick up pace, youāre scrambling over rocks and the like again.
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Mud Crew must be thanking their stars that the race wasnāt this weekend!
Good points. However, sometimes paying to do an event is the only way most of us will actually commit to something like the Spine, an Ironman, 400km Audax, or in many cases ājustā a Marathon.
Well if Ā£10 for a brevet & beans on toast at the end is all thatās stopping youā¦ 
Really?! The final control wasnāt open at 1am when I arrived back; you had to post the brevet card through the door. There was however, hot food available at the penultimate control.
But you get my point about having an event to sign-up to as the thing that makes you commit to something that theoretically you could do in your āown timeā.
I watched this on the weekend. Looks like a great event, anyone done the summer events?
Anyone had experience of Maverick events races ?.. seem to be quite shiny.
not ocme across them before. Quite a few races dotted around by the looks of things. Races tied in with Adidas Terrex in some capacity as well. So must be of a reasonable size. Which ones are you looking at?
Donāt know anyone that has done these, but itās a lovely spot.
Just entered Black Mountains 50kmā¦ kind of a get up & go to get back into itā¦ and also an exercise in planning training load for these kind of thingsā¦ as I took the bladerunner training a bit more seriously so can reflect on that and tweak a bit.
(then I need to formulate a plan for a 100 in september)
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havenāt done the PenLyn ultra but a seriously beautiful area of the world
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A mate at work is doing this one. I really fancy it but itās sold out. Got my sister scouting the FB page for a transfer entry 
Looks good, except for running on pebbles. Horrible energy sapping surface.