The Next Thing in Caffeination
August 16th, 2007
Altitude Profiles from the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning
August 10th, 2007
Click to enlarge
Completing the Grand Slam
The finish of the Wasatch Front Endurance Run, and the completion of the Grand Slam. Photo courtesy of Stephen Speckman.
In the summer of 2006, my father, Gary, and I ran the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning, a series of the four oldest 100-mile races in the United States (Western States, Vermont, Leadville Trail, and Wasatch Front), becoming the first father-son duo to complete the ‘Slam.
An interesting comparison of these ultramarathons is made by considering their respective altitude profiles, which are shown below. The data were recorded with a Polar S625X heart rate monitor that I wore during each of the races. The data are plotted as a function of time because the watch is not a GPS and there is no mechanism for measuring position or distance. Since the races are all 100 miles in length, plotting the data versus time also illustrates their relative difficulty.
Click to enlarge
Altitude versus time
Altitude profiles recorded during the 2006 Grand Slam of Ultrarunning.
The races are summarized below:
| Data from the 2006 Grand Slam of Ultrarunning | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Race | Total time (hh:mm) |
Pace (min/mi) |
Min altitude (feet) |
Max altitude (feet) |
Total climb (feet) |
| Western States | 25:46 | 15:27 | 990 | 8,575 | 16,360 |
| Vermont | 23:05 | 13:51 | 515 | 1,835 | 14,620 |
| Leadville Trail | 25:46 | 16:47 | 9,920 | 12,395 | 15,200 |
| Wasatch Front | 32:23 | 19:25 | 5,005 | 10,545 | 26,140 |
This of course is an “experiment of one” and your own mileage finishing times may vary. These races were not especially fast, and the data presented here are fairly “typical” middle-of-the-pack performances. From that standpoint, I hope that these data might be useful for people in preparing for the ‘Slam.
