For those hardened ultra runners who enjoy reading as much material as possible, good old Bryon Powell over at irunfar.com has compiled all of the blogs and interviews of the leading runners into one great resource for us to mull over. It’s fair to say that this really will be one of the most hotly contested Western States for years and Andrew is in such a lucky position to be able to run it this year.
The race, I feel is going to go one of two ways. The leading five runners will just take it out and bang heads all day against each other, with a bit of a sprint finish to the end… Or… twenty or so runners will take it out to Forest Hill (the 100km mark), and we’ll see carnage all over the course, and hopefully Andrew (who has sensibly kept his head), will come on through to mop up some of that carnage on the way to a great finish. As for my personal predictions, here’s how I think it’s going the top five is going to play out:
– Jornet (new course record)
– Roes
– Clark
– Mackey
– Bragg
Anyways, have a read of what Bryon has pulled together over here. In the meantime, Andrew got to meet Bryon over at race HQ, and tipped him off about Beth Cardelli… seriously ladies, watch out.
Dan Bleakman
