I know a number of you have been rejoicing in the fact that the famous Cougar and Gold Buckle from this years WS100 went to Europe and was finally plucked from the decades long grasp of the US. In fact a number of non Americans featured in the top 10
Kilian Jornet returned to the race this year after leading in the 2010 race for a large majority of time before fading to third. This year his performance was almost faultless apart from a small detour from the course. As usual Kilian was very well supported by his Salomon Team and this level of detail and planning and to some extent different thinking about how to run 100 miles was very evident on the road from Squaw to Auburn. In the coming weeks I will post my observations of what made his race so strong with footage of his aid station rituals, views form his pacers and what his competitors thought.
But first I have been given an exciting opportunity to enter the inner workings of how Kilian operates and what drives him and how his running dominance was born. As I write, I am currently in California waiting to fly to Barcelona and onto the Pyrenees as a guest of Salomon Running.
My attendance and participation at the Kilan Classik running festival in the French Pyrenees will be a week long expose of why trail and mountain running is such a major sport in Europe and how companies like Salomon aim to share this spirit amongst not just the elites but the whole community. From Ultra168’s perspective, sharing a passion for trail running is what we are all about, and to see an event of this size and format definitely gets our vote. As Andrew is oft quoted “It will be like the Disneyland of Running.”
I am being joined by Australia’s own Stu Gibson, Anna Frost (Winner of Six Foot 2011) and pretty much everyone of the Salomon running athletes from around the world. We will be given an opportunity to look at the latest advances in running gear (Dan’s favourite topic), spend time with the athletes and also to get in some competitive running.
Look out for regular video updates from Europe as the week unfolds as I give you my perspective on the talent on display from Kilian’s own backyard. If you have any questions to ask these runners, gear developers and community managers please make contact via the comments box and I will do my best to seek out a response direct from the source.
You are quite simply the luckiest bugger alive to be out there running in the mountains with those guys. I am very jealous… questions:
– Take them a pair of your Nike Frees and tell them to make them suitable for trail. I need the same sole, same flexibility, but they need to be sturdier and be able to survive getting wet a few times, if you catch my drift.
– Get them to put a 2l bladder in the s-lab. Indeed, if you can bring me back a 2l bladder, I’ll quite happily fit it in myself 🙂
– Get me a plane ticket out there.
Dan, all joking aside I was really interested in the debate between you and Rog re the 2L bladder issues. I am keen to find out if they are addressing this issues as your review definitely got me interested in the backpack. I managed the 60kms at WS100 on two Amphipod bottles and with no mandatory gear makes racing so so simple. I have some cool footage of Kilian and his new collapsable handhelds/gloves. Keen to test these out even if it does make you look like Spidey !
Will bring up the shoe questions as well
Cheers from a balmy Phily.
It would be interesting to see what they say. Half a litre is not a lot, and if I can fit the Nathan 2l bladder in there, it begs the question as to why not put a 2l bladder in there in the first place? I know that the pack is designed with Kilian in mind, but Roger makes a great point. None of us are 5’5, weight 55kgs and can survive off very little water like he can. The pack needs to be a little more practical in that sense for the ‘normal’ runner. Which is why I guess they’re bringing out the 12litre bladder later this year. But 12litres is quite large, I would have gone for a 7-8 litre size personally.
I still think it’s an amazing pack and I can see why it’s better than the Nathan Endurance Vest, even though that is more than half the price. It’s like the Nathan Vest but on steroids, given how many pockets and compartments there are. Give it 6 months and all the other brands will have packs like this.
See what they say on the shoe front, and if they need me to come out and explain and give a demo, I’ll happily jump on a plane.
Yo – Ponkey and Dan – here’s their 2L bladder version
http://www.geziyorum.net/salomon-advanced-skin-s-lab-12/ They’re already all over it from the look of things but probably only beginning to become available for plebs like me in the US Spring or just in time for UTMB and likely on limited release. Ponkey, can you please find out exactly who over there I’d need to —- for one of these and promise I’ll put a —-job in the mail for them. Promise. Or is this just a photoshoptastic phantasm of gear lusciousness?
O yeah – talent and genetic resequencing kits, if they’ve got any of that in their showbags to bring back in time for GNW put me down for three : )
Great one Marcus. Enjoy the week. Looking forward to the reports and updates. I’m a gear nut and cannot wait to see what Salomon are bringing out, especially back packs and shoes.