This week’s issueThe last runner off Larch Pass, and the hut that waited for her
Ninety runners, one hut and a stove that stayed lit until the last of them was in. The final finisher came off the pass after dark in a borrowed jacket, laughing. Nobody had gone to bed. The volunteers had kept the soup hot for eleven hours, and I stayed up to ask them why. This week I tell the story of the back of the field, the people who spend the longest on the same course, and make the case that the best part of a mountain race is the part nobody films. Plus: your letters about hut etiquette, a short note on wool socks, and the wrong turn I still can’t explain.
HutsFour nights in huts, and what each one smelled like
A week above the tree line with a notebook, a stove and a lot of damp wool.
- Races
Why every ultra suddenly has a cut-off nobody can explain
Cut-offs spread from one race to the next. A short history of a very copied rule.
- The long read
Ten editions of one race, and the volunteers who never missed one
I met nine of them. One has marked the same course every September since the start.
InterviewDawn at the trailhead with a runner who never carries a watch
He leaves at five, carries a paper map and has a theory about porridge and pacing he would like you to hear.
- Mailbag
Your questions: shoes, race briefings and my worst route choice
You sent 120 questions. I answered nine, including the one about the ridge I got very wrong.
Next issue: Sunday 15 November
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