BG v Everest

[simon cox]

Re Mark McDermott's ascent of Everest - it was without oxygen - which is a different ball game... 70+ BG summits? MM also had an interesting anecdote about his ascent of Aconcagua, which he did straight from base camp, an American who had just failed on the summit push from Camp 3 couldn't get his mind around that... a bit of a beast... I actually thought McDermott did the Western States 5 weeks after his ascent of Everest, which he did in 19 or so hours and placed well... but both those guys are legends, it will be interesting to see when their 24 hours Lakes record get broken.

[alwaysinjured]

Re Mark McDermott's ascent of Everest - it was without oxygen - which is a different ball game... 70+ BG summits? MM also had an interesting anecdote about his ascent of Aconcagua, which he did straight from base camp, an American who had just failed on the summit push from Camp 3 couldn't get his mind around that... a bit of a beast... I actually thought McDermott did the Western States 5 weeks after his ascent of Everest, which he did in 19 or so hours and placed well... but both those guys are legends, it will be interesting to see when their 24 hours Lakes record get broken.

If you are interested there is an interview with Mark Hartell recently, http://ultrarunnerpodcast.com/mark-hartell-interview/ in a long rambling interview for US audience where he now lives, he talks about struggling to stay with MM on the hardrock, which he put down to everest altitude.

re the speed record, it is fascinating looking at the splits of Mark, Billy and Stuart, which hints that route choice may have played a factor in some places- why did it take so long for MH to descend blencathra? why was stuart so much faster than either of the other two to high raise?. You have to think that Kilian Jornet Burgada could do it, whether anyone could tempt him to cold wet UK is another matter.

[simon cox]

Alwaysinjured, I asked Mark about his time off Blencathra and he said he just took the ordinary Halls Fell route, I think for people good at descending steep grassy terrain that the Parachute descent is a lot faster...

I think it inevitable that some one sooner or later will break the Lakes 24 hour record, but I personally feel (as someone who knows both the Mark's) that both their records were world class performances; where essentially they were pushing hard for the whole 24 hrs; Mark H certainly believed that a sub 24 Hardrock (Kyle Skaggs) was possible well before it was done, it was all about acclimatisation, because actually relative to the Lakes record the ascent and distance (of the Hardrock) aren't as much...

Killian is clearly a world class athelete with his very high VO2 max recordings, but McDerrmots Everest without oxygen hints at someone with extraordinary lung capacity... I have read on some american running forums that as soon as some hot 2 03/04 marathon runner gets paid enough they will cinder the Western States record, I would be interested to see if they could do the same to Hartell's record, I personally think its a different game.

Cheers,

S