Am i flaunting my ignorance here or are there are loads of them in the calendar. Take these two races for example;
Ashurst Beacon 5.9m/950' = CS
Chatworth Chase 5.75m/720' = BS
Pretty much the same distance but the Cat C race has more climbing than the Cat B race
To the Regiment - I Wish I Was There
I don't know either course but it's possibly to do with the percentage of the race distance on road. The maximum road percentage in each category is A 20%, B 30% and C 40%.
Originally Posted by david
Right i get it, thanks David.
Swoop will probably have done both of these races and will undoubtedly confirm the theory.
To the Regiment - I Wish I Was There
Some things are best left undisturbed Danbert. If the race criteria were applied strictly then Rivington Pike would probably not qualify as a fell race at all and we all know what would happen to the Three Peaks
.... and The Ben wouldn't be a cat A because there's too much road! I agreed with David though, let sleeping dogs lie.
But it would be if we followed Trundlers suggestion to route the Ben over Mel an Suide both out and back to remove the road (see Ben Thread - cant work out how the do the link thingy!!)
Ashurst beacon is an interesting one for road. When you run there seems to be a lot of road but if you measure it there is about 1.4 miles of road which equates to 23% of the race on the road which would therefore make it a cat B race specially as it has 160ft climb per mile.
It makes me laugh when some runners criticise the 3 peaks as a road run; it too has about 1.4 miles of road making 94% of the course off road.
Its probably because the trails are so good underfoot. Whatever people say 24 miles is tough on the road let alone on hard packed trails, rocky trails, random bits of grass and moor with a significant amount of hills that the three p's is.
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