I don't know him that well. We've ran this years 100k and were pretty close, I was 15 mins or so ahead, but his early season form didn't seem to suggest this. I saw he won another ultra but was unsure of the field. I know he held the WHW record but 21 is very different to 15..

I'm not a good 100 mile runner, just never got it close to right at all, so wouldn't expect to beat him over that distance but didn't think he'd put that sort of gap on me as I'd be happy to run low 17's never mind low 15's..

I was actually surprised how many ultra's he runs; I just can't do it, this year he's done the 100k, then a month later the Fling, then a few weeks later the Kintyre way, then the month later the WHW.. I'm amazed he could keep up the training.

In that time I've just done the 100k, 2 trail/mountain races just over a marathon, and 2 half marathons, and now have the world trails champs the week after next; and that felt a lot whilst trying to hold good mileage. It was why I didn't do the fling, I just don't think i could recover in time to race the Highland Fling, even though I knew it was the trial race I thought it would have too much of a negative impact on my season.

It was clear from the off he was going for something, Marco's a fast starter and he was 10-12 mins up on Marco and Richie by Balmaha I think it was. Seeing the splits I actually fancied Richie to win as he's so strong in the second half. great running, many US 100 mile trail races have 14-15 hr records so its probably getting down towards its limit. It'll be interesting to see if Jez will be tempted back, the pool of people who can beat that time is now very small.

Aye just a superb run. Great reward.