Quote Originally Posted by ba-ba View Post
Given the men's record time (105mins) it's a long race, with middle races not really going above 90mins. There are several races that are borderline or 'historic' A/L category races - Edale Skyline springs to mind
When the L/M/S categorisation was done according to record times (which I always thought was much more sensible than using distances, given the variety of steepness and terrain in fell races), the boundary between Medium and Long categories was a record time of 105 minutes; so Three Shires really is a borderline case.

With regard to Edale Skyline, which should really be BL, I presume the reason for the AL category is the difficulty of the terrain. Of course, once they have paved the route over Brown Knoll, that reason will no longer be valid!