Official 2022 UTMB Discussion Thread

the hero's journey is an archetype. It remains to be seen if jim's story will end up fitting this archetype.

Also there is a detail that is missing from Jim's hero's journey at this point. Right after the threshold...a mentor. He is self-coached, and I think the most obvious answer is to change that. Otherwise this whole cycle he's in could be for naught, except teaching him later that it's ok to ask for expert help.

Jim's mentor is Francois who lives down the road from him now in France, or perhaps literally the mountains themselves teaching him their ways. You doubt Jim here at your own peril.

Let's not split hairs here, we're saying roughly the same thing. You can read into it anything you want, but he heard Kilian was falling apart on the road ahead of him, basically walking and on the verge of dropping. He closed rapidly, but when he caught him instead of blitzing by he slowed to help Kilian get rolling again. He was surprised how quickly Kilian revived himself, but it was because Kilian hadn't bonked physically, he had given up on himself thinking he was doing poorly, when in fact it was because Jim had thrown down a huge move to gain such a large gap. A move that turned out to be Jim's undoing.

In my mind Mathieu is the true story of this race. Caught between the two star pre-race favorites, he ran with more patience, wisdom, and confidence than either. He sensed Jim's move was foolish, had no problems helping Kilian revive, then yo -yo'd the lead with him the last 45ish k's after Jim was vanquished, never flinching or wavering. Like a boss. Salute!

While all true, it should also be noted Jim just attempted to use Francois' winning strategy from 2017 and failed catastrophically. As a quick refresh - Francois/Jim went over Ferret together about 5 minutes up on Kilian. Francois applied pressure on the descent into La Fouly, and Jim bonked out needing a hour or two nap at the aid station. Kilian came through 15 minutes later, checked on Jim, then continued on in pursuit. Amazingly, that 15 minute gap stayed nearly the same for the entire 55 or more kilometers to the finish - Kilian trying to close, Francois holding on, later commenting his energy was waning and he knew Kilian was stalking but he just toughed it out.

The difference between Francois then and Jim now? Style for starters - Francois is naturally better on rough terrain like the final 50k, Jim is better on the more runnable (like going through Fouly). And more importantly - Francois has the mental game.

It all begs the question then - what is the winning strategy for Jim if Francois' didn't work?

Chill until the final uphill/downhill.

At the finish line, Walmsley, who had a lot of time to think about it, said he was planning to build some quads (including doing more skiing over the winter).

Last week here, there was discussion about leg build and mountain running - I think a euro pro mountain/trail runner said Jim's legs were too skinny or something like that. Kilian has said that he noticed his legs got skinnier when he trained for flat in 2020. So there is a link.

I get all that and can speak to it specifically as I ran D1 back in the day, moved to CO after college and started skiing in the winters/trail running in the summers, ultimately leading to a Hardrock and UTMB finish. Quad power definitely improves your mountain prowess at the expense of speed, and vice-versa. The trick is finding the right balance between the two.

From my perspective Jim would do well to tone down his naturally "bouncy" stride (re: speed) towards a more "shuffling" style (re: trail) ala Kilian/Francois. You can only imagine the amount of pounding associated with 100+ miles/33,000' of descent* - amplifying that pounding even more with a bouncy stride is pure masochism.

The final uphill and downhill plays to Kilian's strengths so Jim probably wanted to put enough distance so it wouldn't come down to racing Kilian over the final section.

What? When it comes to UTMB, doubting Jim is a proven strategy.

Killian was very clearly in pain on the final descent.

Everyone is in pain at that point of the race. It's a matter of who has suffered the least.

The guys who didn’t have blown quads all line in Norway and train on ridge lines. I spent most of the pandemic running routes of exposed rocky dragon spine trail and my eccentric strength and coordination and agility has never been better. I think Kilian, Petter, Albon have a secret weapon with that Norwegian terrain.

Boom!

Apparently Killian was dealing with some leg issue. Maybe his monster season finally caught up to him. Mattieu looked smoother in the final descent.

Re: Jim's legs. Does Francois have much thicker quads? Or Xavier? Jim run a great race, pushed too hard at some point and paid for it. Kilian was 5th at SZ and nobody is questioning if his thick legs were the issue. A 5th and a fast 4th are great results at UTMB. Being able to run the WS course so fast and contend for the podium at UTMB is not a disaster. And he may still improve on those results.

I looked at my comment and was like...someone is going to pop out of a trash can and state the obvious.

I meant like, in the context of utmb, kilian was suffering more. More than Blanchard. He could have been caught.

Next anticipated reply: "well if he could have been caught, why didn't anyone catch him??" And my answer to that would be, Jim committed quad suicide. Round and round we go.

It doesn't matter what size your quads are.

The secret with ultraraces is, that you have to do your own thing to get to the finish line. It doesn't matter at all what others do at any point in an ultra. Jim has not gotten this message yet. Everybody has ups and downs in a long race. But Jim thinks he has to "race" people mid race. The problem is nobody else cares. They are all doing their thing to get closer to the finish line.

And then just after the last big aid station around mile 89, Kilian puts the hammer down and gains 3-4 minutes on the next stretch to the final high point. After that Kilian just had to control his lead to the finish.