Tour de France-like event for running

Hayden S wrote:

I've thought about this concept for years now ... and here's my thoughts (and it picks up on this weekend festival style idea):

Duration: 4-5 days (1 stage per day)

Goal: To accumulate points as a team of about 6 runners

Each stage has three points categories up for grabs:

- GC (general classification = total accumulated time)

- Sprints (these would typically be held at the start of each stage over 400m to a mile but also you could have some intermediary or closing sections of stages where you are timed for that segment alone, not first across the line like Le Tour)

- Mountains (again, this is scored based on time taken to get from the bottom of the hill to the top, not first to the top like Le Tour)

Points would be allocated across the three categories and the main prize would be given to the winning team of six runners.

The sprinters and mountain runners have to finish the entire course, but they can basically jog the non-timed sections.

Each stage would be around 10-16k (6-10 miles) so the sprinters aren't too nailed from the distances and so the GC guys/girls can bounce back okay.

Thoughts?

Black On Blonde wrote:

Tour de France is set over THREE WEEKS with maybe a couple of rest days.

The 4/5 day stage running "ultras" being posted here aren't really comparable.

Just to try and get some brains thinking in the right direction here - the average pace of the TdF is ~ 40 kpm, whereas the World Record for the hour in cycling (i.e. going at their best, flat out for a sustained time) is ~ 55k. That's means TdF is being competed at ~ 72.7% max pace. And no wonder because they're doing that practically every day for THREE WEEKS (again not 4/5 days!).

So if you had half decent 2:10 marathon guys running this stage race, every day, for three weeks at the same performance level, i.e. ~ 72.7% of their best, then you're looking at a running peloton moving at ~ 3hr marathon pace every day. Think this is probably feasible given the additional benefit of wind relief these guys would get in a group as well as running so slowly.

Frank Shorter here wrote:

Black On Blonde wrote:

Tour de France is set over THREE WEEKS with maybe a couple of rest days.

The 4/5 day stage running "ultras" being posted here aren't really comparable.

Just to try and get some brains thinking in the right direction here - the average pace of the TdF is ~ 40 kpm, whereas the World Record for the hour in cycling (i.e. going at their best, flat out for a sustained time) is ~ 55k. That's means TdF is being competed at ~ 72.7% max pace. And no wonder because they're doing that practically every day for THREE WEEKS (again not 4/5 days!).

So if you had half decent 2:10 marathon guys running this stage race, every day, for three weeks at the same performance level, i.e. ~ 72.7% of their best, then you're looking at a running peloton moving at ~ 3hr marathon pace every day. Think this is probably feasible given the additional benefit of wind relief these guys would get in a group as well as running so slowly.

Wrong math here. The average pace at the TdF is 40 km/h with drafting. The world record for 1 hour of cycling is without drafting.

Smell The Coffee wrote:

Nothing mentioned here is really a running equivalent of the Tour de France.

You've got to remember that some stages in the Tour are won by Sprinters! Yes, Sprinters - guys designed to ignite explosive power over a short distance to beat other bike sprinters.

What kind of pace would the running Tour have to be going at in order to facilitate stages which could be won by Sprinters?! The reason it works for cycling is of course because 90% of the Tour de France is really just a parade, slowly trundling along, waving to the crowd...

Now, you'd never get 100m / 200m guys able to become running Tour sprinters but maybe some 5k guys could plod along for 10/15 miles on a give stage (if the running peloton was moving slowly enough) then blast away at the end. Would be interesting to see how that worked out but obviously having guys running 20-30 mile stages (as an equivalent?) every day for three weeks isn't going to happen...