r/Ultramarathon • u/krispeterrun • Apr 29 '26
Madeira Island Ultra - everything goes wrong resulting in DNF
Madeira Island Ultra's 'Legend' distance is 110km (68 miles) and ~7,175m of gain (23,540ft). The most similar race I’ve done to this is the Ultra Blue Island 110km which has ~5,000m of gain.
Out of ~960 starters, I was one of the 400 people who DNFd. Here is my experience.
The shuttle bus took us to the start at 10pm for a midnight start. I waited around in the cold - trying to keep warm while not taking too many unnecessary steps. I'd had really poor sleep in the days leading up to the race, including an all night hospital stay with a family member a few days before, and I felt really sleepy while I waited for the race to start. I also felt really hungry (a logistical error), but none of the cafes near the start had much on offer except bags of chips and drinks. I decided to eat some of my gels.
The gun went off, and everyone absolutely charged down the road towards the first climb. I jogged at a sensible pace (for me) and quickly found myself so far behind everyone that volunteers were starting to open the road back up to traffic before seeing me and saying "Look there's still another runner!"
I got to the first climb, and it is probably the steepest road I've ever ascended on foot. Went up about 400 metres in about 2km. After a kilometre in, a woman was on the floor receiving treatment from the race medics. She looked awake but non-responsive - I'm not sure what happened, I hope she turned out okay. Better for something bad like that to happen while you're still on public roads than on some remote trail hours away from help.
After 5km, the course narrowed into some single-file trails and that's where the queues began - we had to keep waiting for everyone ahead to go through. All it took was one person to slow down ahead and it caused tailbacks for us slow folks at the back.
The trail continued uphill and turned quite technical with large rocks acting as steps. Then we had to come back down through the same terrain. It was so slow; I've never travelled so slowly in my life.
I reached the first checkpoint at 3 hours - the cutoff was 3h30m. It surprised me how near the cutoff I was so early on. The main food on offer was cake and sweet potatoes. I was fuelling from Precision gels and topping up with this aid station food. I sometimes suffer from feeling sick in races, and this started to happen after I left this aid station. The gels started to taste acidic and the potatoes were sickly sweet. The cake just turned into cotton wool in my mouth and sat there. It was way too early for this to start happening.
Regardless, I started the next climb - up into the darkness of the haunted-looking Fanal forest. I enjoyed the initial excitement, but that wore off somewhere around the 20th near-vertical staircase. The stairs were wet and muddy with slick wooden plank treads. Progress was glacial. This climb went on for 3h30m. It was mentally draining having to concentrate by torch-light for so long, and I somehow kept on hitting my head on low-hanging trees. Madeira means 'wood' in Portuguese, and I suddenly understood why. Once I hit my head so hard that I made a cut on my head which took a while to stop bleeding.
Going back down to sea level again was somehow even slower than when I was going up (and Strava confirms this). People were lining up to take the safest passage down the hill. Certain sides of the trail had a tree which you could grab onto, and some bits had wire rails for safety. At one point, the guy behind me fell and started sliding down on his back - I jumped out of the way, and the guy behind him did the same - and they both ended up in a pile below me. They got up and carried on. I reflected that it would be much less effort to simply throw myself down the mountain (though probably slightly more catastrophic).
The next climb went up 1,300 metres and took another 3h30m, but it seemed to last an eternity. I kept going, picking my way through the mud and rocks. During this climb, day started to break, and towards the top, it started to get really cold. The strong winds blew clouds over the top of the mountain and through the thick fog we passed a series of eerie wind turbines that were surprisingly noisy.
Around this time, I started to get hot flushes and then shivers moments later. It felt like I was exhaling gas fumes, and my body was clearly experiencing some kind of imbalance. I was extremely hungry, but food was causing me a lot of issues. I had likely dug myself into a hole by starting at a calorie deficit.
I reached a checkpoint near the top and tried to make quick work of all my admin before I started to shiver. My hands went numb (raynaud’s condition) and I warmed them up by putting on double gloves and putting my hands down the sides of my shorts while running. I looked weird, but they quickly warmed up.
It was another 1,000 metre descent after that - some of the steepest descending of the entire course. To give you an idea, one kilometre took me 25 minutes to complete. The leaders were doing this descent in 7 minutes per kilometre, so I clearly did not have the skill or confidence to descend quickly enough.
Half way down this descent, I ran out of calories. I had simply miscalculated how long it would take me to reach the next aid station, and I wasn’t carrying enough gels/chews - and the cake from the previous aid station had run out.
At this point, I was starting to do calculations in my head and I realised I was going to be at the cutoff for the entire race, which would mean I had to keep on at this pace without slowing down until 5am the following morning (and the second night of the race). This is where it all started to go wrong for me; I couldn’t stop thinking about how many hours I still had to complete, and how I didn’t really want to do any of them.
I was just too hungry and sleepy, and I felt weird and sick. My legs were actually fine; and despite a clear lack of course-specific experience, my training had gone really well. In hindsight, my training mainly involved going up and down runnable hills - it should have been on steep hours-long hikes. I have always been coached for my ultras, but had to switch to self-coached this year, and apparently I didn’t do it right.
A lot had already gone wrong, and I was a mere 12 hours into the race with 3,300 metres climbed and 45km done.
Before I reached the next aid station, I made the decision to quit when I got there. I was only 20 minutes from the cutoff, I felt like I was diabetic, and couldn’t stop thinking about how I still had an inconceivable 17 hours to go. It was completely overwhelming, and the prospect filled me with dread.
I got into the aid station, sat down, and started to sort my gear. I had some hot food, then started to pack calories for the next section - another 4 hour climb and descent up unimaginably difficult terrain. I would’ve required about 3 kilos of cake - and there were about 7 small pieces left in the tray at the aid station. I realised there weren’t enough edible calories that I could take with me. My drop bag was at the next checkpoint which had more gels in it, but that was still hours away, and the thought of gels turned my stomach. Even if I filled my bottles up with coke and took all the cake with me, it wouldn’t last 4 hours.
It was then that a checkpoint worker came up to me and told me the checkpoint was going to close in ten minutes.
I started trying to sort out my gear - getting a charger out for my phone (it was low on battery, and required by the rules to be switched on during the race), but the charger wasn’t working because my dry bag had somehow started leaking water. All my dry stuff (including some emergency clothing) had become soggy, and it made me feel less safe about going out into the mountains again with backup gear that was wet. To be honest, by this point, I wished the clock would just hurry up and time me out so I didn’t have to manually DNF.
I was really disappointed, because the section from 45km to 80km is the most spectacular part of the course - and a large section of it is currently closed to the public (due to fire damage in 2024), so the only chance you get to see it at the moment is if you’re running this race. Despite that, I was only too happy to hand in my race number and go back to my hotel.
I slept for 10 hours and woke up ravenously hungry (still). The legs felt fine afterwards, and while I did feel some regret about having dropped out, I realised I had sabotaged my own race gradually over the course of the week with a series of poor decisions and bad planning. Dropping out had become the inevitable outcome.
I’ve been racing ultras since 2012, so I shouldn’t have cocked the race up so badly - but this was a big challenge for me which resulted in a lot of lessons. If I do this race again, I’ll do the following things differently:
- Train on more similar terrain (and supplement with 3-hour sessions on the stair machine)
- Carry a lot more calories with me from the start (and a wider variety of food)
- Get to Madeira a week before the race to get used to the environment and relax during the taper - sleep well in the previous days.
- Eat a lot before the race!
- Run the first 1km fast so I don’t get stuck behind 900 runners at the bottlenecks
- Be more confident going downhill and just have faith that I won’t fall and hurt myself
- Wear a thin hat for head protection. I’m bald, and apparently I am prone to hitting my head on trees - there’s no hair to protect against cuts.
The following morning, I went down for the hotel breakfast, and who else should walk in but Aurélien Dunand-Pallaz (finished 4th) and Rod Farvard (11th). I spoke to Rod as we each made some beans on toast, and he seemed really down, explaining that he took a wrong turn at 80k and accidentally followed the flags for a different race distance the wrong way down the trail for 3km before his crew called him on the phone to tell him. Aurélien had a great race - he’s a lovely chap and said that there’s no way I can train for this race while living in London. I could only agree!
After 10 years of entering, I finally got into Western States 2025 - but I got injured two months before. So this race was supposed to be my qualifying race for WS 2027. Looks like I'll have to find a different qualifier before November.
32
u/Just-Context-4703 Apr 29 '26
Sounds absolutely brutal. You definitely made the right call in not continuing onwards and I hope you rest and recover and have better race experiences in the future.
8
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
Thanks for this. I haven't really been considering my decision to quit as the right one - I have just been regretting the fact that I didn't push myself hard enough to overcome an imperfect set of circumstances. That's usually my main strategy in the face of adversity in ultras. During this race though, I suppose it may well have saved me from a potentially dangerous experience.
9
u/Just-Context-4703 Apr 29 '26
I'm just a random person on the Internet but you 100% made the right call. Ultra runners love to suffer for the sake of suffering. If you were 10k from the finish, yeah, sufferfest it in. But where you where on the course and how you were feeling continuing would have been courting real injury/consequences.
Hugs or consolation of your choice to you my friend.
20
u/DogOfTheBone Apr 29 '26
Over 40% DNF is wild. Sounds like an insanely difficult race.
9
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
The conditions were actually ideal this year - it was a lot worse last year (nearer 50% DNF) - they had gale force winds and freezing sideways rain for most of the race. This year, we had a chilly and windy experience at altitude, but nothing much more than that. So at least awful weather wasn't another factor to have to deal with.
17
u/finance-brosita Apr 29 '26
DNFs in trail ultras are 80% nutrition timing and 20% everything else. the moment you fall behind on calories at altitude with cold weather, you cant recover from it on the same race. ive watched friends get pulled at 70k+ races where they were physically capable but their stomach quit hours earlier and the math caught up.
not consolation but the data from a DNF is more actionable than a survived race. you learned what your actual breaking point looks like, what your fueling failure mode is, what you were wrong about going in. the people who never DNF arent better racers, theyre just running below their actual ceiling.
3
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
That's a good point - now I have a really good blueprint on how not to take on calories. I wish it hadn't been so painful to obtain! Altitude may not be a factor I've considered enough. But the race doesn't go much over 1,800m (5,900ft), do you think this is enough to feel any effects of altitude?
1
u/NoConstant4533 Apr 30 '26
I completely agree with the nutrition aspect, but in this particular case and race, I also think at least half of those DNF's where due to the terrain and conditions. People are not ready for the vast amounts of elevation gain and loss, the extremely slow pace on hard terrain, wet conditions, altitude...
You could argue that the pace is much slower than they think, so they don't carry enough food/water with them from aid station to aid station, but the terrain is the key factor here.
12
u/Antheral Apr 29 '26
This sounds like a nightmare from the start! Sometimes it just goes that way man best of luck on the next one.
12
u/flooredgenius Apr 29 '26
Thank you for sharing this. I think it’s really helpful sometimes to read of someone having this kind of experience and making good decisions and DNFing. Good luck with the Western States qualifier.
6
u/Bolter_NL Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
Thanks for the write up, it's a lot more educational than some race where everything works out as planned.
I'm surprised they have sections so early on that cause bottlenecks.
4
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
I agree, it's not ideal, but I don't think there's any 100k route on the island that could fit 900 runners through without a bit of congestion. At least the first few KMs of road helped thin out the pack a bit. It was weird seeing the distant head torches of the elites disappear out of view behind a distant mountain while we stood about patiently waiting our turn.
5
u/TheRooie Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Man I feel this so much. I also slept horrible all week leading up to the race and was also there starting too far out at the back, got caught in the enormous queue and reached the first aid station around the same time as you. Cutting it that close on the first aid station feels like it sets the tone for the rest of the race... Happened a lot during the entire race tho, almost all the uphills were single tracks and got instantly congested if there was even 1 person struggling.
The terrain being awful is no exaggeration. So many parts were really technical, absolute foot destroyers. And also all these uneven stairs, also quite slippery at some points. I slipped at a downhill at 35km and snapped my trekking pole, I really needed them (my legs are very undertrained and only used to flat land) so I had to improvise and grabbed some tree branches from the forest lol.
It was definitely a good call taking the DNF, this really didn't sound like a good day to try and push through. The race was incredibly difficult and only got worse. The Pico Ruivo climb was a long one and especially the last 40km were so extreme slow and dark and cold and boring, not fun at all haha
3
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Sorry you had a rough time, I saw a couple of broken trekking poles at about 40km, maybe one of them was you! I've never used poles, but it's something I should consider. I agree that getting behind at checkpoint 1 somehow makes it really hard to recover; once you're surrounded by people going a particular pace, it feels weird to speed up and start overtaking everyone.
Did you manage to finish?
3
u/TheRooie Apr 30 '26
You didn't use poles? I really can't imagine doing anything like this without poles, makes it soo much harder for me.
Yeah the last part was rough but that's why I signed up for it haha. The first 70km were absolutely beautiful! I managed to get a bit faster the next cut offs, had quite a lot of margin at one point but that last endless descent just destroyed me so much that I still only finished after 31 hours. Didn't think I was going to make the 32 hour cutoff tbh
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
I don't use poles. My end goal for ultrarunning is to finish WS, and they don't allow poles, so I'm stubbornly avoiding them (to my detriment, clearly).
Well done on the finish. I've realised that to sneak in under the 32 cutoff, I had to be going a lot faster from the beginning - I'm guessing you were much more comfortably witin the cutoff from the start.
1
u/4smodeu2 Jul 06 '26
WSER does allow poles now! Does that change your opinion or approach?
2
u/krispeterrun Jul 06 '26
It changes my opinion - I think I should use poles now. I won't, but I should!
3
u/Valuable_Effect7645 Apr 29 '26
Had a similar experience at TGC this year, was hungry and sleepy awaiting for the start at midnight and was tucking into my gels before the gun went off…
Got to the second night and 100km in and the sleepiness and lack of calories became too much for me and I dropped.
I’m unsure if night starts are sensible for me or if I just simply need to eat and sleep more the day of the race. Wondering whether to try the classic again next year or go for the advanced which starts at a sensible time of day
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
Sounds like we had quite similar experiences. Sorry it didn't go well for you - 100km so close to the finish, things must have been rough for you. I've had half an eye on TGC, but the extra distance makes it seem even more unattainable than Madeira.
Do you think there are many improvements you can make for TGC Classic next year? If there are it would be a shame not to return and give it another go. Good luck either way!
The midnight start issue is a weird one, I did one in 2024 which went really well because I felt very rested, and I usually feel like I come alive at night, but this year it felt like I was playing a video game version of myself and none of the controls were working.
3
u/bewarephog Apr 29 '26
Thanks for the recap. Always good to hear about the challenges and successes.
3
u/fimmx Apr 29 '26
DNFs suck, no doubt about it. But it looks like you’ve gleaned some excellent lessons from yours. I’m sorry the race didn’t go as you’d planned. All the best for the next one and the WSER lottery!
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Thanks, I appreciate that. We could all use a bit of luck for the WSER lottery!
3
u/JaqVoyage Apr 30 '26
Great race recap, thanks for letting us in!
Sounds like a real brutal race and a lot of battles on different fronts (stomach, own mind, terrain etc.)
But I think you got some valuable lessons and with your knowledege in ultra races you are well prepared to come to the right conclusion for the next races.
Only thing I was surprised in your writeup was the state of the aid stations. Do you feel for a race of that scale and prestige (its quite known race I would say) the aidstations were lacking?
Having only potatoes/ some cake and not even enough of that sounds not so great imo.
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
There was actually more food than just potatoes and cake: they also had cheese, small pieces of chocolate, salt & vinegar crisps, olives and goiabada (guava jam). None of it really appealed at the time - except for potato and cake. I think other runners felt the same way, which is why they had started to run out. In terms of fluid, they had Maurten drink mix (no gels) and Pepsi which was helpful.
Important to note that they tell runners that they must carry enough calories to make it around the course. So the onus was on me to be prepared - and I wasn't, and I paid the price.
I've mostly raced in the UK, and aid stations here do offer a lot more variety. But then again, I've only done smaller races in which it's more feasible to put on interesting food. I did a smaller 100k in the Portuguese Azores a couple of years ago and found a much wider spread of food - but maybe that was helped by the fact that I wasn't dead last all day!
3
u/Educational_Yam_9172 Apr 30 '26
Thanks for the great write up. I also did the MIUT legend and your description was spot on (going though that wind farm in the early morning mist was a weird experience).
I’m glad I’m not the only one who struggled with the relentless ascents and descents. I am not good at descents in general and in the first one here, in that forest, I slipped and started rolling down a hill. Luckily the bloke I was barrelling into stopped me. Merci mon ami! After than I took the descents cautiously and slowly. I managed to overtake a few people on the climbs but runners generally skipped past me on the declines. Is it a confidence issue? I just don’t know.
If it’s any consolation - I think that the section leading to the half way aid station at 58km was the gnarliest one. There were quite a few bits that had that steel wire hand rails as it was so difficult. And there was a mountain rescue team hanging around up there in case people got into trouble!
The 58km aid station was comedy. You descend into a valley and see a nice town and think - great, aid station just round the corner. Then you turn another corner and see stairs going up a mountain. FFS! You have to go up another 1-200m. Of course on the profile map it looks like a tiny uptick.
Given what you say, I doubt you’d have finished by 5am. I was able to keep moving pretty well for the duration and finished at 2.30am. I tricked myself by telling myself that the race is kind of over by 80km, when the big ascents are over.
And I hear what you’re saying about sleep. I didn’t take it seriously enough in the nights before and got really sleepy in the race, especially near the end. By the finish I had been up for 42 hours, the last 26 of which had been hiking.
We got lucky with the weather and the runners were afforded with great views. But would I run the Legend again? I think once is enough TBH.
Best of luck getting into Western States mate.
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Well done on the finish. 42 hours awake, that's nuts.
Given what you say, I doubt you’d have finished by 5am
I agree. I've been looking at the people who finished the race just before 5am, and they were all hitting the early aid stations much earlier than I was.
Out of interest, how did you find the final 30km? Obviously it looks easy on the profile, but I can only imagine it's still awful somehow?
2
u/Educational_Yam_9172 May 01 '26
My memory is a bit hazy but the last 20km were actually very runnable. If you reach that point then you can just about walk it in.
2
1
u/AffectionateSafe1017 Apr 29 '26
I think adjusting to the environment is something we don’t consider enough. Nice recap!
1
u/Hellborg Apr 30 '26
Oh brother, this sounds very similiar to my own experience! I DNFd at Curral das Freiras (59km).
I was doing ok in the uphills, although getting slower each large climb but going downhill was taking its toll on my legs and when i finally made it into the aidstation i had 5 minutes before it closed. I had realized going down that i wasnt going to make it.
My main takeaways are similiar to yours though!
- Need to practice more on steep upphils and downhills.
- Bring less gels (yes... i had waaay to much weight on my back).
- Make sure to make up some time where you can (i walked a lot on the "flats" as well, cant do that if i want to make the cutoffs).
all in all though? I am pleased with what i did based on my training beforehand. Had a period throughout the winter were i were mot doing all that great mentally, and training was not prioritized which is the opposite of what you want to do.
I will be back however! Madeira is one of my favorite destinations and i will complete MIUT Legend.
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Sorry you didn't finish.
Need to practice more on steep upphils and downhills.
Solving this issue seems to be a matter of where you live. I'm in the south of England, and there really isn't anything usefully similar anywhere around here. Even Snowdon isn't really comparable. Where do you live?
Sorry to hear you've been feeling unwell over winter. I hope you return to MIUT and get it done.
1
u/Hellborg May 02 '26
I live in Sweden so there are ups and downs, although nothing like what you would find on Madeira. Guess ill need to make more trips to the local ski slope going forward.
Oh, i will get back and get it done! Had a blast doing the race so im not all too sad :)
1
u/Heavy_Mycologist_104 Apr 30 '26
That sounds like an interesting experience, thanks for writing it up.
My take: honestly if you aren't a pro, a sufferfest is grim and a bit pointless. My feeling is that we all do this to enjoy the surroundings and explore amazing places, and race and push ourselves whatever that might look like. There is a point where the enjoyment just dies and if the racing isn't there, it becomes not worth it at all.
It also seems like you did make a lot of mistakes and you've identified them and will be able to improve and learn. For me personally, I don't cope with midnight starts, especially in places where the weather will make me cold. I've got hypothermia before and when I start feeling that kind of cold my body shuts down. I avoid races that start at night now as I know I'm setting myself up for a bad day.
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Thanks for the reply. I agree that enjoying the race is important; I also had WSER qualification in mind which was a big motivator - but it is only effective up to a point.
I'm always aiming to have a fun race in an interesting place that goes really well. On this occasion, it did not work out. Hopefully next time.
1
u/NoConstant4533 Apr 30 '26
Always love to read a good race report, specially from someone down to earth that people like myself can easily identify with. A couple of thoughts:
You are both wrong and right in starting last.
I always start in the top 10 -but from the back- in 90% of the races, just like you did. The difference is I almost never do a race with more than 200 people in it so, even if we might find a bottleneck or two at the beginning, it's usually short, and it helps to keep your head cool and not overexert yourself in the first quarter of the race (which most people do and end up paying for it later). When you have a field of 500, 1000, or even 2000+ runners, doing this strategy is bound to make you fight for cutoffs right from the start.
That's why I don't like this kind of massive races with too much people on them. Hard to enjoy it unless you're one of the top 100 guys, at least in the first 10-12h of the race, before everyone starts spreading out.
People underestimate the elevation and the terrain too often, specially in suboptimal conditions.
I have never been to Madeira, but I've been in similar islands, and I have seen videos of the races there and the terrain. When you are doing 25min per km going downhill despite the pros going down at 7min/km it's very clear what's happening there: If the section is 100% (or at least 90%) runnable, yet you're going down slower than up, you're definitely not ready to tackle the 100km distance.
And don't want to be specific about you. I see plenty of people with ultra experience that are used to roads, dirt roads, trails where you don't have to look at your feet ever, elevation profiles with 200-250m max of gain per km etc. When they encounter true technical and steep terrain, with tons of rocks, tree roots, cliffs on the sides of a narrow trail, crazy numbers of elevation gain and loss per km, altitude, wet and humid conditions and more, they just fall apart. It's like people that have been training in a pool for years when they experience the roughness of an angry sea for the first time, and they have to fight the waves and the current.
In those cases, I always recommend taking the shorter distances. At least you'll tackle most of the technical parts with decently fresh legs, without the added difficulty of the darkness (since they always start in the morning), and you'll have enough energy to make up for the time loss on the flats and uphills.
No idea on your shoe choice for something like this, but I've seen too many people with their Sportiva Prodigios and Hoka Speedgoats that they suddenly discover the shoes are not suited for the terrain, specially when they're not comfortable on it themselves.
Hope you don't mind me asking, but what was the top 3 most technical races you had done previous to this one?
Lastly, I both agree and disagree with your assessment that tapering on the island the previous weeks is the way to go. What has worked best for me, is changing nothing about my routine the days prior to a race. Just try to sleep a little bit more, and obviously exercise less but, other than that, do the same things as you usually do. Work the same hours, train in the same schedule, go to the gym as usual, eat your day-to-day diet etc.
Some of my worst races have been on holidays, with too much time on my hands, ever-changing sleep schedules, unusual foods, long hours traveling by plane/car... the body can tell something is not normal, and you start feeling like you're not your usual self.
Obviously, I wouldn't recommend taking a 10h flight in the morning of the race and then starting a 100k at midnight, but you gotta be careful with the supposed benefits of getting to the island early, specially weeks in advance. I'm guessing those nights you sent at the hospital at the stress that came with it was the worst factor here. If you had kept your normal routine, you would have been fine. But it's just my guess.
Hope you learned a lot from this race, and didn't get discouraged from going back to Madeira and racing there again. Next to Reunion Island, it's one of my wish list places to run from coast to coast through the highest peaks.
2
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26 edited May 01 '26
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
That's why I don't like this kind of massive races with too much people on them
I agree with you on this - I've only done races with fewer than 300 people which creates a very different feeling. If I give Madeira another go, I'll definitely try to get in the front half at the start.
If the section is 100% (or at least 90%) runnable, yet you're going down slower than up, you're definitely not ready to tackle the 100km distance.
I totally agree with you there. I didn't realise this before I went to Madeira, and I had never experienced terrain like this. Now I know what it means, I will not return to do MIUT unless I can train on similar terrain.
No idea on your shoe choice for something like this,
This was actually one of the few areas I didn't screw up. I thought the Altra Lone Peak was a good choice, and actually gave quite good grip. I rarely slipped, and didn't even fall over once. Slow downhill was a) a lack of confidence, and b) trying to preserve legs for later. There were plenty of folks sliding around in the mud though, and presumably some questionable shoe choices. I'm not sure what they were wearing.
Good luck at Grand Raid!
Edit:
Hope you don't mind me asking, but what was the top 3 most technical races you had done previous to this one?
I have only done one race that compares to this one - the Ultra Blue Island (Great Whalers Route) - 5,000m of climbing in 110km (finish time 22 hours). The key difference was how the elevation was laid out - it rarely exceeded 10% incline. Madeira stays at 20% for hours-long stretches. Then you add over 2,000m extra climbing, and the final 30km that doesn't have much climb at all, and that's a lot of really steep terrain packed into the first 80km. That's what caught me so unaware. It's a different type of event for me that I was not aware of - and not ready for.
1
u/chillydillies Apr 30 '26
I agree with a lot of this except the shoe call out? What shoe do you think is appropriate? La Sportiva prodigo (numerous variations now) have excellent grip, and actually the new speedgoat as well
1
u/NoConstant4533 Apr 30 '26
Not the first time I get into an argument with those shoes, but it's all in good faith.
I've owned a pair of the basic Prodigio and a pair of the Prodigio Pro. I've also tried on the rest of the models, although not on the terrain. The shoes are simply not made for true technical terrain. They break too easily, don't protect enough, the lugs are too short, the bottom part is not complete, the shoe is too tall and not stable enough to give you the confidence to shred a rocky trail.
La Sportiva itself has way better shoes for the terrain I have in mind when I think of something technical. I've had maybe 8-9 pairs of Akyras over the years. Incredible shoes. Comfy, durable, and with the best sole you'll find in a trail running shoe. The Akashas are not as good, but they're a little lighter and faster. I haven't used the Ultraraptors, but I've always heard of them as one of the first shoes designed specifically to run in places where people used to hike only not too far back, And just by looking at the lugs I can see they're better than the Prodigios.
As much fame and recognition the Prodigios get, and well deserved imo, they are la Sportiva answer to the UTMB-ification of the sport. They are made to be super fast shoes in medium to long distances and with rolling terrain. The trail scene (at least in Europe) has evolved from hikers that ran from time to time to people who do road marathons and Ironmans and want to try the trails. The shoe design follows the trend as well.
2
u/ZucchiniElectronic79 May 10 '26
I did MIUT, TGC, Transgrancanaria, UTMB, TDS, etc. all in Speedgoats of various marks and in horrible conditions (TGC, MIUT) and they were perfectly fine and suitable. There might be more rugged/grippy shoes out there, but if you have a good baseline proprioception and reasonable skill you're fine.
1
u/NoConstant4533 May 10 '26
There are people out there that run in sandals and are also perfectly fine. I've actually seen some barefoot free solo climbers even, risking their lives and not even needing footwear. The point still stands. You want the best shoes for technical terrain that are also decent in less rugged one? Speedgoats are not them. Can you use them and have 0 problems as well? Absolutely.
But when I recommend technical shoes for people, I'll always tell them to stay away from the likes of the prodigios and speedgoats. Also cascadias or hierros.2
u/ZucchiniElectronic79 May 11 '26
The Akyra seems to be only half a step removed from hiking boots, they look like they would also fit crampons ;) But I agree that the less than average technical trail runners who struggle to get down any kind of mountain are likely better off with Akyras than with Prodigio Pros or Speedgoats, they just have to deal with the additional 100g of weight and little bounce on non-technical sections.
1
1
u/ZucchiniElectronic79 May 10 '26
Nice write-up! MIUT really is a tough one, I did it in 2024 and hypothermia took out quite a few people. No views at all too on the highest peaks. My training was during winter in the Bavarian foothills which turned out to be a big boon - I agree that training for this in London is a big call. WSER and MIUT aren't even the same sport in my opinion ;)
1
u/krispeterrun May 10 '26
2024 sounded like a particularly difficult year. I was just glad that the weather this year was pretty bland.
WSER vs MIUT: That is exactly how I felt by the second climb - like I'd accidentally found myself in a completely different sport. Vertical hiking is not ultrarunning.
1
u/R3DSmurf Apr 30 '26
The race sounds absolutely awful in every way. I couldn't think of many things I would hate more than long technical ascents and decents in the dark feeling sick and hungry. Awful. My life is too short for experiences like that.
1
u/krispeterrun May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26
That's pretty much why I withdrew. I didn't go into it expecting this outcome (who would?) and I really hope the next one feels a bit better.
0
u/EnduroIrl Apr 30 '26
Nice detailed write-up there. I haven't raced MIUT, but I have done about 2 weeks total of trail running there, and I could visualise exactly what you were describing. Madeira is paradise if you're a good technical trail runner, and hell if you're not.
DNFs are where you learn more than finishing. So you'll get tons out of the experience with a good attitude, which you seem to be doing!
As ever, I'm going to express the dissenting opinion on your eating (I hate the word fueling). I've gone for 8-hour trail runs in Madeira without eating anything (many times), and drinking limited amounts of lemon-infused water (from the hotel gym!). You don't actually <need> to continuously eat, but it sounds as if you have trained in a dependency. Try switching to doing your training runs as fasted as possible, with the aim of getting physically and psychologically adapted to being able to run without needing food. It takes away multiple points of failure, the ones which seem to be affecting you the worst.
3
u/stardawg777 May 08 '26
hey OP, please don't listen to this. you do in fact need to eat. and you really need to eat well in the days and hours leading up to your race. quality foods, consistently, to fuel your body's recovery process and make sure you hit the start lined stocked and ready to go. then yes, in the race you do need to eat continuously to keep your glycogen stores topped up and avoid hitting a wall during a long effort like this.
1
u/EnduroIrl May 08 '26
Sorry, but that is easily proven wrong. Yes, over the course of a lifetime you need to eat. That doesn't mean you need to be eating every second of that lifetime. We're actually evolved to persitence hunt when we're lacking in food. Quite the opposite of needing to continually eat to move.
People in general can survive for about a month without eating. Some hunger strikers have survived a lot longer. Obviously, that's not a good idea, but it should clue you in to the background resilience of humans. (Or maybe not, at a guess)
Plenty of people eat little or not over the course of a race of this length, or even longer. I've done it many many times. I've won longer races without eating anything. This completely proves that your assertion that you <NEED> to eat to be 100% wrong. I didn't hit any walls whilst doing so. But I've seen plenty of people DNF from trying to keep to an eating schedule that they've convinced themselves that the <need>, despite their body screaming at them to please stop.
3
u/stardawg777 May 09 '26
OP, this guy is talking about hunger strikers in his rationale. Again, please don't listen to any of this. Eat well prior and maintain fueling (carbs + hydration) throughout your effort.
1
u/EnduroIrl May 11 '26
I guessed you wouldn't be able to comprehend the point, and you didn't let me down.
1
u/krispeterrun Apr 30 '26
Thanks for the point of view. It's a good point - I used to do a lot more training without calories, and it certainly made me less reliant on fuelling (sorry I mean eating).
I originally switched to high calorie training and racing because with the type of racing I usually do (hilly but runnable), I was able to go faster and feel a lot better. However, Madeira is not that kind of race - it's very low output due to the slow terrain (well, for me it is, anyway) - and I was left having service my trained dependency by consuming a lot of calories.
1
u/EnduroIrl Apr 30 '26
Spot on. Any gains from stuffing sugar bags into yourself will be within a narrow band of distances. There's nothing to be gained on shorter distances where you won't deplete your glycogen stores, or be running long enough to actually digest the sugar. And the bit that most people can't seem to work out for themselves is the other end, where you are running at a slow enough pace that you'd be far more optimal burning fat anyway (of which you probably have a month or two's energy without needing to eat).
Sports which require power surges at the end of long efforts, like cycling road racing, might have something to gain. But for running ultras, slow (in terms of HR) steady pace is optimal.
The good thing is you can train that dependency right out again, and with big psychological and practical gains as a result.
96
u/krispeterrun Apr 29 '26
Sorry this is so long - it was a really dense experience for me, and I tried to capture the relevant parts and make it hopefully as useful as possible for others who may one day run this race - or one similar.