Scottish Ultra Marathon Series (SUMs) Analysis

Today I walked up Ben A’an which is near Aberfoyle. The route was really nice and although it was very cloudy and misty. I could still see the surrounding lochs from the top. If anyone wants to see photos, feel free to add me on Facebook (Link on down the right of this page) if you are not already a friend. I was by myself today as my hill walking buddy Steven is busy with his new business which is selling flags for the Royal Wedding.

 I've decided to do some posts on how I view the Scottish Ultra Marathon series after its debut year in 2010 and also thoughts on the Highland Fling this year. Here is what I'm covering in this post so feel free to pick and choose what you read.

Please note = When doing calculations -  To make it easier for me and since I am just doing examples I've said last place gets 0 points where as the SUMS system currently awards 1 point to last place. 

1.     What are the SUMS and how does it work?

2.     Ultras a team sport?

3.       2010 – The First year of the SUMS

4.     Highland Fling 2011 

5.     Grant Jeans

6.     V40/V50 men/ women

7.     Other Races in the SUMS

8.      Is SUMS system unfair on Women?

1.       What are the SUMS

The SUMS series consists of 9 races throughout the year of different lengths with the best 4 results to count for each athlete. As ultras are different distances, participant numbers, terrain and lots of other variables. To make it fair - each Race Winner gets 500 points with the person coming last getting 1 point. The rest of the points are divided up in between. For example if 5 people turned up to one of the races here is how the points would be divided roughly under the current system. 1^st – 500 points, 2^nd – 400 points, 3^rd – 300 points, 4^th 200 points, 5^th 1 point.  

Normally the SUMS series have full entry lists but some ultras out with the SUMS can get numbers as low as 5. In fact in the Kintyre Way 110k ultra in 2009, 1 man named George Reid was the only person in the ultra race and he completed it. There was a relay race happening at the same time too.

2.       Ultras a team sport?

The SUMs series is a great idea and makes the sport in Scotland a lot more interesting. Eventually I can see this being like Formula one, with potential team tactics amongst clubs and runners. I see this happening already in road races in Scotland. Take the Greenock 5 mile road race the other week . Was it a coincidence Bella Road runners had quite a few guys finish together? I don’t think so, I think they set out for the team gold in the first place and good on them for getting it. Clubs in Scotland are still quite thin on ultra runners but you can see a few clubs starting to get together ultra teams for example the likes of Carnegie, Garscube and Carnethy to name a few. Just look at Carnegie Harriers at the 2009 West Highland Way race. Would have Scott Bradley won if it wasn’t for fellow club mate Ritchie Cunningham pulling him through a hard time? If Jan Lantink who came second, had some of his Dutch buddies who are the same standard there would they have pulled him through to victory? I think it would have been a lot closer but kudos to Carnegie for working as a team. I think the team element will only expand as the SUMs series becomes more popular and attracts more people to step up to ultra distance. 

3.       2010 was the first year of the SUMS

I think the method of calculation on the whole is fair because ultras are any distances over 26.2 miles so no race/races in my opinion should get special treatment.  To me the West Highland Way (95 miles) race already acts as a bonus ball for top runners anyway at the moment as a sub 20 hour WHW in 2010 gave 12^th position out of 109 – 449 points in SUMS

Where as a sub 10 hour fling last year (53 miles) which to me is about the equivalent would be -  40th/271 participants – 436 points in SUMS.

When you look at some of the categories last year there is a single point separating some positions. Grant Jeans won overall men’s competition by 5 points. So every point is valuable.

4.       Highland Fling 2011

This year there is the added twist that the Highland Fling (First 53 miles of the West Highland Way) is so important by being made Scottish/UK trail championships and also is where British team selection for another event will come from. This means top runners where some will have no intention of doing the SUMS will push down the rankings of people who are doing the SUMS. Or will they? This is where the fun bit comes in and the unpredictability unless you know everyone who is running it/how their training is going and their predicted time which is exactly what the outcome will be. In other words with the Fling it is very hard to do the maths. One thing that we can do is work with statistics and probability.  There are clearly going to be more top runners ( Let’s say top runners for men are sub 10 and women sub 11) running this year than ever before. I think that’s a fair assumption to say there will be more top runners this year.  

Therefore more top end athletes will push women and v50 men in particular further down the places rankings than what they would have placed last year. But this doesn’t mean that they will get fewer points in the SUMS I don’t think. If there is the same amount of new people entering the fling, men and women who are just planning on getting round, let’s say 11 hours plus for both. This will in turn make the top end runners receive more points. So the only way to even think how many points you’ll get in the Fling compared to other SUMS events is to work out how many people are running it, then count how many people you think will finish ahead of you given the entry list then do the SUMS (which is easier the better you are!). Of course it’s all estimation and you just don’t know how people will perform on the day. Take Richie Cunningham for example. He dropped out of the Fling last year then went on to win the West Highland Way race 2 months later. This shows that clearly the Highland Fling last year was just an off day because you can't fluke an ultra win especially not a 95 mile one!

5.       Grant Jeans

The question is could Grant Jeans who came in the top 3 for all the races he ran in the SUMS series last year – in fact he had 3, 1^st places, 1 second and 1 third work out the best strategy for winning SUMS. He has his name down for the Highland Fling this year. Now don’t get me wrong, he could win. But compared to the races he ran last year the competition is a lot greater. Plus this will really put to the test how is on technical stretches of trail and hills as we already know what he is capable of on roads and less technical trail. Personally I think he is doing this race to try and get into the British team rather than for SUMS. And he'll know that if he picks the same races as last year that there is a good chance he could win 4 of the other SUMS races (Excluding West Highland Way)  meaning maximum of 2000 points all being well. Therefore I think the only people who may be disadvantaged in the SUMS by doing the Highland Fling, will be the people looking to get the maximum 2000 points in the SUMS. The rest in my opinion should benefit from higher points if they perform on the day and that the number of “53 miles in one go, is an awesome achievement in itself” runners is higher than the number of top runners.

Last year 1 runner – Craig Stewart won and was the only runner in the field to get under 8 hours. I reckon this year you might have to go under 8 hours just to get in the top ten if some of the guys on the start list run to what their capable of. Maybe it’s more realistic to think that 5 will go under 8 hours.

6.       V40/V50 Men/Women

There are some of the V40 men who are more than capable of winning the Highland Fling. This has been recognised by the Highland Fling organisers and anyone in the M40 category that think they can do the course in under 9 hours can move to the Senior men’s race starting at the later time with approval from the governing body/Fling organisers.

Of course with V50 men and women there are some exceptions and as are people in those categories who do compete for the top positions in ultras. The above is more generally speaking.

7.       Other Races in the SUMS

So will the SUMS come down to the lesser well known races? Tricky one – All the ultras apart from the Highland Fling and not sure about the Glasgow to Edinburgh double,  have limited entries and won’t attract the same amount of top runners as the fling. More runners will get higher points in the Fling though because more people are doing it. An entry list with say 100, there will be less people who get the higher points because  50^th/100^th in say Clyde Stride will get 250 points than 50^th/potentially 400 entrants in the Fling would get 437 points.

It will be interesting to see if anyone works out tactics for the SUMS to try and maximise points by doing certain smaller/bigger races based on their strengths and potential opponents. One of the biggest variables is who turns up on the day and how they perform – but with many entry lists being published makes it tempting for the top dogs to do some maths and statistics if they wish. I know John Kynaston worked out what he needed to do in the River Ayr Race last year to get 3rd M50. I wonder how many others did the same

8.       Is SUMS system unfair on Women?

Personally I think the current system is unfair on women. The reason being with the current system women do not have their own points table. They are mixed in with the men. I would have understood the system if women were competing for the same prizes as the men but they don’t, they have their own set of prizes.  So for example: Lucy Colquhoun won every race she ran in the SUMS last year. This means that if there was a separate table for women she would have earned the maximum 2000 points. But because women are mixed in; she finished with 1897 points. She still won but surely if you win every race you run you should get maximum points. The reason for this is because all the women who are awarded points below Lucy in races depend on how many men there are between Lucy and second place, then how many men there are between the 2^nd and 3^rd place women. Some races there might be 20 men between 1^st and second women. The next year in the same race there could be 1 man between first and second women.

In other words this is totally random and depends on how many men turn up on the day.  I’ll do a quick example with the Women’s Highland Fling last year – Lucy was 5^th overall and 1^st women. Sharon Law was 26^th overall and second women out of 59 female finishers. Using the current system Lucy got 493 points and Sharon got 454 points. If there was a women’s table Lucy would have got 500 points and Sharon would have got 491 points. That is a massive difference of 39 points difference and could have made the women’s competition a lot closer like the men’s competition and also fairer as it does not depend on how many men turn up. The same applies to V50 men as all the other men and women competing in a race mean that points awarded for V50 men depend on how many other people finish between them.

From this we can see that although it appears the Men’s competition and Women’s competition appear to be the same and fair. With further inspection the system works differently for men and women because where the men finish effects how many points the women get. The women have less impact on the Men’s point system at the moment because it is only really Lucy that finishes in the top 5 of ultra races in Scotland. So this has little impact on the Men’s points system overall.

This is just a theory and I may be totally wrong and missed out some of the maths which do indeed make the current system logical and if there is please shout and tell me to shut it! ha

If this theory is correct which I think it is – would it be easy to fix? I think so because most results these days are done in Excel. So if there wasn’t already, all that needs to be done is add an extra column which states whether the competitor is male or female. Use filters to filter out the men, and copy the women’s results into another spreadsheet, then apply the formula to calculate the points. Then do the same for the men and filter out the women.

Roll on SUMs 2011 J