I am pleased you have declared yourself as a runner and will start later than the walkers on our event . Runners brings its own challenges for walkers event organisers for example making sure checkpoints are open, ensuring runners adhere to KIT requirements especially with the unpredictability of the British weather . I don't think shorts were a good idea on our marshals event where temperatures were under minus 2. We also have to cater for our safety Sweep teams and closure of checkpoints cannot happen until they come though the checkpoint. We did have one example that our checkpoint team having the late runner starters in front of them could not possibly keep up and the checkpoint staff waited an hour for the sweep team to arrive. By lessons learnt we have a cunning plan in place to operate a sweep team after the runners depart. Finally if I am not mistaken on the marshals event we did have at least one example of a registered walker but were runners. I hope you enjoy the route and that the weather is good to everyone and don't forget kit declarations and kit checks equally apply to walkers and those who choose to run

I am one of those "runners" availing of the late start in the Hadrain 100 and being honest I can appreciate the sentiment of the previous post. I do know of a couple of long fell races that have evolved from older walking challanges.

I have expressed a view in the "Members only Hundred" thread that Hundred qualifiers might be limited to LDWA events, so let me expand on that.

1. There are sound environmental and duty of care reasons for requiring a Hundred entrant to have completed a suitable qualifier. However with the proliferation of long distance trail races it becomes more difficult and time consuming to judge whether any one of an ever longer list of events meets our environmental criteria. For instance the "500 rule" makes sense but is somewhat arbitrary and hard to justify when looking at an individual event. Similar problems arise in deciding whether completing a particular event demonstrates navigational ability when some are waymarked, runners may be able to complete the event in daylight and downloadable routes to GPS can eliminate most of the difficulty anyway. It takes up a lot of the Entries Secretary's time to verify qualification for all these events. Restricting qualifiers to LDWA events removes all these issues. In practice, apart from a small list of non-LDWA events that have been allowed as qualifiers for a number of years, the numbers are minimal (see later).

2. Fifty milers are possibly the most difficult events to organise in terms of resources required and uncertainty of financial success without the cachet of the Hundred, so anything we can do to help LDWA 50s thrive must be good.


3. For the reasons outlined in the NECs Business Plan (sorry to raise this!) we need to increase membership to fund essential developments. Providing a carrot to encourage entry on our events is one way to do this.

4. I would make a somewhat convoluted argument that restricting qualifiers to LDWA events would help to retain the unique character of the Hundred. We welcome runners on our events and a number have been saved from extinction by the support of runners, but has it gone too far? Two thirds of the entry for Lakeland's That's Lyth event at the end of the month declare themselves as runners, and it has progressively changed from a "Walk that welcomes runners" to "A non-competitive running event with some walkers". I would not like to see this happen to the Hundred. All the non-LDWA accepted qualifying events are races to a greater or lesser degree which means that they are likely to be populated mostly by runners. About 20% of the Hadrian Hundred entrants have opted for later than 10.00 start times which suggests they are (or hope to be) runners. I haven't researched this thoroughly but I think the comparable figures for previous hundreds was around 15%. I wouldn't want this trend to go any further in this direction.

A few statistics from the upcoming Hundred (I'm the event Treasurer, I know these things). The qualifiers for the 550 accepted entries for the Hadrian Hundred break down as follows:-

A) 84% claim LDWA events (463), made up by Cinque Ports (275), Foot in two Dales (54), Red Rose (45), Herts Stroller (33), Wye Forest (24), Laich o'Moray (15).
B) Four non-LDWA events which have been accepted for a number of years are claimed by 12% (64), made up by Round Rotherham (21), Fellsman (19), Bullock Smithy Hike (14), Longmynd Hike (10). There is an argument for including these but personally I would like to see them phased out.
C) Only 4% claim ten other events, all competitive, with a total of 23 qualifiers. I can't see much of an argument for continuing to accept these.


There is my five pennyworth. Comments welcome.

Sorry - should have asked an open question - why there is a suggestion that qualifiers for the Hundred should be restricted to LDWA events?

I can see the arguments for having a definitive list of events that test the neccessary skills. But why restrict that list to LDWA events? The only reason I could think of was - are there LDWA 50 mile events that are not attracting enough entrants? If so, then yes, this restriction would potentially help those events. In my very limited experience, 50s are few and far between, probably because of the demands they place on an organising team, but are popular where they are put on. Am I wrong about that?.

Hi Marian

Thank you for your input. Would you mind clarifying and expanding on what you mean please as I don’t quite understand the questions.

Kind regards

Alan Warrington
100s Coordinator

Are there LDWA 50 milers that don't attract a viable entryfield? If not, what would be the purpose of this?

Hi Iain

To avoid any confusion this thread is relating to qualifying events and not whether the Hundred is a members only event.

Best wishes

Alan Warrington
100s Coordinator

Please note that there's already a Hundreds thread with title 'Members only events'.

Iain

Qualification for the annual flagship event is required to ensure that an entrant has sufficient knowledge, experience, equipment and navigational skills to take part in the event under all prevailing weather conditions. It also ensures that they have proven stamina and endurance to cope with both the physical and mental demands of an endurance event of this nature.

Should qualification be restricted to ONLY LDWA organised events?

If so, how can we ensure that sufficient events exist each year over and above the annual Hundred and Marshals' event?

Alan Warrington
100s Coordinator