Speedgoat Adds a VK Race, Short on Vert

Speedgoat by UTMB announces a new race: The Summit:

Take on the challenge of Speedgoat’s first Vertical Kilometer (VK) race.

Except, well it’s only 921 M of vertical gain in a distance of 5.6 kilometers.

From Wikipedia:

In skyrunning, a vertical kilometer is an uphill mountain running race with an elevation gain of 1,000 metres. The Vertical Kilometer World Circuit also defines it as covering less than 5 km.

That’s 8% of vert missing on a race distance that’s over 5K. You think this is a metric vs. imperial system? Maybe the Skyrunning Federation should’ve measured in football fields and elephants… or something.

Here’s the International Skyrunning Federation official rule book for a Vertical race (not a VK mind you!):

Uphill only races with minimum 800m vertical climb over variable terrain. The minimum average incline must be 20% and 5% of the total distance must be over 33% incline. A tolerance of 5% in the minimum height is accepted.

According to some handy online calculator the incline percentage of Speedgoat’s ‘The Summit’ is 16%.

So, it’s neither a VK nor a classic Vertical race. If we keep doing this soon VK races will just be any “uphill only” races and the whole point of how steep it should be will be entirely eroded.

Anyways… sharing this for no particular reasons.