Historical Performance Trends In Winter Ultra-Endurance Events

PURPOSE: Winter ultra-endurance events provide some of the most difficult challenges in human-powered performance. For these events, competitors travel across snow-covered terrain via bike, foot, or ski. To date, there are no reports that document which mode of locomotion consistently yields the fastest finish times. Our purpose was to compare race performance (finish times and race speeds) across these three locomotive modes (bike, foot, and ski) for four self-supported winter ultra-endurance events. METHODS: Finish times from the Tuscobia 80 (Wisconsin), Arrowhead 135 (Minnesota), and Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) 350 and 1000 (Alaska) mile events were extracted between the dates of 2000-2022 using publicly available data. Times of the top three participants in each category (when available) were used for analysis. The effect of locomotive mode and event year were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA. Any differences in finish times and race speeds between locomotive modes was then assessed using a post-hoc Tukey test. RESULTS: For the Tuscobia 80, Arrowhead 135, and ITI 350, finish times for bike (9 ± 1, 18 ± 6, 97 ± 48 hrs) were faster than those for foot (21 ± 3, 41 ± 9, 163 ± 43 hrs) and ski (23 ± 8, 39 ± 12, 174 ± 44 hrs) (p < 0.001), however, finish times for foot and ski did not differ (p > 0.40). Race speeds for the three shorter events were greater for bike compared to both foot and ski (p < 0.001) but foot and ski did not differ (p > 0.40). For the ITI 1000, finish times for bike (433 ± 90 hrs) were faster than those for foot (642 ± 123 hrs) (p < 0.001) and bike speed was greater than foot speed (p < 0.001). Historically there were not enough ski finishers of the ITI 1000 for analysis. CONCLUSION: In the last two decades, bicycling has consistently yielded the fastest times and greatest speeds in self-supported winter ultra-endurance events ranging from 80-1000 miles. Results indicate that bicycling offers the superior mode of transport when time is the objective and suggest that it has a lower metabolic cost of transport compared to foot and ski. Finally, finish times for all four events have decreased over time independent of locomotive mode suggesting general improvements in training and/or technology.