Participation in ultramarathons has more than doubled since 2004 and new events have naturally sprung up to fill this demand. Using epic locations with more challenging terrain is a clear way of attracting runners to an event. However, it appears that the Ultra Fiord organisers, NIGSA, aimed higher without providing the necessary safety guarantees. NIGSA admitted that Rueda’s death had: “…made evident important weaknesses in the event’s general model” and has promised a number of alterations for the 2017 edition such as mandatory gear checks, quicker evacuation plans, and better support at aid stations. Safety improvements that runners like Gosse were calling for a year earlier.

“Many people have been devastated by the loss of Arturo,” reflects Yitka Winn, a competitor at the 2016 edition, and a writer who has written extensively about the Ultra Fiord race. Besides signing a liability waiver that included vague terms such as ‘wild environment’, ‘climatic conditions’, and ‘specific geographical limitations’, Winn found it hard to get concrete details of what to expect in Patagonia. “I spent a lot of time talking to people who’d run it the previous year,” she explains. It was through others – not the organisers – that Yitka learned of the extreme weather, minimal aid, and unorganised support. “I gathered this information on my own initiative,” she points out.

“Besides signing a liability waiver that included vague terms such as ‘wild environment’, ‘climatic conditions’, and ‘specific geographical limitations’, Winn found it hard to get concrete details of what to expect in Patagonia”

Clearly the organisers provided inadequate pre-race information to competitors, as well as insufficient gear checks and safety contingencies. “Something like that was completely preventable,” Gosse reflects on the tragic death of Arturo, a likelihood that she and other runners had foreseen occurring at subsequent Ultra Fiords. “Stuff can still happen,” she says of the typical risks ultrarunners face, for example: Someone’s heart can just stop randomly or you can fall off a course pretty easily.” However the consensus is that Ultra Fiord competitors were exposed to risks outside what is normally expected at an ultramarathon.

On the flip side of this argument, could it actually be the ultrarunners pushing themselves too far and putting themselves at risk of injury and death rather than the event organisers? After all, the desire for new concepts partly comes from competitors seeking new challenges. “By their nature, many ultrarunners are gluttons for a bit of suffering” explains Winn. From the people Mpora spoke to it is clear that ultrarunners all seek to get something different out of the sport. It offers both a sense of physical and mental accomplishment that keeps people coming back for more. In many ways it can become an addiction, but: “it’s generally a healthier addiction than others that people fall prey to in this world,” Yitka points out.

“Bigger and better is a great thing, but it’s also risky with always wanting to push yourself further,”

High ambition comes with a high price of failure. The dreaded DNF (Did Not Finish) mark of dropping out lingers at the back of an ultrarunners’ mind during the long hours on the trail. Some events even market their DNF rate as a kind of ‘see if you can do it’ tease. Runners who haven’t had a DNF before will often beat themselves up explains Dr. Beddoes-Jones with her experience of first-time drop-outs. Accepting when to stop is a big decision – Gosse pulled out of the Ultra Fiord due to injury – but what happens when the physical signs to stop aren’t so clear?

Most people who drop out will know it wasn’t their day, but for others the mental battle to keep going is a difficult one. “We simply lose our mental will to finish something,” Winn explains, “and these DNFs are often the ones that runners wind up regretting the next day.” Pulling out due to injury is easier to accept, but pulling out because of depleted willpower is harder to deal with. Being able to block out pain and push through the mental barrier is key to overcoming the challenges of a race. Whilst this is an asset in many cases, could this be potentially dangerous in a competitive ultramarathon situation?

“Fear of failure rarely pushes people to take unnecessary risks,” says Dr. Beddoes-Jones, “although it does occasionally happen,” she adds. The real danger is when hypothermia and tiredness set in, as each can seriously affect your judgement of how exhausted you are or if you’re carrying an injury. So you need to have strategies for managing these. Could fear of a DNF combined with impaired judgement put runners at risk and essentially cause racers to run themselves to death? Winn mentions some races in Europe where people have died from hypothermia, such as the 2008 Zugspitze Extreme-Berglauf race where two runners ran into a snowstorm without sufficient clothing. In this case, the organising company was acquitted of responsibility, the judge stating that the runners had endangered themselves by ignoring the safety requirements of the organiser.

“The real danger is when hypothermia and tiredness set in, as each can seriously affect your judgement of how exhausted you are…”

Runners don’t want to drop out of races, but if cognitive impairment sets in, that ambition to continue could quickly turn into something dangerous. In Rueda’s case, fellow runners witnessed him having symptoms of hypothermia, but at the next checkpoint the race organisers didn’t prevent him from continuing. It comes back to the system of monitoring as Dr Beddoes-Jones mentioned, to keep an eye on competitors at each stage and look for signs of mental as well as physical problems. Someone might seem physically fit, but be compromised cognitively.

Ultimately it comes down to both event organisers and runners taking the necessary precautions to avoid dangerous situations. “People are stubborn and race directors need to account for that,” Gosse points out. “It’s  a responsibility on both sides,” she emphasises, “as an ultra runner knowing those signs and the risks, then the same thing with the race director – knowing that people are coming into this with all different mindsets and pain tolerances.” With ultrarunning participation on the rise, it is great for competitors to have demanding new events in epic locations, but there is a thin line between a challenging experience and a potentially deadly one. Athletes will always push themselves further, and organisers need to be prepared for this. Hopefully a new awareness of the risks and response from race organisers and athletes will mean that the Ultra Fiord was an exception and tragedies such as the death of Arturo Rueda will be avoided in the future.

To read the rest of Mpora’s ‘Challenge’ Issue head here

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