Ultra Cutoff Times at Every Aid Station¶
The clock is part of the course.
Almost every ultra has a time limit, and most have cutoffs along the way too. A cutoff is the latest time you can reach, or leave, an aid station: the tables of food, water and volunteers spaced along the course. Miss one and your race ends there. It is the same rule for a first 50K, a 100K in the mountains, and a fifth hundred.
On every race page in NavRun, the first thing you see is Cutoff times.
Web and iPhone. Free, whether or not you are in the Crew.
The Arithmetic at Mile 45¶
Two runners carry this worry.
The first is out on the course. It is dark, the legs are gone, and the next cutoff is somewhere ahead. Is it 11:40 or 11:45? Was that leave by or arrive by? How far is the station, and how long did the last four miles take? Out here that sum gets done over and over, and a tired head gets it wrong. Nobody should spend mile 45 doing subtraction in the dark instead of running.
The second runner has not signed up. They have had a race bookmarked for months and still not entered, and the cutoff table on the race website is part of why. A list of clock times with no idea where they would be on it reads like a wall.
Both need their own arrival next to the race's cutoff, and the difference said out loud before race day.
Why Cutoffs Work Differently on Trails¶
On a road course the pace is steady enough that a pace band does most of the work. An ultra breaks that in a few ways.
- Your pace moves. A climb can double the time a mile takes, and most runners hike the steep parts. An even split across the course is a guess.
- Cutoffs sit at aid stations, not mile markers. Stations can be 3 miles apart or 14, so room at one says little about the next.
- The clock crosses midnight. On a long race a cutoff at 02:30 is the next morning, and many race websites never say which day.
- Time at stations adds up. Refilling bottles and eating: ten stops at eight minutes each is over an hour. Coaches at CTS make the same point about how much race time goes to stopping.
Race directors set mid-race cutoffs from the slowest pace that still finishes inside the overall limit, as Human Potential Running explains. A cutoff is not a judgement on you. It is the race telling you the pace that still gets you home.
What NavRun Shows You¶
Cutoff times, first on the race page¶
Open a race and Cutoff times comes first. For each aid station you see the mile, when you arrive at your goal pace, the cutoff, and how much room sits between them, in words: "8 minutes of room" or "1 hour 22 minutes of room." No red and no minus sign. If the pace you are looking at would reach a station after it closes, the row says "At this pace the cutoff here comes first."
The table has a switch for Goal, Realistic (10% slower than your goal) and Survival (25% slower). Switching changes your arrival times. It does not change the room, because the room is always measured against Survival, the slowest of the three. If there is room at Survival, there is room. When every cutoff has room, one line under the table names the tightest station, for example: "At Survival pace you reach Bear Creek with 40 minutes of room, and at least as much at every other cutoff."
On the iPhone the race screen shows the first three stations, and a row such as All eight stations opens the rest.
Arrivals, leg by leg on the iPhone¶
Arrivals reads the race one leg at a time, a leg being the stretch between two aid stations. Each card shows the leg's miles, the climb or "climb not measured", when you leave and when you get in, and when the next station closes. The same pace switch sits at the top.
Times you set yourself¶
Tap a station, or the pencil beside its arrival on the web, and set when you expect to be there: a time and which day. The stations after it move by the same amount, up to the next one you set, and on the web the page tells you what moved: "Setting this moves Deer Creek 31 minutes later, and your finish 31 minutes later."
An arrival you set never reads earlier than when you leave the station before it, so no leg runs backwards. "Put it back to" returns the station to the time worked out from your goal.
The start time, the day, and the minute¶
A race can have its own start time. Until you set one, times are worked out from 8am, and the page says so rather than letting a guess look certain. Times read on a 24-hour clock with the day beside any time that is not race day. Where nobody has said which day a cutoff falls on, NavRun either names the day that fits your arrival and says it worked that out, or says "Nobody has said whether this cutoff is the same day."
An arrival that falls part way through a minute shows at the next whole minute. A station reached at 09:06 and some seconds, against a 09:15 cutoff, reads 09:07 and 8 minutes of room, so the two clocks and the sentence agree. The room shown is never more than the real room.
Where the stations come from¶
Add a race from the race catalog and its aid stations and published cutoffs can come with it. The page says what arrived, such as "Your course arrived: 22 aid stations, 21 with a cutoff."
Your crew reads the same times¶
Your crew are the people who meet you at aid stations with whatever you asked them to bring. The crew page, the printable crew and pacer sheets, and the live crew room all read these same arrival times. You do not need the Crew to share these times, and the people you send them to need no account. The crew and pacer guide covers the rest of that day.
What It Does Not Do Yet¶
- Weather. Arrival times do not account for heat or storms yet, on any page.
- Backyard and timed races. Cutoffs by station do not fit a race with no set distance yet (how a backyard works instead).
- Missing cutoffs. The times are only as good as the stations on file. Where a race has not published a cutoff, NavRun says "Nobody has said what the cutoff is here" rather than guess. Check the race's own list before race day.
The written race strategy, leg by leg with how hard to run each stretch, is part of the Crew. The cutoff times are not.
How to Do It by Hand¶
You do not need NavRun for this. You need the race's cutoff list and a pencil.
- Copy the official cutoffs, and note for each one whether it is arrive by or leave by. Races differ.
- Turn every cutoff into hours from the start. Watch for midnight. A 36-hour race can span three dates.
- Spread your goal across the legs. Give climbing legs more than their share of the miles, and add your planned minutes at each station.
- Make a slow version. Multiply each leg by 1.25. That is your bad-day line, and it is the one to compare with the cutoffs.
- Find the tightest station. Usually one or two cutoffs matter and the rest have hours of room. Know their names.
- Write it down small. A card with station, mile, bad-day arrival and cutoff fits in a pocket. UltraRunning Magazine's first-ultra advice covers the rest of each stop, and our aid station guide covers getting in and out fast.
For a worked example on one real course, see the Leadville cutoff math.
Common Questions¶
What is a cutoff in an ultramarathon?¶
A cutoff is the latest time you can reach or leave a checkpoint, usually an aid station, and still stay in the race.
How much room should I want before an ultra cutoff?¶
Compare the cutoff with your slow day, not your goal. NavRun counts room at 25% slower than your goal, so any room at that pace is real room.
Are NavRun's cutoff times free?¶
Yes. Cutoff times, Arrivals, setting your own arrival times and sharing with your crew are free on the web and iPhone, whether or not you are in the Crew.
What if my race has no start time set in NavRun?¶
Times are worked out from 8am and the page says so. Set the start time when you edit the race and every arrival moves with it.
Can I change an arrival time NavRun worked out?¶
Yes. Set your own time and day for any station, and the stations after it move by the same amount. It never reads earlier than when you leave the station before it.
The Short Version¶
Know your arrival, the race's cutoff and the room between them at every aid station, before race day. The night is still the night and the climb is still the climb. You just do not spend them doing arithmetic.
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