Physiological and anthropometric predictors of mountain ultra marathon performance

There is yet to be a resolution of the determinants of mountain ultra marathon (MUM) performance. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to resolving these determinants by measuring aerobic, anaerobic and anthropometric metrics and assessing their association to performance in a 50 km MUM race. It was hypothesized for MUM runners with high aerobic power that greater anaerobic capacity, greater lower limb girths, greater surface-area-to-mass, lower endomorphy and lower body fat percentage (BF%) would give better MUM performance. Thirty-four healthy participants volunteered for this study and were measured for their aerobic power, critical velocity (CV), anaerobic running capacity (D’), Wingate Anaerobic test (WAnT) power, and anthropometric variables. For these MUM runners with an aerobic capacity of 57.8±6.2 ml•min-1•kg-1 a greater CV predicted a faster finishing time in the MUM race (R2=0.75, p