Pacing - Allowed or Not Allowed

[Art]

Peter

This has been on my mind as a question / assumption for some time. But in disccusing Dakota Jone's GC-RRR new record this weekend, and his brash assertion that the record could go under 6 hours ... well ... the RRR tests are loosely defined as self supported.

The question of using pacers.
My assumption is :

pacers are a no no in Unsupported efforts.
(this brings up the question of friends hiking with you part of the way).

pacers are allowed in supported efforts.

pacers = grey area in self supported efforts.
what exactly does self supported mean ?
I know that self supported PCT efforts have been done as a team.

[Peter Bakwin]

Technically, I'd say having a pacer is support. However, I think one needs to look at each route and the way it's been done in the past. For the R2R2R, for example, most people do run with others at least part of the way, as Dakota did, and I know Darcy Africa did as well. I'd probably still call that "unsupported". To me it seems more important on a bigger route where the runner might be dealing with navigation and sleep deprivation. For example, when Flyin' Brian & I were nearing the end of the High Sierra Trail last year we were doing a death march in the middle of the night, and walked right by a clearly marked turn, thus adding 2 hours to our time. If someone had come out to meet us for the last miles we wouldn't have missed that turn, and our time would have been 2 hours faster. So, in that case having a pacer is clearly support. In the end, people just need to be clear about what they actually did and what kind of support they received. I think detailed trip reports are important for this reason.