Got an newsletter from the nice people at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB®) today.

One of my blog colleagues and friend that ran with Liz and Greg at last year’s MdS, Ben, managed to get into the UTMB in 2012, and I have been thinking about applying for next year (2013) as it is in August and I have other plans for August this year.  So it is timely to understand how many ‘points’ I will need to get from races this year to even be eligible to apply for the lottery draw.

UTMB® 2009 - Start

Since the first race in 2003, the UTMB was very successful with 700 runners registered, then 1600 in 2004. Since 2005, the UTMB has had to be limited to 2000 participants, and in 2006 registration was completed in 3 weeks.

In 2007, a system of points from qualifying races was introduced to reduce the number of applicants without resorting to financial or sporting competence choices which would have been against the ethics of the race and the wishes of the organisers. Despite that, in that year, the registration was completed within 10 hours!

The peak was reached in 2008, when registrations were completed in less than 8 minutes, with around 7000 requests for the UTMB and the CCC®.

In 2009, the year I entered, to accommodate the increasing popularity of ultra-marathons and this challenge in particular, the organisers tried to find a solution which respected the competitors, and so produced a new race (the TDS), a more demanding system of qualifying races and a system of pre-registration followed by an eventual draw.

From 2010, the number of requests once again soared (7,000) for the group of 4 races carried out over the final weekend of August combined.Despite the increase of requirements in terms of qualifying races (5 points rather than 4 for the UTMB), the demands in 2011 still increased to a total of 7200.

In 2012, this record was once again beaten with a new high of 10 000 requests.

So, to summarize, 3 years ago, I needed a mere 4 points, to be eligible for the draw for the race, which I obtained as 3 points from the MdS from 2008 and 1 point from the Thames Meander, as your qualifying races have to be completed before applying (i.e. Dec of the year before the race).

This year, even if I complete my planned qualifying race in August (more on that later) this would only give me 4 points, so somehow I need to find another 3 from somewhere before December 2012.

And I thought this was going to be an easy year