WMTRC - We are on!
Today in Spain was the first day of action at the World Mountain and Trail Running championships with the uphill race. The 6.5km, with 986m elevation to the top of Larraca is the only race not to start from Canfranc Estación. The morning was very cold, with many extra layers at the start line, but the sun started shining strong from mid-morning. The incredible Remi Bonnet, returning after injury, dominated the mens race, with a much closer women’s race won by Nina Engelhard from Germany. If you want to catch-up on the action, the livestream with great English commentary team can be seen on the WMTRC Canfranc you tube channel: https://ctrk.klclick.com/l/01K5XKJR8V2YCJZ0EJG4CKHY4B_1
The vibe around the area is pretty cool, with groups of athletes walking around in their team colours. There are lots of small towns and villages here, so things like bumping in to team Norway in the supermarket or seeing team Brazil cross the road with ice-creams is common place 😁
My race, the (not short) ‘short trail’ is tomorrow. The majority of the course consists of steep ups & downs. To give an idea, we climb 1600m in the first 6km, followed immediately by a 900m descent. The highest point is 2572m which will be close to zero degrees celcius in the morning. However, the forecast is for sun with maybe high teens lower down on the course. One theme of this race, other than serious vert, is many many switchbacks, which will makes things a lot slower on the downhills. I hope everyone plays fair and doesn’t cut the course (I have seen this many times before in races, and have lost places to this in the past sticking to the rules). It is a beautiful area to run in, and a huge celebration of the spectacular mountains here and region. Looking at the course I think the winning time may be around the 4hr45min to 5 hour timeframe. There will be a livestream with camera runners and drones, again all on the you tube channel in English, Spanish and French.
My lead up has been alright. It always takes time for the body to bounce back to normal after such long haul travel. Whilst I use HRV with a pinch of salt, the trend took 6-7 days to recover after landing in Madrid post 35hrs of travel. The goal of the 9 days in Spain before the race was to recover (allowing time for that HRV and sleep to bounce back to normal), stay fit & healthy, and do a little bit of training to stay fresh. The hay should be in the barn training-wise at this stage. Good sleep, good nutrition, and not doing too much was the goal. It can be easy to get to this last stage and over-prepare, squeezing in too many last minute sessions and ruining your legs for race day. (The well recognised balance of fit vs f***ed. - Hopefully I have ended up on the right side of the equation😂).
Training has been a bit more flat than I would have liked, but I have found some good hills along the way. The 9 days has looked like this:
• 2 days in Madrid recovering with some easy runsploring around the city and some swims at a local pool.
• 1 day in a very hot central Spain sightseeing, with a short post-drive run around some rolling hills.
• 2 nights in Picos de Europa national park with some big mountains. My plan was to do a long run here with some big vert but this was cut short by having to help a hiker who had ran out of water and suffering from heat stroke. I gave away all my water, and waited with him until help arrived, then ran back to the accommodation. By then I was also suffering from early heat stroke in the 36 degreesC and exposed trails. That was a big stress on my body and a very subpar training day. Not the best last long training session pre-event!
• 2 nights around Bilbao. Again some runsploring with a bit of vert. Evening swim.
• 2 nights around San Sabastian, doing some sightseeing and running some great coastal trails and local small hills.
• Arrival in Canfranc area yesterday with a short mountainous shake out run on route followed by some amazing local hot springs in a former pool complex abandoned when the dam here was built.
Trying to eat well, indulging in a few Tapas/pintxos, having plenty of snacks, trying to sleep well, and trying not to spend too much time on feet which can be a problem when in ‘holiday mode’ /sightseeing 😅. It’s been a great way to see a lot of Spain whilst tapering for a race. The only downside is not having specific time on course. I have lined up many times before without prior course knowledge and feel comfortable doing so. It may lose me a few %, but with the limited time, opportunity to see family and more of Spain, I think it was the right decision. For this big event, there have been plenty of resources talking about or showing the course, which has been nice to keep track of.
Another key for every athlete is avoiding illness in the days leading up. Part of this is avoiding crowded places or activities. I made this mistake before last years UTMB OCC, where I decided on going to some Swiss Vallais hot-pools/sauna 4 days out from the race and ended up with a nasty virus. Travelling too close to the event can also be a minefield due to risk of catching an illness, or getting affected by unexpected travel delay. Team NZ unfortunately have had a few with illnesses due to this, changing the line-up for us a wee bit. I definitely feel like I have dodged a bullet as I am here with my partners family who met us in Madrid, one of whom has the Flu! Luckily I have managed to stay illness free despite sharing a car with him from Madrid to the north of Spain and then down to the Pyrenees. He still feels rotten, and has been using alcohol hand gels to the max all week bless him 🤧. Hopefully I am not carrying it and am firing on all cylinders for tomorrow’s race.
Shout out to Bradley from @trailrunningNZ who has done a spotlight on the WMTRC with some athlete interviews. A great read for anyone interested. Australia has a podcast called ‘peak persuits’ which has been doing previews of the world champs with their Aussie athletes over the past 6 weeks which has been an interesting listen, with many similar stories and challenges to our Kiwi athletes. No such thing exists for NZ, so it was great to see TrailrunningNZ substack covering the event.
Good luck to everyone racing, and my thanks to all the messages of support I have received pre race. Hopefully the legs are there and I will do my best to do NZ proud.
