World Mountain/Trail Running Championships Sep 25-28 Canfranc@Pirineos

So what happened so far ?

Day 1 - Uphill 6,4km +990m elevation gain.

Remi Bonnet ( Suisse ) won the mens race at absolute dominating way. Kenya with silver and bronze - Richard Atuya and defending champion Patrick Kipngeno. Christian Allen placed 4th - but won bronze with the US team.

At womens race Uganda runners take the lead first, but then last year european champ Nina Engelhard (Germany) stormed away and won the title. Susanna Saapunki ( Finland ) with Silver , Anna Gibson ( USA ) Bronze.

Day 2 with short trail race - 44,5km +/- 3657m

men

Gold: Frederic Tranchand ( France )

Silver: Manuel Merillas ( Spain )

Bronze: Andreu Blanes ( Spain )

women

Gold: Tove Alexandersson ( Sweden )

Silver: Sara Alonso ( Spain )

Bronze: Naomi Lang ( UK )

Only 16 men faster as Alexandersson - Alonso more then 33 minutes behind !

If a 2:07 Kenyan ran one he’d dominate.

The dude in second has run 62 for the half. Id wager something close to 99% of 61-62 minute half guys would not be able to handle 12k of vert over rock fields as well as he does.

Are they the worlds best runners? No. But they're extremely good runners with a range of additional skills that most runners lack. It's still impressive, and I can't understand why so many of you try to make them sound like losers

When you lose at life the only recourse is to try and make others look bad.

the guy in third has run 2:09.

Some orienteers ran the race and actually dominated and got two-thirds of the medals: gold and bronze medal in both the men's and women's race are orienteers.

Whoops, I think I had my Spaniards backwards. Also the 62 guy. Don't see any real road results for the second place finisher. Anyway, point stands

She was only 1 minute and 38 seconds behind the top US man, and chicked some other US men who were mentioned among the favorites for the men's race.

LOL - found the troll who didn't watch the race^^^. In fact there were Kenyans in the race, including the Kenyan female who won this year's Sierre-Zinal. She dropped, as did several others, and those who actually finished were dropped hard. The race course is extremely rugged with a significant amount of "off-trail, just follow the flags" type running across tundra, steep rocky climbs/descents, and the like. In other words, ankle-breaker terrain that favors mountain running talent over traditional running talent.

Indeed Jim Walmsley is billed as one of the marquis guys in the Long Trail event on Saturday, and while I certainly hope he crushes it, I won't at all be surprised if he gets crushed and/or DNFs. It's just not his kind of course.

Long trail live on youtube now. It's about 20% into the race now. Walmsley is in a three-person lead pack with Engdahl and Roubiol.

I think Walmsley is going to win it.

Even more impressive considering Alexandersson raced the course just a few weeks ago in 5,38 despite having an 18 minute medical stop to get 5 stitches in the head after a fall.

What a great interview,

U20 classic races nearly full success for Uganda with 5 from 6 medals.

party crushed only from german super talent Julia Ehrle winning the girls title.

Sophia Rodriguez was 6th at checkpoint after uphill passages , 14th as best US girl at finish.

Grayson Murphy? What happened? Status? Thanks 😊

Extremely amazed by the two German girls Julia Ehrle who won U20 and Nina Engelhard who won both the uphill and the classic trail. Absolute super talents finishing before all the East Africans.

I like that Max King was on the team and not Roche

Can someone give a quick rundown of pacing/strategy for trail/mountain running? I see all the runners have GPS watches, but I doubt it’s that accurate out on some of these courses. Is it just “hold a pace you don’t think no one else can” or are there very course dependent factors you need to take into account?