Here is a blow by blow account of the WMA xc championships race the other day. You can check the wma Toruń page for links about the competition and venue. wmaci2019.com should get you there.
We ran on a 2K loop that was fairly narrow, about 600 m of it was kind of flat with a little roll here and there but the rest of the way was very twisty with some tree roots, it had 3 hills per lap, and 3 sand traps. The hills were not long but one was fairly steep and it had a sand trap in the middle. The sand traps were rooty or rutted sections that they dug up and put in about 6” to 8” of sand. Each about 30 or 40 meters long.
Weather was about perfect for XC, 40 and overcast. It sprinkled for a few minutes just before we started but that did not affect our race.
We started 2 or 3 deep under one of those balloon arch things but the trail quickly narrowed. I was about 6th but 100 meters in another half dozen elbowed their way around and I was boxed in for the first half K. The Irish guy took the early lead and set a fast pace, pretty much pushing it the entire way. I was able to get around those guys by the fitness park and settled into the back of a second pack some 30 meters behind the Irish guy and the Finn. My legs felt rubbery on the first lap and I was just hoping to hang with that group (6th place). We strung out and I had moved up to 4th at the end of lap 1. Just behind the top Polish guy.
I got around him just as we turned onto the open stretch on lap 2 and was about 30 meters behind the leaders. Caught them at maybe 3K in and then it was just a matter of hanging on. Momentarily I got ahead of the Finn on lap 3, again on the open stretch by the fitness equipment, and was thinking maybe I could win this. But he just took off on the first of the three hills on that lap. I was breathing hard and backed off slightly, planning to go faster on the downhill. The footing was bumpy on the up part and we had a 40 m sand trap on the down. You could run on the side but it was also bumpy and rooted. He just flew down that and gapped us by 5 then 10 seconds in no time. So it became a fight for silver and bronze between me and the Irishman.
I felt confident that I could out kick him on the final lap. He’d push the pace but I could hang on, so then he’d back down and I felt really good. On the final lap and just before the fitness equipment I put in a surge of my own, hoping to get a gap and to pursue the Finn who was up by about 20 seconds. However as we made the turn with about 1.4K to go he was right there. And so I was back to just hanging onto his surges. On the final hill with just 500 or so to go we had navigate the last sand trap. He went left I went right off to the side, trying to keep on firm ground.
Half way up I ran out of footing and stepped into the sand. And that was it. After a couple strides he had a gap and by the top of the hill 10 or 15 meters, which grew to 30. I had lost contact. I might have gained a second or two on the last couple hundred meters of downhill but it was a narrow and somewhat technical section and I couldn’t mount a full kick. Had we finished on that flat stretch I may have been able to catch him. I think our times were 30:14, 30:33, and 30:37. And 4th was about 45 seconds back. Made a bit of a tactical error at the end but really happy to get a 3rd place out of it!