Five takeaways from the World trail Champs
by Doug Stewart
Last Friday I attended the World Trail and Mountain Running Championships in Innsbruck, to support two TMR Athletes that were representing their countries in the 85km course.
Being unable to crew them, due to not being linked to their respective national federations, gave me more time to watch the events unfold.
Here are some key observations from the event.
TMR Athlete Catalin Sorecau represented Romania at the World Championships
1. The depth of runners is increasing, but overall there were huge variances in abilities across nations. It was great to see so many countries racing across the various race distances. However, the range in finish times for an ‘elite’ event was vast. In more developed endurance sports, such as marathon running or triathlon, there are obviously still gaps between nations, but they are much smaller than was evident here. There was also a significant difference in the size of teams. Some countries such as France, Spain and the US had filled all 6 available positions in their teams, whilst other countries only fielded one or two athletes. Moreover, the size of the support teams was reflective of the investment, again with the French and US teams having a large number of support staff.
2. Trail and mountain running is a growing sport, and this year’s event in Innsbruck was bigger and by all accounts slicker than previous editions. The next event is in Spain in 2025, and I expect to see this grow still further. Linked to point 1, we will certainly see the depth of runners improve and hopefully the gap will close between the fastest and the slowest runners.
3. The sport is getting more and more professional. This year brought YouTube Live Streams, commentary in multiple languages, and a week-long event in the centre of Innsbruck. It was clear that the impact of the UTMB races and their approach has had a huge influence on the World Championships. However, it did feel like the commentators were not quite at the level of some of those that do UTMB. The live video was good, but again felt a little behind that of the UTMB, as did the live tracking system. However, I am sure they will again improve by 2025.
4. The athletes that knew the course were able to use this to their advantage and race it better. Doing a recce is key for a brand new race route, where so little is known about the terrain. Some runners on the long course were aiming for a race time an hour faster than the winning time ended up being! The TMR Athletes had recced the course and both had expected times that turned out to be accurate. This allows for better pacing, better race planning such as fuelling, and importantly, not being impacted negatively, when you realise that your expected race time has elapsed and there are still 2 hours left to run.
5. Pacing is key. In both the female and male long course (85km) race, the early race leaders slipped back and were eventually passed by their competitors. This may in part be linked to team tactics, but it did not appear to be. It may be linked to point 4 above as well, and not knowing the course. But then also having confidence in your race planning, your race nutrition, and not racing another runner’s race.
It is exciting to see the sport of trail and mountain running progress and become more and more professional. It’s also great that we all can learn from some of these runners’ strategies and mistakes, and include these lessons in planning going forward.