Dirty foreign adventures
With so many spectacular trails to choose from, it’s little wonder that more and more Aussie runners are ‘going bush’. But, even as events like The North Face 100 in the Blue Mountains attract close to 600 entrants, trail running is still largely an underground pursuit in Australia. To see what’s missing, we have looked at the competition on the trails of Europe, The United States, Japan and New Zealand.
Europe
Home of the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), Europe currently leads the pack for significant global wins and participant entries.
UTMB sprawls 166km and ascends for a total of 9400 metres from Chamonix in the French Alps, across France, Italy and Switzerland. With more than 2300 entrants and fewer limitations to entry than most American trail races, it has become the unofficial World Championship of trail. This year’s top five places all went to European runners.
Fresh from his stirring come-from behind win at the UTMB (the third time he’s taken out that race), Spaniard Kilian Jornet is currently Europe and the world’s trail running pin-up boy. His sponsors, French brand Salomon, have used Kilian’s mammoth talent and humble demeanour to promote the sport in what is proving to be an extremely savvy strategy.
Held in July, the Trail de Font-Romeu mountain festival, which has been rebranded as Kilian’s Classik, drew runners from across the world, including Paula Radcliffe, the fastest woman marathoner in history and Mo Farah, holder of six British distance records and a champion track athlete.
And now, Europe’s high peaks have spawned offshoots such as Skyrunning – a relatively new pursuit where competitors run to the clouds and beyond. Its creation can be credited to the topography of the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The recently formed International Federation for Skyrunning (ISF) has criteria for a number of race formats, including the Sky Kilometre – altitude gain must be 1000 metres and distance run less than five kilometres. Skyrunning occurs above 2000 metres, on inclines exceeding 30 per cent where the climbing difficulty does not exceed II° grade. Formats also include Sky Marathon, Sky Ultra and Sky Raid, which is skyrunning with bikes, skis or climbing gear added.
Tom Owens is a gradient-slicing young gun from Scotland, who headed to ‘the continent’ to decapitate mountains. In his homeland, running in the clouds is common practice, but at sea level those clouds are called ‘fog.’
“In Scotland we have ‘the right to roam’ – an act that allows anyone to freely access all areas of countryside for leisure. It makes for very exciting discovery runs!” explains Tom.
Also unique to Great Britain, particularly the rugged north, is fell running. In Ye Olde English, ‘fells’ are hills or mountains. Courses are marked by checkpoints, but runners choose their own path and as such, route planning, weather and navigation play a significant role.
However, it’s the variety of trails, locations and races that add to the popularity of Europe’s trail running.
“There are loads of races in Europe with amazing atmospheres and community involvement, for example, the Giir di Mont Skyrace in Italy and the Zegama skyrace in the Spanish Basque region. The support on the hill can be deafening (Tour de France Style) and the courses are ace!” says Tom. Little wonder that trail running is evolving and booming in Europe.
The United States
With a rich trail-running history, a substantial trail-racing events calendar and rugged running country, it’s no surprise that the USA has produced an array of impressive trail runners, including Scott Jurek, Ann Trason, Geoff Roes, Krissy Moehl and Dave Mackey.
One of those luminaries, elite ultra-runner Anton Krupicka – as identifiable for his talent as he is for his customised trail shoes – speaks of an American trail-running culture that lingers between self-realisation and dilution.
In the north-east, high-quality, short, fast uphill mountain racing dominates New England’s slopes. But the thin air of Colorado’s mountain ranges and endurance Mecca, Boulder, foster a greater ultra-running culture in the west. Trail running is in its fifth year of massive growth in the US with the new intake drawn increasingly to ultra-distance, particularly 100-milers.
“It’s a nice, big round number and it blows the average person’s mind that a human can travel that far under his own power in less than a day. It has excellent ‘extreme’ cachet to it,” says Anton.
But, even as sponsors rush to cash in on cachet, corporate support hasn’t caught up with many committed runners one could safely call outliers and American confidence has stumbled in 2011.
Anton tracks the affront to a significant 50-miler in San Francisco in December 2010, when Spaniard Miguel Heras of Team Salomon rolled a cluster of American stars. More recently the Hard Rock 100, run almost entirely in thin air above 3000 metres and with total ascent higher than Everest, was won by a Frenchman.
“Personally, I absolutely love the enthusiasm and fervour for our sport that the Euros bring and I think lots of North American runners would do well to look and see what the Euros are doing – very technical, very steep races – and emulate that because I think that basic mountain culture, being at home in the mountains and comfortable on that terrain, is what breeds success and enjoyment in the sport,” he says.
Most symbolic of all, the Western States 100, the original miler, was won this year for the first time by a non-American – Kilian Jornet.
Anton knows the Western States well. His 10-hour battle with Geoff and Kilian last year sparked a documentary movie, Unbreakable, and scored him the second fastest time in the course’s rich history.
“Racing the 2010 Western States is still one of my most cherished events in my short mountain racing career and that was because I had thrilling competition all day long with Geoff [Roes] and Kilian. If Kilian hadn’t been there it would’ve been a different dynamic.
“The guys at the top of the sport in America – myself included – very much welcome the international flavour that Salomon has brought to some of the more prestigious races over here. Although I think few people would admit it publicly, there is at least a small sense of ‘damn, the Salomon Euros are coming over here and beating us handily at our own game – can’t let that happen anymore!’” adds Anton.
Although he is utterly thankful for his own relationship with New Balance and highlights the contribution made to the sport by companies like The North Face, he sees a wider void in US trail.
“If we want to remain competitive we’re going to have train harder, more systematically, recruit runners earlier and all of that requires some measure of support from the outdoor/running industry.”
Anton’s own enthusiasm and fervour is also revealing. The head of his fibula is reknitting itself to once again form a bone, which has run 100 miles in just over 13 hours, climbed multiple serious podiums and laid down course records that will themselves stand for quite some time. It’s part of a leg that will again clock 20-30-hour training weeks, amassing 200-300km with up to 12,000 metres of elevation gain.
He welcomes foreign invasion for spilling fresh blood and ensuring renewed strength. He’s excited both by the new challenges of European ultra and the potential of shorter course mountain racing at home. A self-identified environmentalist, he has planned a course for America’s answer to UTMB the second that usage restrictions on National Parks are eased.
US trail running might be experiencing a nervous crisis, but judging from this runner it’s not existential at all. Rather it’s one of a culture hitting maturity and wondering what kind of grown-up it will be.
Read the full story in the new edition of Outer Edge on sale 28 September!
Words: Roger Hanney
Images: Evan McWhirter, Good Times Events
