Mountain racing is experiencing an unprecedented surge of popularity across the world. So what are the races to see – and be seen in – this year?
"When I first saw those seven runners race from the village to the 4,600 metre summit of the mountain and back in a mere 4 hours and 24 minutes, I was aghast. I thought they were superhuman. I still think the same today." Those are the words of Lauri van Houten, vice-president and co-founder of the International Skyrunning Federation (ISF) talking about the original Skyrunners – a bunch of altitude-loving, time-obsessed mountain goats from the Italian Alps – who took part in only the second official skyrunning race in 1992. The race, which she had helped organise, was a 29km jaunt up and down Monte Rosa, the second-highest mountain in western Europe, starting in the tiny alpine village of Alagna, Italy.
Twelve months previously in that same village Van Houten – who grew up in Scotland but moved to Italy after falling in love with the mountains – met Marino Giacometti, ISF president, as he raced through during an attempt on the summit. He told her about skyrunning – "where earth and sky meet", as he poetically put it – and his plans for a series of mountain races – the Skyrunner trophy. With the 2013 season now imminent, skyrunning is experiencing an incredible renaissance, as the global love affair with trail running results in an unprecedented demand for tough mountain races in wonderful locations. Van Houten is surprised – not with the all the new attention, but with how long it took. "We thought it would catch on sooner! We weren't prepared for a 20-year wait. We always believed in it and just ploughed on."
The fundamentals of skyrunning are simple: steep and technical races at altitude on some of the world's best mountains. The skyrunner world series, the ISF's world tour, contains three race categories:
• Vertical Kilometre– best described as the short, sharp shock. The runners race uphill, gaining 1,000 metres in altitude on a course of between 3km and 5km.
• Sky Series– the classics. Iconic mountains such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, with mainly marathon distance courses and a lot of steep climbing and descending.
• Ultra Series– the epics. Skyrunning's newest series, launched only last year, are races ranging from 50km to 170km in truly amazing mountain environments.
The first race on the 2013 skyrunning calendar is Transvulcania, an 83km mountain race on La Palma in the Canaries. Runners race from sea level to more than 2,400 metres along the ridge of a massive erosion crater, before dropping back down through the islands beautiful pine forests to the black sand beach once again. The views, as Van Houten explains, are "rugged, dramatic and stunning. You need to go the summit at Los Muchachos to get the real feel of the island. You're often above the clouds – with the Gamma Ray catcher and the observatories. On one side is the Sahara; the other, Florida … the weather is also split in two – on the east side it rains more and it gets less sun … all this on a 48km-long island."
If you're reading this and thinking of booking a ticket to run the race, you will, unfortunately, have to wait to until next year. The race, like most of this season's skyruns, reached its quota a few months ago. It seems the tougher the challenge, the more people are attracted too it, as Van Houten explains: "Last year, we held a seminar with some of the mountain running world's top athletes with a view to presenting skyrunning to a new generation and to get their feedback. It was a revelation. Rather than wanting more mainstream races, they applauded and welcomed the hard-core skyrunning style – steep and technical. This inspired us and gave us the confidence to continue on our path without watering the sport down to appeal to a wider target."
It's an exciting time for skyrunning in many ways. The new ultra series combined with the creation of trail-running teams by some of the biggest mountain sports brands has led to a new level of professionalism – yet the openness and camaraderie remain. Some of the sport's greatest, such as Killian Jornet and Anna Frost, rub shoulders and happily chat with the middle and back of the pack runners at the start of races – before disappearing in a cloud of dust when the start gun fires.
So whether human or super-human, skyrunning is, without doubt, one of the most challenging and rewarding ways to run. Be warned though – those long, flat road sessions may not hold the same appeal afterwards.
Robbie Lawless is the editor of runtramp.com. To read more on Skyrunning, visit skyrunning.com. To find out more about La Palma and Transvulcania visit transvulcania.com and visitlapalma.es