Ep 49 Jennifer Elvin: five mountain wins in her first season and off to the Euros, plus will East Africans dominate the trails?
· Trail Running Ireland Podcast
Four Kenyans lined up at Zegama this year. René Borg and Eoin ask whether East Africans are about to dominate mountain and trail running the way they dominate the roads. Then Jennifer Elvin, a 2:53 marathoner who only started racing on the Irish mountains this year, talks about winning five of six IMRA races and heading to La Palma for her first European Championships.
Eoin welcomes sponsor JK Therapy and rounds up recent IMRA results.
At Zegama, where Kilian Jornet won for a tenth time, the four Kenyans finished fifth, ninth and twelfth, with one not finishing. René remembers a Kenyan winning the first Commonwealth mountain championships in 2009 but struggling in the mist at Snowdon the next year. Eoin notes Uganda's men dominating recent World Mountain Running Championships held in Europe. They compare prize money (a few thousand euro at UTMB against six figures at major marathons) and look at the hard path out of Kenya, visas, and how training built around road racing would need to change for ultras. Brands and race organisers seem happy with the current mix of nationalities, and there are open questions about build and descending. René concludes that East Africans' real secret is living like athletes every day.