Saturday 8th June 2019. Two Keswick AC runners, Carl Bell and Katie Kaars Sijpesteijn, were selected to run for Great Britain in the World Trail Running Championship, taking place in Portugal last weekend.
The route was 27.5 miles and was over a mix of technical and runnable trails. The course was really well thought about and must have taken a lot of planning. Katie Kaars Sijpesteijn was third counter in the ladies team and 31st lady overall. And Carl in his first ever World championships came home second counter in 13th overall. Carl was disappointed not to make the top ten after hurting his foot with 10k to go so wasn’t able to finish as strong as he’d hoped.
The event was extremely well executed, with over 400 international athletes taking part, and with the popularity growing, the strength of the field gets better each year. Carl commented after the event “It was amazing to race some of the big names that win a lot of the European races”. The team flew out on Thursday before the race and had time to settle in before the race on the Saturday. The weather was nice to the Brits as it wasn’t too hot, but it was a little warmer than the weather in Cumbria at around 22 degrees.
The Great British team was made up from a really good mix of people from fell runners to marathon runners.