Pictures!!!

Hey Everyone,

Here are some great pictures from our fun in Switzerland...more will be coming soon. Enjoy!

http://wvflyers.zenfolio.com/p715600123/

Maria

Pictures from the 2007 WMRT

Some 2007 Race pictures have been uploaded to the website. Go to http://www.usmrt.com/photos.html to see them. If you took any pictures there that you wouldn't mind sharing, email me at pkirsch@roadrunner.com and I can give you access to the Picasa account to upload them directly to the site.

-Paul Kirsch
USMRT Website Guy

On Cloud Nine

Hey Everyone,

The past 4 days have been a fantastic blur of events. I can't even begin to describe how much fun I had in Switzerland. It started with a terrifying ride up a mountainous road of switchbacks for 10km on Thursday and ended with a painful long run of 20km this morning. Between that time I experienced the hardest race of my life, a silver medal, crazy europeans and lots and lots of cheese. Right now I'm in Italy recuperating with my relatives but will post pictures and details of my experience soon. I want thank Nancy, Dave, Ellen and Rich as well as all of the sponsors of the USMT for an unbelievable first trip to Europe representing the United States. I also want to thank my coach Sean Cleary for giving me the chance of a lifetime.

Ciao from Italia,

Maria Dalzot
Women's Junior Team

WMRT 2007 - Anna Lieb

I am very excited to be here in Switzerland! The race today was grueling, but my Colorado training paid off. After gasping past ski lifts, rasbery bushes, and enormous bell-wearing cows, I placed fourth and the Junior Women`s sped to a second place silver medal finish. My legs are sore, but I found the energy to hike to the after-race banquet and dance, and back again. Tomorrow its back to the US, math homework, and the usual routine, but its been an amazing experience here with the team in Switzerland!

Anna Lieb
Women`s Junior Team

WMRT 2007 - Alex Jodidio

Hi everyone,

the world trophy race was very tough !!!!! Runners from 24 countries in the Junior men's race and about 80 runners . The race didn't start so fast, i was very anxious to run this race. I wasn't to well on the 1 st lap . I finished 59th in 43 mins , this was a very good experience! i am glad that the race is over . The women's and the juniors ran really well ! 1st by team and 2 nd by team in Juniors. Thanks to Dave ,Nancy,Richard,Ellen and all the sponsors for there support.

Alex.J
Men's Junior Team

WMRT 2007 - Zach Rivers

Howdy from Switzerland,

Well the race was not that great for me, I placed worse than last year, 63rd. I got a side sitch half way during the race and could`nt race as hard as i wanted too and got paced by more than 40 people which was not good at all. But over all it was a great time and I would love too come back to Switzerland again, or mabye Poland...hahaha. We made some Poland girls as friends and wish we could spend more thime with them because they are very cool girls.

Zach Rivers
Juinor Mens Team

WMRT 2007 - Christian Thompson

Hello all. The race today was very tough. I started out conservative and then tried to pick people off. The downhills were very very steep. Although I usually do not do well on the downhills I did very very well on the hills. The race is an awesome experience. I ended up 17th overall and finished in 38:25. I was very happy that I did beat the top women Anna Pritrova. Both women teams did very very well. The jr women placed 2nd and the senior women won. The men had a much tougher day but it was still and awesome experience. Hopefully in 5 or 6 years I will be able to make the senior and kill myself on the 3 loop courses.

Christian Thompson
Junior Mens Team

Teva US Mountain Running Team scores two team and one individual medal at the world mountain running trophy.

For the first time in the history of US mountain running the team took home two team medals as the women's team repeated with a Gold medal performance and the women's junior team scored silver. In addition Laura Haefeli took home the first ever women's individual medal with her third place finish.

The day of racing over the 4KM course with 1000 feet of climb and descent commenced with the junior women. The field of 53 of the best mountain runners under the age of 20 sprinted out of the sport stadium in the mountain town of Ovronnaz. The Teva US team was led by Anna Lieb who took fourth place in 21:23 missing silver by just 17 seconds. The race was won by Lara Tamsett of Australia in 20:48. Maria Dalzot ran 21:48 to place eight. Kathryn Helmerick took 30th place in 23:45 in the field which featured runners from 22 countries. In the junior women's competition the top two runners score. The team took second place with 12 points. The field of 17 full teams was led by Australia with 4 points. The women were excited to be the first us junior team to medal. Dalzot was happy with her result and noted ^`I m looking forward to 2010, I want to come back on the senior women's team.

The second race of the day under brightening skies and rising temperatures (between low 60s to mid 70s) was the junior boys which consisted of the same 4K loop run twice. The team was led by Christian Thompson in 17th place, running 38:25. The top finisher was Geoffrey Kusuro (Uganda) who led the field of 76 runners representing 24 countries. Jonny Stevens was the second US finisher taking 44th in 41:19. Alex Jodidio was 59th in 43:06 and Zach Rivers took 63rd in 44:20. The team scored 120 points (three athletes score) to place 11th in the field of 16 complete teams.

The third race to be contested was the senior women's which also consisted of two laps of the 4K course. Laura Haefeli led the US team taking third in 41:19. Anna Pichrtova was the overall winner in 39:11. Christine Lundy finished 8th in 42:23 followed closely by Rachael Cuellar in 12th place in 42:40. Anita Ortiz finished 31st in 44:29 in the field of 86 runners representing 30 countries. The team bested 19 other full teams to take the Gold with 23 pints (three score) and for the second consecutive year beat the Czech Republic by one point.

The final race of the day was the senior men's, which featured three grueling laps of the 4k course with a total of 3000 feet climb and descent. 145 runners from 34 countries toed the line. Marco De Gasperi (Italy) a former world champion as both a junior and senior runner was again victorious and a crowd favorite as his Fan Club was out in full force. De Gasperi ran the three lops in an amazing 51:49. Six time world champion Jonathan Wyatt who was not competing while recovering from a recent injury called the course VERY TOUGH.

The Teva US team was led by by Payton Batliner who placed 25th in 56:13. Shiloh Mielke was 37th in 57:10. Rickey Gates and Clint Wells closed out the team scoring finishing in 57th and 58th respectively, both with 58:43. Simon Gutierrez was 65th in 59ö04 and Paul Low was 118th place in 1:04:36. The team placed 9th in the field of 25 complete teams.

Dave Dunham
Team Manager for Juniors
Teva US Mountain Running Team

WMRT 2007 Results

Here are some quick results from the races here in Ovronnaz:

Senior Womens Team Wins GOLD for the second straight year. Laura Haefeli finishes 3rd. Junior Womens Team wins SILVER - 1 point ahead of Turkey. Anna Lieb - 4th place, Maria Dalzot - 8th place. Senior Men finish 11th of 25th. Payton Batliner - 25th place. Junior Men finish 11th of 16 teams. More to follow soon......
Richard Bolt
Team Leader
Teva US Mountain Running Team

Ovronnaz, here we come!

Hey Everyone,

Almost one week until the Championship; I can't believe it! I am getting very anxious to leave and can no longer concentrate on my school work. I have been going to bed early every night to make the time adjustment easier. Last night lights were out by 8:45. My goal is to work my way down to at least 8:30 so that I can sleep most of the time on the plane.

My training has gone very well leading up to the race. I will hit around 67 miles for the week with a solid 3 x 2 mile workout on Tuesday. This afternoon I will head up to the ski slopes one last time for a challenging hill workout before flying out on Tuesday.

I wish everyone safe travels, and I look forward to meeting you all on Thursday.

Cheers,
Maria

Flagstaff Mountain

Today I ran from Balch Fieldhouse to the top of Flagstaff Mountain. Sort of a last tune up workout before hand. The rest of the team went up to 8500 feet and went for a medium distance run on the Switzerland Trail. I felt really good going up Flagstaff. A couple of spots I kind of got lost and at the top I wasnt sure if it was the very top but I am pretty sure that it was. I ended up running from the trailhead to the top of Flagstaff in 18:36. I came down 3 minutes slower because I took a wrong turn. The whole run ended up being around 75 minutes. I really wanted to keep my breathing the same the whole way up because I usually have the problem of going too hard at the bottom of the hill and dieing towards the top (did that in NZ). I really got it down now. So I accomplished what I wanted to do today on the run. I am very excited for the race. I leave for Switzerland in exactly 1 week. It will be a fun trip.

-Christian-

WT Ovronnaz, pictures.

Hi everyone,

here are some other pictures of Ovronnaz, see you soon....

Alex

It has been a while.

Howdy,
So for the past um... long time since i blogged I have been up to the usual training and all. Hit 63 miles last week with three hard days, one being a 200,200,400 workout with the 400's being arounf 65, and 200's around 32. Another workout was repet miles on our xc course, this mile is half up half down, with the first mile in 5:13 and the rest in 5:17. The final workout out was a fartlek around a soccer field, 4min hard 3min easy, the 4min hard pace was around 5:17-5:20 for the whole thing. So that week went pretty well. As for my training at Bristol Mountain it has been going great, I have dropped more than a minute on the 1.5mi accent, and have started to go down the hardest decent on the mountain to get my legs ready for that. Long run is up to about 14 miles normally at 6:15-6:20 pace. I am getting more and more excited for the race as every week goes by with better and better training. Welp I will blog again soon.

Zach Rivers

Long time no blog

Hello all. I hope that everyones training for worlds is going great. My training has been going pretty good. Its been so nice training with people every day and so many people that are so much better than me. The CUXC team went to Grand Lake for 3 days for school started for a camp and that was a lot of fun. We would do runs around 9000ft so its definately getting me prepared for Worlds. Today we had our annual time trial at the Buffalo Ranch. I ended up 13th overall and 9th on the team. I ran 27:15 for 8k and ran my last mile in 4:48 even though its the easiest mile haha. We had a couple of our top runners that were injured that didnt run today but the team did awesome. I also had no clue that Kathryn was going to CU until yesterday. She also ran today and ran awesome. I am very excited for worlds its goingn to be an awesome time. Good luck to everyone with their training and flights over to suisse.

-Christian-