Scout Adkin takes mountain running victory at Tatra Fest

British runner continues her fine form as Paul Machoka takes the men’s win in Poland on Sunday

Tatra Fest takes place under the watchful eye of Giewont, the ‘sleeping knight’. Towering above the town is a huge massif, famously resembling a recumbent knight in armour. This, along with a 27km course with 1700m of ascent, was capable of striking fear into the runners.

It certainly isn’t a run of the mill race route. Starting in the sedate surrounding of Park Miejski, the first flat 3km could easily have lulled runners into a feeling of complacency. But once the route begins to hit the trail, and especially the climbs, they were in no doubt that they were in for a very tough day.

Adding to the already challenging terrain, including sections over 2000m and some really technical ground, the runners also had a cloudless sky and some hot conditions to contend with. And it was going to be a long day out.

Once runners completed the long, testing ascent they were on a beautiful ridge, taking in summit after summit. But they couldn’t look around and enjoy the views because this ridge had some really technical sections, along with slippy, polished rock. Aside from the first section before the climbing began and the last 7km, which was runnable and undulating, proving a test for tired legs, all the kilometres in between were very hard won.

Runners described some of the technical downhill sections as very hard to run because the surface was so hard to grip on, and the uphill sections as feeling like they were going backwards for the same reason. By the time the runners arrived at the finish line, there were some fairly stunned faces.

Women

British athlete Scout Adkin (HOKA EU) was the firm favourite for the women, but with such a technical course it wasn’t clear how much local knowledge would be an advantage. There were some very strong local women in the field, capable of challenging for the podium.

There were also strong international runners on the start, including Spaniards Florencia Milanesi (ASICS) and Maria Constanza Begliardo, plus Canadian Adele Blaise.

But straight from the start Adkin showed her dominance, slowly building a bigger and bigger gap on the other women. There was no way she was going to be caught and she took the win in 2:50:36. She adds this victory to her win at Zmeu X Fest and two second places at Vertical and Trofeo Nasego so far this World Cup.

Polish runner Weronika Matuszczak…