“Good downhillers have an advantage in this race” – Sara Alonso’s Champs Tips for Calamorro Skyrace 

Time to get ready for the first race of the series, Calamorro Skyrace, and who better to help us do so than the reigning champion Sara Alonso.

Sara, team Asics, stormed to the finish line in 2022 with a winning time of three hours eight seconds – a pretty impressive time for the 27,5 km course with 2,270 meters of elevation gain.

Here, the 2022 female winner tells us about last year’s win and provides this year’s racers with some advice on how to tackle the fast and technical course.

“Last year I ran the Calamorro Skyrace, a really beautiful race that in just 27 km has more than 2000+. It has three climbs and three descents and almost no flat or road meters!

The Hardest thing about the race…

is that the course doesn’t give you any time to rest. It’s fast and hard from the start. Moreover the downhills are extremely technical with many rocks, so you have to be 100% focused at all times!

For the climbs, the first one is the most technical and the hardest one, but the last one is when you are more tired and it is also the longest – maybe also because by then you are so exhausted!

What’s more important – a strong uphill or a fast downhill?

Of course it’s important to push hard on the climbs and get ahead. The uphills are long and steep and therefore good climbers can use this as an opportunity to get ahead early on. With that being said, I think that the good downhill runners have an advantage in this race. Mainly because the race finishes in the town and the last descent is the most technical one so if you lose a position here, there are no more opportunities to get it back.

For training I would suggest these 3 things:

1. Train for speed – Although the race is mainly ups and downs, it is important to train speed because it is a fast and short race so you have to get used to also getting your heart rate up and keeping it there. It’s pretty runnable and it’s possible to run the whole course (except the first climb).
2. Train for heat – One important thing to remember is that the race is in the afternoon and in the south of Spain. This means hot and dry so make sure you’re used to higher temperatures and take lots of water and electrolytes.
3. Train for a third climb and descent – Normally races have one or two bigs climbs, but this race has three… so remember to keep energy for that last climb and don’t allow yourself to bonk after the second descent because there is still one uphill and downhill to go!!

Lastly, good luck to everybody! The race is awesome and a lot of fun and there’s always a good party also! The environment is great and I wish you the best, even though I’m a little jealous not to be joining this year!”