Transgrancanaria HG is ready to live its big week of the year. This edition is the most international of the event, but this year it stands out especially because it will host the Spanish RFEA Trail Championship. The first three runners of the Advanced (64 km) will get six places for the Penyagolosa Trails HG Trail World Championships. It should be remembered that Transgrancanaria HG is in the main international and national circuits, such as Ultra Trail World Tour and Spain Ultra Cup.

Undoubtedly, this great incentive will be cited in the race much of the best spanish runners. Among them, Castellón runners Cristobal Adell, Víctor Bernad, Juanan Ruiz, Laia Cañes and Sonia Escuriola, who have the participation in the World Championship at home as one of their great goals of the season. Besides them, very prominent names of the national trail running appear in all the pools as candidates to be in Penyagolosa Trails HG, such as Pablo Villa, Pablo Villalobos, Yeray Durán, Efrén Segundo, David López Castán, Sebas Sánchez, Albert Pujol, Manuel Anguita, Santi Mezquita, Diego Manuel Camacho or Chema Martínez in the men’s category and Azara García, Gemma Arenas, Teresa Nimes, Nuria Domínguez, Montse Martínez, Melisa Gali, Noelia Camacho, Silvia Puigarnau, Yolanda Fernández or Irene Fuertes, in the female category.

The only two Spanish runners who have guaranteed their place in the Penyagolosa Trails HG Trail World Championships are Luis Alberto Hernando and Cristofer Clemente, in his condition of champion and second place in the 2017 Trail World Championship.

All the Spanish trail running focus will be in Artenara next Saturday at 10 am. Place and time at which this 64-kilometer race will start, with 3200 meters of positive height difference, which will pass through emblematic places of Gran Canaria and which will be decisive to meet six more representatives of the Spanish team that will compete in the Penyagolosa Trails HG Trail World Championships.

The Foundation for Medicine & Science in Ultra-Endurance Sports, thanks to Penyagolosa Trails HG donation, offers CSP and MiM health bibs. This will help to finance investigations and studies linked with ultra resistance sports and encourage its dissemination. From today on it is possible to collaborate with this initiative.

For Penyagolosa Trails HG, athlete’s health is a priority. The organization goes to great lengths to guaranty the security and the runner’s medical monitoring. To that end, the organization carries out numerous communication and prevention actions in health care issues. As example, in 2014 Penyagolosa Trails Saludable was born, it was developed as part of the health research projects of the Sports Service of the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. A pioneer project in national level with few international references that emerged with the aim of deepen in long distance races from the health point of view. The CSP has been a test bed to study the runner’s health improvements through psychological factors, training habits, or physical parameters, as well as the weight evolution, blood pressure, blood tests, etc.

Because investigation must be at the service of this discipline as a whole, Penyagolosa Trails HG supports the new “Foundation for Medicine & Science in Ultra-Endurance Sports“. This organism has a purpose obtain funding for global investigation projects linked to ultra resistance sports and promote the dissemination of the results achieved. The interest of a foundation to finance the investigation is to protect itself from any conflict of interest thanks to the independence created between the donors and the investigation projects.

To collaborate in this investigation funding, in 2018 Penyagolosa Trails HG donates health bibs in favour of the foundation and invites to all those who wish it to make a donation. The foundation has the exclusive management of the health bibs. Those runners interested in getting one of those bibs could make their donation through the link:

https://www.njuko.net/ussdonation/select_competition

Important: The donor, in any case, won’t be able to reimburse his/her donation neither totally or partially. From the moment that runner is registered, he or she depends on the same regulation that the other runners.

https://youtu.be/cqbSJDZt5kA

Penyagolosa Trails HG anounces the routes of MiM and CSP. In this edition, the main novelties are the startline of CSP will be from Aulas Square, three races will pass by Tossal Gros and Borriol or improving trails. These novelties join those at the general information sheet of the Trail World Championship, which it knew last week. In this way, only 100 days are left to live a historic day for the event and for the province of Castellón.

The three races have been adapted to be held simultaneously, following the guidelines of the Coordination and Safety Plan, as well as the optimization of resources and volunteers.

 

MIM

The MiM will start from the Universitat Jaume I Saturday May 12th at 7am. The race will have a distance of 60 kilometers, with 3200 metres cumulative elevation. In the twentieth anniversary, for the first time it will pass through the Tossal Gros and the center of Borriol. From there, the race will continue until Les Useres. Precisely, The Rambla-Les Useres section has been improved and will pass by trail, instead of track. Next, the runners will continue towards Torrosselles and Xodos. In the last section of the test, the part of Pla de la Creu-Banyadera has also been improved, including more paths before reaching Sant Joan de Penyagolosa. The MiM will be part of the calendar of the Spain Ultra Cup and will be scoring in the Ultra-Trail of Mont Blanc, with 4 points.

MiM Page

CSP

The Provincial Palace of the Diputación de Castellón will be the scene of the startline of CSP. This race will pass through the streets of the town at 00:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 12th. From there, it will go to the UJI and the race will take the same route as the MiM to Les Useres. From this town you will go to Atzeneta through recovered paths, such as the Camí del Piló de la Creu. The race will pass through the municipalities of Benafigos, Culla, Vistabella, Xodos and Villahermosa del Río, to end in Sant Joan de Penyagolosa. The CSP will have 108 kilometers, with 5600 meters cumulative elevation. This race will be part of the circuits Spain Ultra Cup and Ultra Trail World Tour and will be scoring in the Ultra-Trail of Mont-Blanc with 5 points.

CSP Page

TWC

The World Championship is the great novelty of this edition. The departure will be at 6 a.m. of Saturday, May 12th, from the UJI. In total, 85 kilometers with 5000 meters of cumulative elevation, which will pass through the municipal districts of Castellón, Borriol, Les Useres, Atzeneta, Benafigos and Vistabella. The best trail runners will be cited and in which the male, female and team world champions will be decided.

TWC Page

There are different novelties in the program, like that the first selections will arrive on Tuesday, May 8th. On the 10th, Thursday, there will be a parade of national teams that will compete in the Trail World Championships through the streets of the center of Castellón, in a great welcome show. On Friday, the Runner Fair will be organized again in Aulas Square, where the numbers of MiM and CSP will also be collected.

On Saturday will take place the three race and on Sunday May 13th, the awards ceremony and the closing ceremony to put the finishing touch to a sports week par excellence in the mountains of Castellón.

La celebración Penyagolosa Trails HG se convertirá en un gran espectáculo los próximos 11 y 12 de mayo. El FIB y esta prueba deportiva se unirán para organizar un macroconcierto entre las salidas de CSP, MiM y Campeonato del Mundo de Trail. El cartel aún está por confirmar, pero los organizadores han asegurado que “la esencia del FIB estará en los grupos que actúen este día”. Se prevé que sean más de diez bandas nacionales e internacionales, de las cuales, algunas de ellas han sido cabezas de cartel en las últimas ediciones del FIB.

Esta iniciativa conseguirá una internacionalización aún mayor de Penyagolosa Trails HG. Se espera que a los aficionados del mejor trailrunning se les unan miles de fibers llegados desde todo el mundo para disfrutar de una jornada que será histórica.

El festival comenzará el viernes 11 de mayo por la tarde en la UJI y se alargará hasta las 7 de la mañana, hora de salida de la MiM. Precisamente, las salidas de las diferentes carreras serán un auténtico espectáculo, ya que los corredores podrán salir con la mayor motivación escuchando a sus grupos favoritos en directo. También se está trabajando en poder hacer una zona de acampada para todos aquellos que se desplacen únicamente al festival e, incluso, en una firma de discos de estos grupos, que tendría lugar el domingo 12 de mayo, antes de la entrega de trofeos.

The Trail World Championship T-shir is now on sale at Sport HG shop. This was presented on Friday, November 24 and will be the official garment of the Trail World Championships to be held at Penyagolosa Trails HG on May 12.

The T-shirt has the great protagonist of Mount Penyagolosa and represents the official poster of this year’s event. The black color is complemented with the historical image and with the red characteristic of the marks of the Lluna Plena trail, in reference to the twenty years of the MiM. The successive steps taken by the participants of the MiM and CSP have written the history of Penyagolosa Trails. Men and women who with their effort and ability to overcome are the legends of the 21st century. Hence comes the slogan for this year, “Our history, your legend”, in the most international edition of the event.

This garment is on sale now with a price of € 30. This year, in the runner’s bag of Penyagolosa Trails HG 2018, there will not be a T-shirt, but there will be another garment. This will be present next year.

The solidarity was also present in the presentation of Penyagolosa Trails HG. The director of the event, Tico Cervera, gave to the secretary of the presidency of the Spanish Association Against Cancer, Salomé Esteller, a check for 1848€. This amount corresponds to the number of finishers of Penyagolosa Trails HG 2017.

So all the runners who participated in Penyagolosa Trails HG 2017 and who could finish the race have contributed to the fight against cancer. One euro for finisher, in total almost 1900 €.

Pictures: Andrés Núñez, Last Race Studio