ASICS Penyagolosa Trails has become a benchmark in the national and international world of trail running. Last year, MiM race was Spanish Championshid and, in this year, two races present a spectacular cartel of runners, so a real battle is expected on the 22nd of April .
The presence of the German Hannes Namberger, who last year won the CSP and is considered one of the best Trail runners of mundo, is one of the news in MiM race. Following in the men’s category, it must be said that he from Dynafit will be seen with runners like Miguel Caballero, 3 times MiM winner, José Ángel Fernández “Canales”, 2nd and 5th in the last two editions, Anders Kjaerevic, 3rd in 2022, and Abel Carretero, 3º in 2021. Among other favorites we find the Chinese runner Yanquiao Yun, winner last year in Val d’Aran, the Romanians Ionel Cristian Manole, who also knows what he is winning at the Pirinaic race, and Raul Butaci, the Norwegian Didrik Hermansen, winner in Transgrancanaria and Lavaredo, the Swiss Ramon Manetsch, or the Spanish Jesús Gil. Among the local runners, Vicente Calvo, who will compete in the MiM after twelve years and he is the recordman of the race. Other runners from Castellon, are Ricardo Cherta, Alex Marín, Javier Medall or Víctor Bernad.
In the female category, we can talk about the fact that the level is the highest in history. In this race repeat the four women who occupied the four first places last year: Marta Molist, winner in 2021 and 2022, Gemma Arenas, two victories in MiM and one in CSP, Mónica Vives, two podiums in MiM, and Sara-Rebeka Linde, 4ª in one participation. In addition to them, we will meet a trail legend like Oihana Kortázar, two-times winner of the legendary Zegama, and Virginia Pérez, world champion of SkySnow. These Spanish runners will not take it easy, as they will compete with some of the best runners in the world, such as the double winner in Lavaredo, Kelly Wolf, the German Rosanna Buchauer, 5th in the last Trail World Championship, the French Jocelyne Pauly, podium in UTMB and in the last championship of France, a Polish Dominika Stelmach, world record of 12 hours.
En la CSP, in the male category there are different runner from Castellon with possibilities of victory, like Ramón Recatalá, Dani Colom and David Prades. Other favourites are the spanish runner Agustín Luján or the international runners Tom Hudec, Noel Yannick, Ben Dhiman and Hirokazu Nishimura.
In the female category, the three runners who occupied the podium in 2022 will return: Eli Ríos, Eva Mesado and Claire Heslop. In addition, the return to the race of Mercedes Pila, winner in 2016, and orher faovourite runner is the italian runner Camilia Spagnol.
A great list of national and international runners that herald spectacular races. Last year we did it and we had a stellar fight between Kevin Vermeulen and Aritz Egea that was resolved in the last metres in the men’s MiM and a tough battle in the women’s between Marta Molist, Gemma Arenas and Mónica Vives, between the ones that barely had a difference of 8 minutes. In addition, we witnessed the extraordinary races of Hannes Namberger and Eli Ríos, who crushed all the records.