by Stephen Granger
Cape Town trail athlete, Toni McCann, got her European summer off to a flying start with a convincing victory in the Gruyere Trail Charmey 24km race in western Switzerland on Saturday (July 17).
Recent heavy rains in the region had turned the grassy hills into mud-baths and the going was heavy underfoot. But nonetheless, the race proved a welcome opportunity for McCann to unwind just days after arriving in Europe and she revelled in the beauty of the Swiss mountain landscape.
“It was great to be out there today,” said McCann from her race chalet. “I usually find travel tiring, so it was good to shake off the travel niggles and get out there running in the hills.”
McCann had initially planned to take it easy on her first outing, but the sight of a number of Switzerland’s leading athletes at the start led to a revision of strategy. McCann took the lead from the start, going into a significant hill climb with the second pack of male athletes and finishing the race in 10th position overall in 2 hrs 39 min 56 sec, to win by 8 minutes ahead of Swiss athlete Nathalie Geiser.
“I had been fairly confident of getting a podium and thought I would not push too hard, but then I saw some of the Swiss athletes looking very professional and fast! I recognised Maya Chollet, the Swiss athlete who had beaten me in 2019 at Zegama and Dolomyths,” explained McCann. “So in my head I felt I needed to run hard, so I went out harder than I had planned.
“But in the end I felt I it was not too hard and I was not broken at the finish. Running downhill in the mud was quite something – I think that’s a skill I have yet to acquire. It felt like I was skiing downhill and I almost lost my shoes. It was not so much running, as ‘splodging’!”
McCann travels to Chamonix, France, next week, her base for the next two months, and lines up for a Vertical Kilometre race at the La Thuile Trail Run in the Aosta Valley in Italy next weekend, while fellow Cape Town trail athlete, Julika Pahl, races the 60km at the same event.
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