The highly-celebrated Ethiopian Lakes (25 April to 4 May) and Victoria Falls (10-19 August) trail runs, in collaboration with Haile Gebrselassie’s International team, have been added to the 2015 XTERRA Trail Run World Tour.
Haile Gebrselassie is one of Ethiopia’s most famous athletes with two Olympic Gold Medals and four world championships in the 10,000m – as well as winning the Berlin Marathon four times consecutively and three straight wins at the Dubai Marathon. Further to this, he won four world titles indoors and was the 2001 World Half Marathon Champion.
The Ethiopian Lakes Trail run will celebrate its fifth edition in 2015. The organizers are A.S.D. Running and Travel headed by Patrizio Bogni, Rosella Stramare, and Migidio Bourifa, a 4-time marathon champion from Italy.
“What Patrizio, Rosella, and Migidio have done in creating such an amazing trip that involves great sport, travel and adventure is something we at XTERRA felt was perfect for our ‘Live More’ lifestyle,” said Dave Nicholas, Managing Director of the XTERRA World Tour.
The locations of the runs are in the south central valley of Ethiopia near the Capital of Addis Ababa on the Rift Valley lakes. The events consist of 8-days of running/walking and travel with 4 races anda total of about 85K distance.
“The trail runs in Ethiopia and later in the year at historic Victoria Falls provide an incredible opportunity for runners to see fantastic wildlife, run with legends, and experience one of the seven natural wonders of the world at Victoria Falls,” said Nicholas.
Each day’s race will have refreshment points every 5K. It will not be a necessity to have a camelback or fluid pack, however one could be useful as at times athletes will be in sandy, dry conditions and having water will certainly help.
The trails, except Yirgalem, will not have hard climbs. In Yirgalem, most of the course is in the forest with many up and down hills, “a true trail run on the mountain,” explained Patrizio Bogni.
“A running or walking experience in Ethiopia is very special,” said Bogni. “A particular characteristic of this event is the participation of local athletes. They will become friends with our competitors and we are honoured and happy to meet them and to exchange with them our running experiences.
“The interesting thing is that they understood that trail running is not a marathon so they run fast but with an attention to the landscape and to the other runners as it is important to run but also to enjoy themselves. We will have with us, as guests, Ethiopian champions: Million Wolde, 5000m Gold Medal at Sydney Olympics Games, and Gezahegne Abera, Marathon Gold Medal at the Sydney Olympic Games and World Marathon champion in 2001.”
TEAM Unlimited is a Hawaii-based television events and marketing company, founded in 1988. It owns and produces XTERRA and in 2014 produced more than 300 XTERRA off-road triathlon and trail running races in 25 countries worldwide. In addition, TEAM TV has produced more than 300 adventure television shows resulting in three Emmy’s and 42 Telly Awards for production excellence since 1990.
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