In a self-discipline that appeared to have misplaced momentum lately in France, the massive variety of high-profile path runners lacing up their cross-country spikes this yr, and their subsequent success, has introduced on an inflow of curiosity from the operating group.
Though they’ve some similarities, path operating and cross nation are completely totally different disciplines. Cross-country races are shorter, with distances normally falling someplace between 2.5 and 7 miles, and normally encompass quite a few loops of a course. The terrain is generally grass, interspersed with small however typically steep hills. This leads to a quick and fiercely aggressive race, requiring nerves of metal and intelligent techniques.
Cross nation unites runners from all backgrounds — from cross-country specialists to highway, observe, path, and triathlon racers. The cross-country season permits path runners to differ their coaching over the winter months, see how they fare towards totally different athletes, and have some enjoyable with their group within the mud.
The French Cross Nation Championships happen over two months in 2025, beginning on January 12 and ending on March 2. It consists of 4 levels: departmental, regional (quarterfinal), inter-regional (semifinal), and nationwide championships (ultimate). The nationwide championships are one of many highlights of France’s operating calendar, drawing in over 10,000 spectators throughout the weekend. Every stage incorporates a short-format and long-format course, separated right into a girls’s race, a males’s senior race, and a males’s masters race. Right here, we have a look at outcomes from the lengthy format, which is round 6 miles (10 kilometers) for the boys and 5.5 miles (9k) for the ladies.
Blandine L’Hirondel racing the 2025 French Cross Nation Championships finals. Photograph: Mathieu Masbernard
Trying on the names of path runners who ran on this yr’s league, you’d be forgiven for pondering that this was the line-up of a prestigious ultramarathon and never, actually, an intense 30-minute showdown in a subject. For the ladies, it was UTMB course record-holder, Katie Schide (U.S.) and two-time path world champion, Blandine L’Hirondel who stole the highlight, ending second and fifth respectively within the nationwide championships.
On the boys’s aspect, path runner Emmanuel Meyssat took second place within the masters’ ultimate.
Within the regional championships held within the Alps, 2023 Les Templiers winner Julie Roux took second within the girls’s race, whereas 2024 European path champion Clémentine Geoffray, and Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret took third and seventh locations respectively within the girls’s race. Rousset Séguret’s spectacular path resume contains putting second to Courtney Dauwalter on the 2023 Hardrock 100 after main for a lot of the race.
Within the males’s senior race, Thomas Cardin, additionally the 2024 European path champion, took fourth place. Benjamin Roubiol, runner-up to Cardin ultimately yr’s European path championships, took sixth whereas reigning UTMB males’s champion Vincent Bouillard was eighth.
Different well-known path runners who participated in not less than two races had been Maryline Nakache, Théo Détienne, Sylvain Cachard, and Germain Grangier.
Thomas Cardin competing in the course of the 2025 French cross nation season. Photograph: Ben Exbrayat
Path and Cross Nation: A Successful Mixture?
So why achieve this many path runners take part in cross-country races, and what makes them so profitable at this race format? I caught up with Blandine L’Hirondel, Maryline Nakache, and Thomas Cardin to study extra about their causes for competing within the cross-country season.
Blandine L’Hirondel: “I Love the Cross-Nation Environment”
L’Hirondel’s spectacular efficiency in cross nation is a testomony to her versatility as a runner. Arriving late to the operating scene in her mid-20s, she has risen shortly by way of the ranks previously eight years, with quite a few nationwide and world path operating titles, together with world champion in 2019 and 2022. In 2023, she positioned third at UTMB in her first 100 miler, and in 2024, she took third in Les Templiers.
L’Horondel says that her foremost cause for taking part within the cross-country season is that she loves the environment on the races, including: “the variety of the athletes, and the household spirit make it actually particular.”
She makes use of cross nation to combine low quantity, excessive depth coaching in the course of the winter months, earlier than returning to the paths in spring. “It’s actually necessary for ultrarunners to work on their pace,” she causes. “The entire greatest runners, for instance, Katie Schide and Jim Walmsley, are additionally actually quick over shorter distances on the flat.” Though she lives within the Pyrenees, within the southwest, L’Hirondel chooses to return to her native Normandy within the northwest of France for the cross-country season. It’s an opportunity for her to reconnect with family and friends and run for her native membership — a social and group side she feels will be lacking in path racing.
L’Hirondel gained her inter-regional cross-country race this yr in a extremely disputed race to the end line, simply 4 seconds forward of second place. Her fifth-place end (fourth French lady) within the ultimate follows on from her third-place end in 2023. This yr’s course in Challans, on the west coast, got here after a dry spell, that means that the course was much less muddy and, subsequently, so much quicker than L’Hirondel had anticipated — not excellent for a path runner used to slower, extra technical terrain.
Regardless of course circumstances not greatest suited to her, Blandine L’Hirondel ran a powerful race on the 2025 French Cross Nation Championships finals. Photograph: Mathieu Masbernard
L’Hirondel explains, “I got here into the race after a stable coaching block prepared for the mud and the hills, so once I noticed the course for the primary time, my confidence took a blow.”
Nonetheless, on the day of the race, regardless of a violent “head over heels” fall within the first mile, after which she needed to battle her approach again to the lead pack, and a course “extra suited to a observe or highway runner,” L’Hirondel was greater than glad together with her efficiency. “I didn’t let any adverse ideas take over,” she recounts, “and I used to be in a position to make use of my endurance to remain close to the entrance, simply dropping out within the ultimate dash to the third-place French runner.” She completed simply 5 seconds behind bronze medalist Jeanne Lehair, and 39 seconds behind the winner, Olympic triathlete Léonie Periault.
L’Hirondel is now waiting for her subsequent races: Transvulcania in Could and the Mont Blanc 90k in June.
Thomas Cardin: “Cross Nation Develops My Psychological Toughness”
Thomas Cardin, popping out of an distinctive 2024 season wherein he gained nearly each path race that he participated in, together with Les Templiers and Sainté-Lyon, additionally makes use of the cross-country season to cut back his coaching load over the winter. Cardin began operating round 10 years in the past and went straight into path operating. “I nonetheless have so much to study concerning the sport,” he tells us, “and cross nation permits me to work on my pace and uncover a self-discipline many different runners skilled as youngsters.”
Not like many path runners dwelling within the Alps, Cardin doesn’t swap to snowboarding in the course of the colder months. With the mountain summits out of bounds resulting from snow, cross nation has turn into an necessary a part of his yearly coaching plan. He believes that it positively impacts the remainder of the season, explaining that “the cardiovascular advantages from the cross-country coaching stick with you for the entire season.”
Talking about how he balances his preparation for cross nation with path operating, he explains that he prioritizes high quality and polyvalence over amount, sticking to a mixture of pace periods and hill work all year long: “Within the winter throughout cross-country coaching, I do two pace periods on the flat, and one on the hills. Throughout the path season, I inverse the periods, with one on the flat and two on the hills.”
Cardin participated within the first three races of the league, coming in first within the Isère division, fourth within the Alps area, and eighth within the inter-regionals. He says that the extraordinarily excessive density of prime athletes within the races permits him to work on each his bodily type and his psychological energy, figuring out that there’ll at all times be somebody forward of him. “Nonetheless profitable you’re on the paths,” he says, “you’re hardly ever going to win in cross nation, so it’s an amazing psychological train.”
Thomas Cardin positioned eighth on the inter-regional stage within the 2025 French Cross Nation Championships. Photograph: Ben Exbrayat
He ended his cross-country season abruptly after his inter-regionals, explaining, “I used to be fed up with coaching on the roads. The climate was getting higher, so I wished to get again on the paths round my home and get caught into the approaching competitors season.” For the reason that inter-regionals, Cardin has already run and gained the Path du Ventoux 46k. Subsequent up for him in 2025, amongst others, are the Marathon du Mont Blanc and Les Templiers.
Maryline Nakache: “Cross Nation Helps Enhance My Coaching Load”
Maryline Nakache additionally had an amazing 2024 season, taking second place within the Diagonale des Fous and sixteenth at UTMB. She takes a unique strategy to the cross-country season to Cardin and L’Hirondel, utilizing the races as pace coaching periods on the finish of high-mileage weeks. She even ran a 29k path the day earlier than the inter-regional race. Nakache doesn’t benefit from the extremely aggressive environment on the races, telling me, “There’s an excessive amount of pushing and elbowing” for her liking. Nonetheless, like L’Hirondel, the membership side is a supply of motivation, and her group clinched first place within the season opener in Opio on the south coast.
Maryline Nakache (backside) together with her group on the rostrum on the 2025 French Cross Nation Championships finals. Photograph courtesy of Maryline Nakache.
Nakache’s coaching techniques appear to have paid off. Lower than two weeks after her ultimate cross-country race, she lined up firstly of the Transgrancanaria, the place she took fourth place. She’s now deep into coaching for the Marathon des Sables, a race she’s beforehand gained, which takes place in the beginning of April.
Why Are Path Runners So Profitable in Cross Nation?
L’Hirondel and Cardin evoked a sure satisfaction relating to path runners’ success exterior their common territory. Each have typically felt pissed off by the seemingly widespread false impression that path operating is simply “glorified climbing” and that athletes spend most of their time strolling by way of the mountains. They really feel assured that the flood of podiums from path runners taking part in cross nation, all the best way as much as the inter-regional stage, with two girls within the prime 5 of the nationwide cross nation championships, will assist make this portrayal a factor of the previous.
No matter the way you view path operating, Schide and L’Hirondel are quick runners by any definition. Each athletes ran private bests within the 10k on the finish of final yr: 34:10 for Schide and 34:42 for L’Hirondel — made extra spectacular contemplating that this occasion is a fraction of their specialty distances. Nonetheless, on paper, in comparison with French cross-country champion Léonie Periault’s 31:45 greatest for 10k, and even the sixth-place finisher within the finals, Olympic marathon runner Méline Rollin’s 32:38 (each set in January 2025), you’d be forgiven for not anticipating Schide and L’Hirondel to place so properly on such a flat, quick course. It reveals that cross nation is much extra advanced than it would seem, with a variety of things affecting efficiency.
On the boys’s aspect, Cardin judges that the competitors is denser in cross nation than in different disciplines of operating, and though we noticed some wonderful leads to the sooner levels of the season, he doesn’t imagine {that a} path runner might ever take the title within the French championships. “Our our bodies are primed for operating within the mountains over very lengthy distances,” he says, “and we’ve got further muscle weight that limits our pace over shorter races.” That being mentioned, Cardin says that the outcomes of path runners on this yr’s cross-country season display their stunning capability for pace and their versatility.
Scientific research regarding path operating are scarce, however I did discover one paper from 2023 (1) evaluating the operating metrics of elite male highway runners versus path runners. It was discovered that whereas path runners had related energy to highway runners, their energy output was increased. Maybe this could possibly be a bonus in cross-country races, which characteristic variations in pace over troublesome terrain. Regardless that cross-country hills are a lot shorter than these present in most path races, they nonetheless current a bodily and psychological problem.
Working coach Nicolas Martin, talking on the Le Path Qu’on Aime podcast (2), says that cross-country coaching and racing are wonderful instruments for enhancing your V̇O₂ max by way of low quantity, high quality periods. In relation to the races, it’s not the relative time or pace that’s necessary however the capacity to battle to your place on the end line. Path runners are used to operating by perceived effort somewhat than tempo, maybe giving them an edge over observe and highway athletes in the case of racing cross nation.
The 2025 French cross-country season was in all probability essentially the most profitable but for path runners. It’s a uncommon and engaging alternative for followers of the game to see stars pitted towards runners of different disciplines and an opportunity for the athletes themselves to see the place they stand as compared. For Cardin, L’Hirondel, and Nakache, it actually appears to be paying off.
Now, with all eyes again on the paths, it’s time to see what this new season will carry.
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- Do you race cross nation?
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References
- “Elite Street vs. Path Runners: Evaluating Economic system, Biomechanics, Energy, and Energy” by Frederic Sabater Pastor 1, Thibault Besson, Marilyne Berthet, Giorgio Varesco, Djahid Kennouche, Pierre-Eddy Dandrieux, Jeremy Rossi, and Guillaume Y Millet
- “Le Path Qu’on Aime” podcast, episode 14
