World Cup Preview 2022 Part 2: Montemuro Vertical Run
The second round of this year's WMRA World Cup will take place on the 19th of June at the Montemuro Vertical Run in the municipality of Castro Daire, Portugal. For the second time in as many races, this will be the World Cup's first visit to a new country.
After hosting the Portuguese Mountain Running championship in its very first edition last year, Montemuro Vertical Run makes the leap to join the WMRA World Cup as a Gold Label race in 2022. If you think that sounds like the trajectory of an ambitious organiser, you'd be right; big things are happening with mountain running in Portugal, and in Castro Daire in particular.
"We are very excited and proud of the inclusion of the Montemuro Vertical Run in the World Cup," said Pedro Pontes, of the race organisation. "This project is the result of work that the Municipality of Castro Daire has been developing in Mountain Running, together with the Portuguese Athletics Federation and local associations."
There is a big push underway to promote the area's potential for mountain sports, both running and cycling. This began with the establishment of (Per) Correr Castro Daire, a local circuit consisting of 8 races in 2022, and has shown remarkable progress year on year. The municipality once again hosts the Portugese championship in 2022, this time in the up and down format, on the 5th of June.
"We have created solid foundations," says Pontes, "but they are also the start of a future project that aspires to make Montemuro a training center for great European teams.”
In addition to all that, a second WMRA World Cup race, the Silver Label One Hundred Douro-Paiva, will take place in early July in the neighbouring municipality of Cinfães, just the other side of Serra de Montemuro.
The Montemuro Vertical Run starts at 434m in Parada de Ester, just above the Paiva River. The opening kilometre takes the runners through the streets before they turn left, heading north toward the summit of Montemuro. This where the climbing really begins in earnest and athletes get little or no respite as it goes on more or less continuously to the finish at 1,317m.
All in all it is 9.6km, 980m+ and 106m-, putting the race in the Classic Mountain category. The times to beat from last year are Rui Muga's 50:55 for the men and Joana Soares' 56:13 for the women. With a World Cup field lining up alongside Portugal's finest it's sure to be a fast, fast race.
Visitors looking for an easy pre- or post-race run might try the Pombeira Trail, a roughly 10 kilometre circuit beginning at the church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, before in taking the mountain achitecture of the hamlet of Codeçais and the beautiful Vidoeiro river.
Although the town is relatively small (the population of the municipality as a whole is 15 thousand), Castra Daire has a large number of restaurants where runners might refill their legs after a hard effort in the mountains. All tastes are catered for with a range from traditional Portuguese cuisine to every mountain runner's perennial favourite, pizza.
The closest major airport is Porto, from where Castro Daire can be reached in 90 minutes by car or by bus or train with connections in Viseu or Régua.