The day after she led Durango High School to a third-place team finish at the Class 4A state cross-country meet, senior Willow Lott boarded a plane and flew to Thailand to run in the jungle.
Lott competed in the first World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, representing Team USA in the junior women’s U20 up and downhill mountain 6K race on Sunday. The championships were held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at an elevation of 1,020 feet.
“It was super-cool; I’ve never done anything like that,” Lott said. “Being with the team and watching their dedication was super-insane. They’re incredible athletes.”
Lott was one of 37 athletes on Team USA and one of just two high school student athletes. Fort Collins High School senior Christian Groendyk also ran on USA’s U20 men’s team. On the women’s U20 team, Lott competed with Samantha Blair and Oakley Olson, with their places added together for a team score like in a cross-country race. Blair ran for Eagle Valley High School and now competes for Northern Arizona University while Olson runs for Boise State University.
“It was really cool being teammates with Samantha Blair; I looked up to her when she was in high school,” Lott said. “The whole team was D1 (athletes) except me and Christian. It was really cool to get into the more nerdy side of running. Everyone was enthralled in the world of running. Plus their level of dedication and work ethic, it was really cool to be a part of.”
The event featured five different races, including 40K and 80K trail races, uphill mountain races, and up and down mountain races for both juniors and seniors.
In the past, the mountain and trail world championships and junior races were all held separately. “They used to separate trail of mountain running until they realized they’re basically the same thing,” Lott said. “It was cool to compete in the same race as the big dogs.”
Allie McLaughlin won the uphill mountain race Friday, leading the U.S. women to a team gold medal. Adam Peterman won the 80K trail race on Saturday, leading the U.S. men to a another team gold. In the women’s 40K trail race, Kimber Mattox finished seventh to help the USA snatch a silver. McLaughlin then placed third in the up/down mountain race to help the team finish third.
The juniors also raced Sunday. The 6K course climbed roughly 748 feet in the first half, then descended the same vertical back to the finish.
“The race started and basically went straight up for a bit,” Lott said. “We went up a little mountain to a waterfall and then came down a parallel trail. … It was very loose and steep, straight up and straight down. It was definitely tough.”
Lott said her goal was to keep Blair in her sights for the first half of the race and then go from there.
“I haven’t done any events like this one, so I was feeling it out,” she said. “I felt pretty good, but it was really hot. I felt good on the ups. The downs were a little challenging. And on the final stretch, I was starting to get blurry vision.”
Lott ended up crossing the finish line in 32 minutes and 15 seconds to finish 20th. Olson placed fifth in 28:32, and Blair finished 13th in 30:00 to help the U.S. finish fourth as a team. Great Britain won the team title on the first-place performance by Jessica Bailey, who won by more than a minute in 26:27.
“It was so neat,” Lott said about representing Team USA. “Thailand was incredible. It’s kind of incomparable to anything I’ve ever done.”
Uganda, led by champion Leonard Chemutai, swept the junior men’s podium to win the team title. USA finished seventh (Michael Maiorano seventh, Groendyk 25th, Ignatius Fitzgerald 27th and Dalton Kaines 30th).
Lott has also been running with redemption on her mind this year. During the 2021 cross-country season, Lott was Durango’s No. 1 runner. At state, however, she ran with mono, which she discovered the following week. She finished 96th.
This summer, Lott then tore cartilage in her knee, the meniscus.
“Initially it was super-frustrating not to be able to train,” she said.
Lott said she switched to biking to help her maintain a base. She then improved every week during the cross-country season, and after the third or fourth race of the year she said she felt she was able to start opening her stride back up.
At the 2022 state championships, Lott finished 19th in 19:32, a time 2:34 faster and 67 places better than she ran in 2021.
“I went in with a redemption mentality,” she said. “It was fun and cool to race with the team.”
Lott plans to run a couple of cross-country races this fall, including Nike NXR in Arizona and the Garmin RunningLane cross-country championships in Alabama. She also said she hopes to run more mountain races in the future, and in college.
Her trip to Thailand is something she’ll carry with her.
“It was very supportive. There were no rivalries. We hung out with everybody, and afterward we all traded gear,” Lott said. “There was just a love of running and so much passion. It’s so difficult, and everyone was into pushing themselves. There was a ‘give-it-my-all, but happy-to-be-here’ vibe.”
