Durango High School senior Willow Lott will represent Team USA at the first World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, Nov. 4-6 in the mountains near Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Lott will represent USA in the U20 mountain running race – a 6.4-kilometer run featuring 738 feet of vertical gain on Nov. 6. The state cross-country championships will take place the week before, on Oct. 29, in Colorado Springs.
Three of Lott’s six U20 teammates will come from Colorado, including Samantha Blair of Eagle and Christian Groendyk and Dalton Kaines of Fort Collins.
Lott’s accomplishments that helped her get selected include her 3,200-meter time of 11 minutes, 29 seconds, and the 18:33 5K she ran last year in cross-country.
The championships will be the first time the disciplines of mountain running, vertical running and trail running will be together in one official championship event as several different governing bodies collaborated to put on the event.
Joe Gray and Grayson Murphy will headline the U.S. elite team, and both will defend victories from three years at the World Mountain Running Championships in Argentina.
The championships are expected to draw more than 900 elite athletes from 46 national federations during the four-day festival, which includes 80K and 40K trail races, an 8.5K uphill mountain race for senior athletes, and 11.2K and 6.4K classic up-and-down mountain races for senior and U20 junior athletes.
The U.S. team was selected via automatic spots earned at selection races and also résumé submissions for at-large spots.
