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14 Nov, 2016

Jan looking to do better in Asia after competitive season

After a tough competitive season Jan Bartas is looking forward to having a good run at the Asian Skyrunning Championship in Hong Kong who is entering both the VK and the 50k Ultra Skymarathon category at the MSIG Lantau50

Jan – tell us where you live and a little about yourself.

I was born and I live in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. I studied Economics in Prague and in Vigo, Spain. Now I´m working in one of the big4 companies – EY in the department of Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services.

How has your running season gone so far and are you happy with your results?

This running season started very well on Transvulcania. Although my position (27th) was worse than in 2015, I managed to decrease my time by 20 minutes even on the larger and harder track. I think, this shows the increasing competition in our sport. This race is my favourite – because of the logical track and nice weather.

The second good race was the High Trail Vanoise – technical hard route in the high Alps.

Unfortunately I did not recover well after this race and my results in the World Championship in Buff Epic was not satisfying. I didn´t have enough energy and power in my body to fight in the last part of the race.

The great experiences were Trofeo Kima and Glencoe Skyline. Between them we took amazing vacations and run the Pyrenees Stage Run (7 days, 250km, 16000m+) with my girl Zuzana.

The upcoming goal is the World Ultra Trail Championship in Portugal.

Who is your role model or do you have many people that are inspirational to you that you look up to?

Yes, of course! Because I train a lot only by myself, during the winter usually in the dark before the sunset – I really like the commercial with Michael Phelps swimming. ☺ Further I really like to watch cycling races and the heroes from the past are very inspirational – Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Gino Bartali, Miguel Indurain or Marco Pantani.

    4.                   How do you train and is it difficult or easy to get motivated and why?

I consider the long weekends runs in the mountains as a reward after 60 hours week in front of the PC screen. During the week I run or ride a bike early in the morning and during the lunch break. It is like routine and thanks to the written training plan from Nerea Martinez it is not hard to get up and train – it is in the plan, so you just wake up and train.

The hard part for me is choosing among the races during the season. There are so many beautiful events all over the world and I can´t decide. Then I run a lot of races In average performance. Next season I would like to choose some few important and focus on them.

    5.                   Is it your first time to Asia? How do you believe the difference in weather temperatures will be for you in HK to your home? (HK 14-18c in December on average). Any expectations at the Skyrunning Asian Championship – MSIG Lantau50 (VK & 50?)

It is the first time in East Asia (I have hiked in Caucasus, Iran and Kyrgyzstan before). years the freezing winter and snow came in January in Czech Republic, but this year is little bit different and there is already snow in our mountains. I hope that warmer temperatures won’t be problem. I spent some time in Spain and i like hot weather. Humidity and jet leg are making me more worried

Nevertheless, I am very excited to run there. It seems like very fast but technical race.

I have seen the results from last years and the winners were really fast. I would be very happy to finish between first five.

    Any long term goals for yourself over next few years?

I have run Ronda dels Cims two years ago and I was able to race only first 90 km. I would like to celebrate my 35 birthdays there – competing the whole race. The races I choose next season dependon the race calendar from SWS. I would love to run Transvulcania on La Palma again , in Val d’Isere and in Chamonix. Also there are some “not racing” challenges waiting – Bob Graham Round, Paddy Buckley and Ramsay Round in the UK and I would like to try something similar in Slovakia.