Colorado Springs mountain runner Tommy Manning will compete in the World Mountain Running Championships on Sunday in Albania.

Manning, a teacher and cross country coach at Fountain Valley School, recently finished second in the Pikes Peak Ascent and Pikes Peak Road Ascent. He is sponsored by Inov-8 and the Colorado Running Company.

Here's the latest from Tommy:

So my hotel is in a beautiful location.  We’re staying in Durres, right on the Mediterranean Sea.  We’re about a half hour west of Tirana which is where the race is.  You can see the Sea from the front lobby and the water is only about 100 yards from the back door.  I’m in kind of a resort area because you can see hotels and beach for about a mile in either direction.  We ran on the beach for a little bit last night, but I don’t like running on the sand so I opted for a firmer surface.  We went to Tirana to view the course today. 
The course is a 4+ km loop through the Botanical Gardens in Tirana.  It is a very dry course and is mostly open space.  There is very little area of trees which is bad because of the heat and the dust.  Sunday afternoon race temperature is supposed to be 94 degrees. 

Tommy Manning video interview from Pikes Peak Road Ascent

Tommy Manning interview following 2010 Mountain Running World Champ...

The start of the race is in a grass field and while it is slightly up hill, it is the flattest section of the course.  Unfortunately, the starting line is only about 100 yards wide, which is not nearly wide enough, and funnels to a dirt road within about 100 yards.  This will make for a very congested first turn on the road.  We gradually climb through a rolling first mile on the dirt road before hitting the single track.  The single track consists of a lot of soft dirt and also rolls up and down for a while before hitting the half-mile long ‘staircase’ and steep last pitch.  The race officials have cut steps into the side of the hill to make the section runnable.  The last part has to be at a grade of at least 15%. 
Just after the peak, we run downhill through a very uneven, steep section, which is basically a steep ditch.  Footing is very difficult in this 300 yard to quarter mile long section.  Most runners will have to take this section slow, but the more brave runners will try to fly.  It will be dangerous because we are all going to be on wobbly legs after the steep ascent and it will be a slow transition to downhill. 
The majority of the downhill is on dirt road after that and should be fast.  About a half mile down the dirt road, we come to the first of two very steep short descents off of the road.  These sections are loose rock, not quite scree, but more like running down a sand dune.  We run on the road again for a while and then hit the second of the short, steep, loose rock descents.  It should be cool to race down those sections and would definitely be interesting to watch. 
We finish the loop by running on the dirt road back down to the first turn of the race.  The women will turn into the finish line after their second lap and the men will turn after three laps.  The total eleveation gain is published to be 206m (about 680 feet) and was measured to be almost 1000 feet by GPS.  GPS devices are not always accurate with elevation, so we do not know what the true elevation gain change is. 
That’s it for now.