Considering the way mountain runner Tommy Manning's year had gone, it's understandable that he hesitated before registering to run in last week's World Masters Mountain Running Championships.

But with the deadline hours away, Manning said yes.

Good decision. On Saturday, the 37-year-old Fountain Valley School teacher ran to the top of the world at Janske Lazne ski resort in the Czech Republic, winning the difficult 8.6K race in 37 minutes, 44 seconds.

The course was perfect for Manning,  a light, wiry runner who excels in up-hill events. He galloped through the first few rolling kilometers, then ripped the legs off the field of 500 as the course began a savage climb.

"That was right up by alley," Manning said.

The second-place runner finished three minutes behind him.

"I've had a couple of races recently where people have caught me in the last mile or two," he said. "I definitely didn't want that to happen. The last two K (kilometers) I was sprinting as hard as I could go. I had no idea I had a three-minute lead."

His split time for one tough kilometer was 6:07, about 10 minutes per mile.  

With 200 meters to run, exhausted from the wicked pitches of the mountain, Manning realized he was alone and that the world championship would be his.

"That's got to be the coolest thing," he said. "I could tell by the (reaction of the) fans that there was nobody behind me. It's kind of shocking. It's like holy cow, did I really just win this race?"

Runners 35 and older can run as masters in World Mountain Running Association events. There is no qualifying, so anyone able to rach the starting line can compete.

Though younger runners - many of whom Manning has beaten - weren't in the race, he hopes the win marks the end of a nasty bad-luck streak which began when he twisted an ankle at the 2012 Pikes Peak Ascent.

"And it happened on the least-technical part of the whole course, I hit the only rock on the trail," Manning said. "That was the worst day ever."

His training took a nose dive, with patches of momentum crushed by the aches in his foot.

January was better, but he was sick in February. In March, school commitments derailed any comeback attempt.

"My season really didn't start until March, and then I was working on getting in shape," Manning said. "That's usually when I start concentrating on racing."

He won The Big Mountain Trail Run Half Marathon in Colorado Springs in early April, then struggled in two races at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. He won at the Run to the Shrine, with its big ascent, then bombed the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run. At the U.S. Mountain Running National Championships, he missed qualifying for the U.S. team for the first time in four years when he fell and never recovered. He had hoped to do Pikes Peak, but missed the deadline registration. That's a tough year.

"I was out of shape," Manning said. "Mentally, I was out of shape, or just getting old, maybe a little burned out. When you are running bad, it's hard to keep it going."

He isn't done with 2013, yet. He wants to take a stab at the USA Half Marathon Trail Championships in Moab, Utah. Then he'll look at 2014 with a shiny world championship title on his resume.

"It's a world championship, but it is for old guys, so, little disclaimer there," he joked.