In a discipline that seemed to have lost momentum in recent years in France, the large number of high-profile trail runners lacing up their cross-country spikes this year, and their subsequent success, has brought on an influx of interest from the running community.
Although they have some similarities, trail running and cross country are totally different disciplines. Cross-country races are shorter, with distances usually falling somewhere between 2.5 and seven miles, and usually consist of numerous loops of a course. The terrain is mostly grass, interspersed with small but sometimes steep hills. This results in a fast and fiercely competitive race, requiring nerves of steel and clever tactics.
Cross country unites runners from all backgrounds — from cross-country specialists to road, track, trail, and triathlon racers. The cross-country season allows trail runners to vary their training over the winter months, see how they fare against different athletes, and have some fun with their team in the mud.
The French Cross Country Championships take place over two months in 2025, starting on January 12 and finishing on March 2. It consists of four stages: departmental, regional (quarterfinal), inter-regional (semifinal), and national championships (final). The national championships are one of the highlights of France’s running calendar, drawing in over 10,000 spectators across the weekend. Each stage features a short-format and long-format course, separated into a women’s race, a men’s senior race, and a men’s masters race. Here, we look at results from the long format, which is around 6 miles (10 kilometers) for the men and 5.5 miles (9k) for the women.
Blandine L’Hirondel racing the 2025 French Cross Country Championships finals. Photo: Mathieu Masbernard
Looking at the names of trail runners who ran in this year’s league, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was the line-up of a prestigious ultramarathon and not, in fact, an intense 30-minute showdown in a field. For the women, it was UTMB course record-holder, Katie Schide (U.S.) and two-time trail world champion, Blandine L’Hirondel who stole the spotlight, finishing second and fifth respectively in the national championships.
On the men’s side, trail runner Emmanuel Meyssat took second place in the masters’ final.
In the regional championships held in the Alps, 2023 Les Templiers winner Julie Roux took second in the women’s race, while 2024 European trail champion Clémentine Geoffray, and Anne-Lise Rousset Séguret took third and seventh places respectively in the women’s race. Rousset Séguret’s impressive trail resume includes placing second to Courtney Dauwalter at the 2023 Hardrock 100 after leading for much of the race.
In the men’s senior race, Thomas Cardin, also the 2024 European trail champion, took fourth place. Benjamin Roubiol, runner-up to Cardin at last year’s European trail championships, took sixth while reigning UTMB men’s champion Vincent Bouillard was eighth.
Other well-known trail runners who participated in at least two races were Maryline Nakache, Théo Détienne, Sylvain Cachard, and Germain Grangier.
Thomas Cardin competing during the 2025 French cross country season. Photo: Ben Exbrayat
Trail and Cross Country: A Winning Combination?
So why do so many trail runners participate in cross-country races, and what makes them so successful at this race format? I caught up with Blandine L’Hirondel, Maryline Nakache, and Thomas Cardin to learn more about their reasons for competing in the cross-country season.
Blandine L’Hirondel: “I Love the Cross-Country Atmosphere”
L’Hirondel’s impressive performance in cross country is a testament to her versatility as a runner. Arriving late to the running scene in her mid-20s, she has risen quickly through the ranks in the past eight years, with numerous national and world trail running titles, including world champion in 2019 and 2022. In 2023, she placed third at UTMB in her first 100 miler, and in 2024, she took third in Les Templiers.
L’Hirondel says that her main reason for participating in the cross-country season is that she loves the atmosphere at the races, adding: “the diversity of the athletes, and the family spirit make it really special.”
She uses cross country to integrate low volume, high intensity training during the winter months, before returning to the trails in spring. “It’s really important for ultrarunners to work on their speed,” she reasons. “All of the best runners, for example, Katie Schide and Jim Walmsley, are also really fast over shorter distances on the flat.” Although she lives in the Pyrenees, in the southwest, L’Hirondel chooses to return to her native Normandy in the northwest of France for the cross-country season. It’s a chance for her to reconnect with friends and family and run for her local club — a social and team aspect she feels can be missing in trail racing.
L’Hirondel won her inter-regional cross-country race this year in a highly disputed race to the finish line, just four seconds ahead of second place. Her fifth-place finish (fourth French woman) in the final follows on from her third-place finish in 2023. This year’s course in Challans, on the west coast, came after a dry spell, meaning that the course was less muddy and, therefore, a lot faster than L’Hirondel had anticipated — not ideal for a trail runner used to slower, more technical terrain.
Despite course conditions not best suited to her, Blandine L’Hirondel ran a strong race at the 2025 French Cross Country Championships finals. Photo: Mathieu Masbernard
L’Hirondel explains, “I came into the race after a solid training block ready for the mud and the hills, so when I saw the course for the first time, my confidence took a blow.”
However, on the day of the race, despite a violent “head over heels” fall in the first mile, after which she had to fight her way back to the lead pack, and a course “more suited to a track or road runner,” L’Hirondel was more than satisfied with her performance. “I didn’t let any negative thoughts take over,” she recounts, “and I was able to use my endurance to stay near the front, just losing out in the final sprint to the third-place French runner.” She finished just five seconds behind bronze medalist Jeanne Lehair, and 39 seconds behind the winner, Olympic triathlete Léonie Periault.
L’Hirondel is now looking ahead to her next races: Transvulcania in May and the Mont Blanc 90k in June.
Thomas Cardin: “Cross Country Develops My Mental Toughness”
Thomas Cardin, coming out of an exceptional 2024 season in which he won just about every trail race that he participated in, including Les Templiers and Sainté-Lyon, also uses the cross-country season to reduce his training load over the winter. Cardin started running around 10 years ago and went straight into trail running. “I still have a lot to learn about the sport,” he tells us, “and cross country allows me to work on my speed and discover a discipline many other runners experienced as children.”
Unlike many trail runners living in the Alps, Cardin doesn’t switch to skiing during the colder months. With the mountain summits out of bounds due to snow, cross country has become an important part of his yearly training plan. He believes that it positively affects the rest of the season, explaining that “the cardiovascular benefits from the cross-country training stay with you for the whole season.”
Speaking about how he balances his preparation for cross country with trail running, he explains that he prioritizes quality and polyvalence over quantity, sticking to a mix of speed sessions and hill work throughout the year: “In the winter during cross-country training, I do two speed sessions on the flat, and one on the hills. During the trail season, I inverse the sessions, with one on the flat and two on the hills.”
Cardin participated in the first three races of the league, coming in first in the Isère department, fourth in the Alps region, and eighth in the inter-regionals. He says that the extremely high density of top athletes in the races allows him to work on both his physical form and his mental strength, knowing that there will always be someone ahead of him. “However successful you are on the trails,” he says, “you’re rarely going to win in cross country, so it’s a great mental exercise.”
Thomas Cardin placed eighth at the inter-regional level in the 2025 French Cross Country Championships. Photo: Ben Exbrayat
He ended his cross-country season abruptly after his inter-regionals, explaining, “I was fed up with training on the roads. The weather was getting better, so I wanted to get back on the trails around my house and get stuck into the approaching competition season.” Since the inter-regionals, Cardin has already run and won the Trail du Ventoux 46k. Next up for him in 2025, among others, are the Marathon du Mont Blanc and Les Templiers.
Maryline Nakache: “Cross Country Helps Boost My Training Load”
Maryline Nakache also had a great 2024 season, taking second place in the Diagonale des Fous and 16th at UTMB. She takes a different approach to the cross-country season to Cardin and L’Hirondel, using the races as speed training sessions at the end of high-mileage weeks. She even ran a 29k trail the day before the inter-regional race. Nakache doesn’t enjoy the highly competitive atmosphere at the races, telling me, “There’s too much pushing and elbowing” for her liking. However, like L’Hirondel, the club aspect is a source of motivation, and her team clinched first place in the season opener in Opio on the south coast.
Maryline Nakache (bottom) with her team on the podium at the 2025 French Cross Country Championships finals. Photo courtesy of Maryline Nakache.
Nakache’s training tactics seem to have paid off. Less than two weeks after her final cross-country race, she lined up at the start of the Transgrancanaria, where she took fourth place. She’s now deep into training for the Marathon des Sables, a race she’s previously won, which takes place at the beginning of April.
Why Are Trail Runners So Successful in Cross Country?
L’Hirondel and Cardin evoked a certain satisfaction regarding trail runners’ success outside their usual territory. Both have sometimes felt frustrated by the seemingly widespread misconception that trail running is just “glorified hiking” and that athletes spend most of their time strolling through the mountains. They feel confident that the flood of podiums from trail runners participating in cross country, all the way up to the inter-regional level, with two women in the top five of the national cross country championships, will help make this portrayal a thing of the past.
Irrespective of how you view trail running, Schide and L’Hirondel are fast runners by any definition. Both athletes ran personal bests in the 10k at the end of last year: 34:10 for Schide and 34:42 for L’Hirondel — made more impressive considering that this event is a fraction of their specialty distances. However, on paper, compared to French cross-country champion Léonie Periault’s 31:45 best for 10k, or even the sixth-place finisher in the finals, Olympic marathon runner Méline Rollin’s 32:38 (both set in January 2025), you’d be forgiven for not expecting Schide and L’Hirondel to position so well on such a flat, fast course. It shows that cross country is far more complex than it might appear, with a wide range of factors affecting performance.
On the men’s side, Cardin judges that the competition is denser in cross country than in other disciplines of running, and although we saw some excellent results in the earlier stages of the season, he doesn’t believe that a trail runner could ever take the title in the French championships. “Our bodies are primed for running in the mountains over very long distances,” he says, “and we have extra muscle weight that limits our speed over shorter races.” That being said, Cardin says that the results of trail runners in this year’s cross-country season demonstrate their surprising capacity for speed and their versatility.
Scientific studies concerning trail running are scarce, but I did find one paper from 2023 (1) comparing the running metrics of elite male road runners versus trail runners. It was found that while trail runners had similar strength to road runners, their power output was higher. Perhaps this could be an advantage in cross-country races, which feature variations in speed over difficult terrain. Even though cross-country hills are much shorter than those found in most trail races, they still present a physical and mental challenge.
Running coach Nicolas Martin, speaking on the Le Trail Qu’on Aime podcast (2), says that cross-country training and racing are excellent tools for improving your V̇O₂ max through low volume, quality sessions. When it comes to the races, it’s not the relative time or speed that’s important but the ability to fight for your place at the finish line. Trail runners are used to running by perceived effort rather than pace, perhaps giving them an edge over track and road athletes when it comes to racing cross country.
The 2025 French cross-country season was probably the most successful yet for trail runners. It’s a rare and fascinating opportunity for fans of the sport to see stars pitted against runners of other disciplines and a chance for the athletes themselves to see where they stand in comparison. For Cardin, L’Hirondel, and Nakache, it certainly seems to be paying off.
Now, with all eyes back on the trails, it’s time to see what this new season will bring.
Call for Comments
- Do you race cross country?
- How do you find it fits in with trail running?
References
- “Elite Road vs. Trail Runners: Comparing Economy, Biomechanics, Strength, and Power” by Frederic Sabater Pastor 1, Thibault Besson, Marilyne Berthet, Giorgio Varesco, Djahid Kennouche, Pierre-Eddy Dandrieux, Jeremy Rossi, and Guillaume Y Millet
- “Le Trail Qu’on Aime” podcast, episode 14
