Cross Country is the Queen discipline of mountain biking; without a doubt, it is the best known and practiced practice. It is an Olympic sport since 1996, and in turn, is the only mountain bike discipline present at the Olympic Games. There are multiple career formats.
Another definition speaks of ” the discipline of all-terrain bike resistance… the different terrain of the route should be used to show the technical quality (driving, obstacle resolution) and physical of the pilots (effort management with rhythm variations)”.
It is an athletics competition that takes place on an all-terrain surface where nature puts the difficulties. This characteristic requires a different preparation for the participants. The distances vary according to the event.
Cross Country is a track and field competition consisting of a race on an all-terrain surface. The distances to travel vary according to the games and the category and age of the participants.
The goal is to run the corresponding distance in the shortest possible time. The difficulty presented according to the area and the land on which it is carried out to the race as it can have rocks, mud, sand, grass, slopes, inclines, descents, etc. This requires a preparation different for the participants due to which the body has to be prepared and ready at all times to stabilize in case of stepping on a stone or suffering a slip.
What’s the cross country?
Running is an extremely varied sport. It is not limited to running in marathons and other flat races in the city. It is one of the modes of entertainment that generates the most curiosity and presents an extreme difficulty is cross country.
This version of the discipline consists of touring natural terrain, which implies that the paths are of different levels and contexts, with varied angles and unstable conditions. Unlike a run on urban streets, the number of variables present in the cross country makes the cross country a very demanding and, therefore, useful kind of exercise in achieving results.
This kind of athletic exercise is already considered within IAAF, which makes it a suitable running type and with tournaments around the world. However, standardizing conditions for cross country is impossible because of the characteristics of the terrain used. This is why the association only recommends that the tracks be covered with grass and that there be several changes of direction, although not very extreme. Also, ideally, there should be two long straight lines, one at the beginning and one near the finish line.
As for distance, and as in the other modalities of athletics, there are many. There are 12, 10, 8, and 5 k races, among others. The exercise can be done as a team or on an individual basis, but each participant needs the right equipment, among which are mainly shoes with specific soles for extreme terrain.
Cross country training is similar to other athletic races, with the addition of unstable terrain. However, this does not imply that it is challenging to perform; it can be done anywhere with natural spaces. And even if the goal is not to compete in a discipline event, it’s always good to add variety to track and field training.