Penyagolosa Trails: From Ancestral Roads to Sustainable Ultra-Trail Race, between Spirituality, Nature, and Sports. A Case of Study

Dolores Botella-Carrubi,Maria Escrivá-Beltrán,Rosa Currás Móstoles

doi:10.3390/su11236605

Dolores Botella-Carrubi, Maria Escrivá-Beltrán + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11236605

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Abstract

The organization of an open-air sporting event involves a series of challenges. People are drawn by the desire to do sport, preferably in close contact with nature, so as to complement healthy lifestyles, and in search of air purity. Sporting organizations are increasingly searching for new locations that do not only attract athletes, but spectators and companions too. Races in natural parks provide the additional benefit of doing sport in a unique space, usually a transmitter of simplicity, pure air, and tranquillity. Organizing a mountain race in a natural park implies some issues. These are areas of great environmental richness that must be protected. Natural parks are places of individual recreational activity. Within the running phenomenon, a new type of mountain race has appeared: the hiking-oriented pilgrimage, in which athletes travel ancestral paths, pilgrimage routes thus combining sport practice with spirituality. This paper aims to analyse all the actions and policies that were carried out for the peaceful integration and coexistence of two totally different events that coincide physically and temporally: the Penyagolosa Trails race, and the Peregrins de les Useres, an ancestral pilgrimage that is carried out by each and every one of the towns belonging to the Penyagolosa Natural Park. The objective is to demonstrate the sustainability of the project thanks to the collective effort and the goodwill of the interested parties, in a way that produces a mutual benefit.

Highlights

The International Trail Running Association [1] defines trail running as: “a sport that takes place amid nature, and with respect for the environment, a sense of humility, shared community and a strong sense of sports ethics
To carry out this research, we chose the qualitative methodology of the case study, since it can provide an in-depth understanding of a variety of elements, facts, and processes [43,44,45]
We chose the cases of the Penyagolosa Trails and the traditional pilgrimage of the Peregrins de les Useres, which has taken place for seven centuries in the Natural Park of Penyagolosa in the Province of Castellón, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain

Summary

Introduction

The International Trail Running Association (hereafter ITRA) [1] defines trail running as: “a sport that takes place amid nature, and with respect for the environment, a sense of humility, shared community and a strong sense of sports ethics. Trail running benefits from a definition that is shared internationally by all participants”. The ITRA database shows that in 2007, the first year with published data, there were 142 races in the world. This number increased to 2510 in 2019. In the case of Spain, in 2007 there were only 13 trail races. This figure was boosted to 230 in 2019, which means eighteen times more races than in 2007.

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