From Road to Trail: A Runner’s Transition

My origins in running, like most who started in their early teens in the 80s, were at school on the track and cross-country. Both were actually very similar. The track races were on a standard, lime-marked, 400m grass track and the cross-country was on 2km circuits marked with chevron bunting on, you guessed it, a grass field.

All I ever wanted to do was run on the road and as soon as I was old enough to be able to run in the weekend ‘league runs’ there was no holding me back. Combined with the fact that my finishing kick on the track was not the stuff of legend, comedy maybe, and this made the longer distances on the road my target and I focused on working on my PBs in the various distances.

Then came triathlon, which, until recently was only a tar-based activity and my roots, if I can use that analogy, are firmly on the ‘black-top’.

Then appearing out of the mists of the 21^st Century… came trail running. Having reached that time of life where the PBs had to have an age addendum attached to them, I thought this was the perfect thing for me. A reasonably fast road runner with a background in cross-country, trail running seemed the perfect fit.

Even though there was no pressure to run a spectacular time, I still wanted to compete. I soon realised that trail runners are a different breed when I was the only guy warming up before my first trail race. I was also the only runner to bust out of the gates at what I considered a good clip for someone of my… seniority. Trail runners are more passive aggressive. They don’t like to show that they are racing but they are racing. Testimony to that was that I didn’t win that first trail run even though I had about 100m lead after the first 200m.

Then there is the whole course marking issue. In cross country we run from bunting to bunting along the obvious track between two markers. Not trail runners… Midway through another trail race, I turned a marker, looked up, spotted the next one which was joined to the one I had just slalomed, by a neatly cut single track. I then ran along said single-track (often referred to as sweet I believe) to reach my next waypoint. Now this sweet single-track curved in a gradual arc to the next bit of tape and as I glanced across the boggy field to my right, I spotted half the field behind me, charging sometimes knee deep in mud to cut the apex. Is that not cheating?

Another course marking adjustment that someone who is used to marshalls with flags and kilometre boards has to make, is well… the lack thereof in most trail events. A bit of chalk here, a bit of tape on a branch there and that’s a well-marked course? I won’t mention how many events that I have done where I have ended up wandering aimlessly trying to find my way back to civilisation. On returning from the wild, I confront the race organiser and the most common reply is, “hey, you got good value for money.”

Which brings me neatly to my next point, cost (you see, I do plan these stories, they aren’t just wild rants). Why do trail races cost so much to enter compared to road runs? You shake a few farmers hands, ride out on your mountain bike with a pot of chalk and a pocket full of ribbons and voila! I must admit I don’t know what the going rate of chalk and ribbons is but I’m sure they are not as dear as municipal road authority and paid marshals?

Then, my final point of contention about trail running from a roadie’s perspective – if I wanted to hike, climb or crawl, I’d enter an obstacle or adventure race. Trail run means running on trails no? I can’t even begin to recall how many trail runs I have finished looking like I have been beaten with thorn branches like an unwilling participant in some sort of bush initiation. Or where my carefully colour-coordinated moisture management top has been ripped to shreds so that it is almost impossible to see the care I took in matching it with my designer, square cut shorts, which are now covered in, what I hope, is mud!

Let’s keep it clean people!