7 EASY STEPS to taking on, and enjoying, your very first trail race, no matter the distance

Words Claire Maxted

|| Imagine the scene. You’re trotting happily through a beautiful patchwork of olive and ochre countryside. The route is fully way-marked, criss-crossed with drystone walls and topped with a blue sky…||

Heart pounding, breathing excitedly... no this isn’t the start of a raunchy romance novel, it’s your first trail race!

Imagine the scene: you’re trotting happily through a beautiful patchwork of olive and ochre countryside. The route is fully waymarked, perhaps there's a sprinkling of sheep, criss-crossed with drystone walls, and topped with a bright blue sky… (Okay, let’s not overdo it, it’s still British summertime we’re talking about, after all).

You fall into cheery conversation with a fellow runner, walk determinedly up the hills, take several photos of the views from the highest point, and enjoy the downhill all the way into a checkpoint that’s stocked with delicious and well-earned flapjacks. The home straight round a muddy field is lined with other runners and their families and marshals all cheering you in, and you give it everything you’ve got to sprint across the finish line, grinning like a mad person. 

No one cares what time it took you, no one asks what your splits were or your heart rate stats. All the marshals handing out the medals want to know is, “Did you enjoy that?” This is because having a blast is the main aim of trail running, whether you’ve done 5K around a park or 50K over the fells.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Here’s how you can make your first trail race as fantabulous as possible.

1 PICK THE RIGHT RACE

The first step to enjoying your inaugural trail race is to pick the right one for you – and that’s likely to be one that inspires you and offers the right level of challenge. There are an overwhelming number of trail races out there, so using an online search such as Find a Race and SiEntries will help you connect with the one that’s right for you. Think of it as like Tinder without the downsides.

For your first race, go for a distance you know you can already run on roads, because the lumpy terrain underfoot and hills will make it more challenging. If you usually run 10K, look at the 10K trail races on offer. If you’re a seasoned marathon runner, you might want to start with a half marathon on trails (21K/13 miles) as sometimes, depending on the hills and the difficulty of the terrain, a trail half can take you twice as long as a road race of the same distance.