Trail Pursuit Recenzje 76

Joined the Trail Pursuit events in the Lake District, Brecon Brecon, and most recently Norway. Great events, fantastic experiences, and met some awesome people there. Fully recommend to anyone who loves adventure!

What a fantastic experience!!

I took part in the lakes event in May and it was one of the best sporting events I have done in a long time. I love a challenge and I definitely got that. I would highly recommend trail pursuit and I will 100% be back at another event.

This was an incredible trip! I loved every minute! Amazing views and landscapes, challenging, beautiful hikes and the kayaking was awesome! We stayed in an amazing variety of accommodation and the food was plentiful and delicious! Can’t recommend enough! Thank you guys! I’ll be booking again! X

A truly wonderful trip,well organised with very supportive and knowledgeable guide who helped push me on a hard hike on the 1st day and then a much more steady hike/run/kayak the rest of the trip,I’ve recommended trail pursuit to my friends and will be booking on more myself in the future

Took my mom to Norway with TP for her birthday. We were with a group of 12 lovely strangers, great crowd. Absolutely fantastic trip. Mind blowing scenery. Camping and cabin experiences were so authentic and off beaten track. Highly recommend.

Just returned from an epic 5 day adventure in Norway hiking, trail running and kayaking from Gudvangen into the breathtaking Sognesfjord with a wonderful group of people. Brilliantly organised with great overnight huts, camping and homestay and led by our fantastic guide Craig_outdoor who cooked amazing food for us too. Ed Flood kept us well informed before and throughout the trip and is super organised. An enjoyable balance of activities in gorgeous scenery.

Trail Pursuit claims to be an ‘inclusive community for all levels of runner’. After the utter shambles of the routes (the focal point of any trail event), organisation, and not to mention the festival facilities (no recycling, feed stations not as described, very few route marshals etc.), I will not be participating in future Trail Pursuit events and will not be recommending them to fellow trail runners, beginners or otherwise.

After a poorly advertised and last-minute route change, just days before the event, the marathon became a lapped 50km ultra at almost double the originally advertised level of elevation. It was a brutal, extremely technical ‘run’. Not to mention the poor route markings which led to trashing of the heather.

Roughly only 10% of marathon runners made the mid-route cut-off. Despite having trail running experience, sadly I was not one of those. Runners tried to make the best of it, but a lot of the terrain was incredibly steep and un-runable which was very disappointing. This has been difficult to come to terms with, having spent the past 6 months training very hard on the trails and getting psyched for my first marathon.

My partner and I expressed concerns prior to the event after making the discovery of the route change. Our message was left ‘read’ and ignored. Incredibly poor communication from the organisers and a shocking attitude towards runners’ safety.

Since the negative reaction following the event, Trail Pursuit have deleted comments and feedback from Facebook and Instagram, as well as removing the ‘Reviews’ section from their Facebook page in its entirety in what they called a ‘pause on socials whilst we recalibrate’. This practice is in itself incredibly misleading.

I attended the Trail Pursuit Lakes festival weekend 27-29th May 2022 and ran the half marathon. I am an experienced trail runner and hill walker, and former outdoor activities instructor. The whole event was a complete shambles. The route was dangerous, it was not the trail running event that was advertised as 'inclusive' and 'suitable for beginners'. The route covered technical high fell terrain, included an 'off trail' route through environmentally sensitive healthier and peat. The mass start meant runners were queuing up steep paths. The figure of 8 course meant that there were marathon runners trying to pass half marathoners going in opposite directions on a steep path. The route was advertised as suitable for dogs and dogs were mixed in with the rest of the field of runners; it was definitely not suitable. The route included a section which required bouldering skills to get up a gulley. My most serious concern was the lack of marshals, inadequate feed/water station, located 4km later than advised, and lack of safety communication, in an area with no mobile reception. Trail Pursuits were lucky there were no serious injuries and that the weather was good. At the finish line they didn't even provide water. Some runners on the half marathon route took over 12 hrs to complete, the 10km took over 7hrs to complete, less than 5% of the entrants for the marathon completed the full distance. This is not the fault of the runners. The problems continued at the festival site, we were required to pay extra for a shower pass when booking, only to find there was an inadequate number of showers, and half of them not working. They promoted the festival as sustainable, and showed a COP26 film on the Friday night, but there was no recycling on site.
Even worse is it appeared from other comments from people at the event that the previous two Trail Pursuits festivals also had similar problems, and that they clearly haven't learnt from their mistakes. Trail Pursuits also seem to be deleting negative comments from their facebook page.

As an experienced Trail Runner I found the TP Lakes 2022 half-marathon route ok at best. I was willing and able to take on the last-minute changes to distance and elevation, and the views were incredible. Unfortunately it seems that for the majority of people the experience was far worse. Having waited a week to post this review, it has been obvious that Trail Pursuit have been removing and even editing negative reviews and comments on their social accounts. They appear to have done the same after previous events rather than using the feedback to improve. It is a shocking and arguably fraudulent business practice. Trail Pursuit's official apology statement for the Lakes 2022 race states "We were faced with a difficult decision to cancel the event or move forward with the proposed routes" showing that they prioritise profit over safety.

My issues with the route included:
- Being stuck in a queue of 100s of people for the first 5 miles. I expect bottlenecks on trail races but being put on a route with no overtake opportunities for so long was the most frustrating race experience I'd ever had.
- Inaccurate route description. The distance and elevation advertised after the route changed last minute was incorrect. The route was longer and had more elevation.
- Feed station further away than advertised. I had to share water with my buddy as he had planned his quantity of water based on where the feed station should have been (and we hadn't expected to spend so long in a queue).
- Not suitable for beginners. Trail Pursuit's mission statement is "To provide a unique trail running race experience for all levels of runner". The GPX route on Komoot (who sponsor the event) is described as "Expert run. Very good fitness required. Sure-footedness, sturdy shoes and alpine experience required."
- Poorly marked route. Several people took wrong turns and race marshals were seldom seen on the route.

I can't pretend I didn't start to enjoy myself after the queuing stage of the race. I have experience on the fells, the weather was amazing and the Buttermere Valley is one of the Lake District's most stunning backdrops. Unfortunately the danger people were place in impacted the typically positive post-race vibe. It's the only finish line of a race I've seen where the mood has been dominated by concern for loved ones rather than jubilation.

It's also worth mentioning that Trail Pursuit has the following sustainability statement:
"Our priority is to improve our positive impact, whilst reducing the negative impacts on the environment & local communities"
This is a clear example of greenwashing. The number of environmentally damaging practices on display at the festival were numerous.

Would not recommend.

Entered a marathon last Saturday the 28th May 2022, Weekend Away With My Friend , I do not recommend trail pursuit many bad reviews on Facebook but have been deleted still quite a few bad reviews, I can honestly say what a nightmare dangerous route as they changed the route 3 days before the event was very unsafe narrow and dangerous and unsafe for dogs eg , took me over 12 hours to get back down with help of trained medic mountaineer last 4 miles, I dropped down from the full marathon to the half marathon I was so glad to get back on ground I do not recommend trail pursuit lots of complaints please please don’t enter any of trail pursuit races they didn’t even know who had finished who hadn’t finished no risk assessment health and safety