"Exmoor is classed as an extreme..."
So I said that I was planning on running a few of the Coastal Trail Series events before the end of the year, however I didn't realise that I would be booked into four of the events already!! What I hadn't banked on was Ali reading the post about my targets for the year! (What a mistake...) and this being a great excuse for her to sign up for a number of them as well to fill out her full year of events - by the sounds of it there is a minimum of one per month, February to December!
The main reason for signing up for the four events was the discount you received on signing up for that many at the same time, and as we are only running a maximum of 10km per event this year (something specified by the specialist when Ali was recovering from her fractured hip after the marathon) the elevation gain on the events we could see were 'relatively' easy so should be good fun! (time will tell if I regret that statement!)
First up is Exmoor, and the thing I noticed was the classification it was given on the Endurance Life website - EXTREME! Yeah that sounds like a great one to start off with...!
Given the fact that neither of us had actually ran 10k in the best part of a year (since Paris Marathon in April 2016), going for an extreme classed event first off seems like an odd decision but to be honest I'm pretty sure that most people think that we're a bit weird with all our exercise anyway!.. In for a penny, in for a pound (and all those things!) we may as well get the difficult one out of the way and then look forward to the remainder of the events!
Exmoor (8th April)
According to some of the comments I read in the comments of the video from last year's event, if the weather is good then the scenery will more than make up for the pain endured in getting up the hills during this event... I'm quoting the Endurance Life website here -"The Exmoor course is widely regarded as the toughest course in The Series and is definitely a grueling test of endurance for even the very hardest trail and fell runners." Yippee, well let's just hope that the 10km route is on the easier bit of the course! The actual length of the route we'll be running is 6.6 miles with total elevation gain of 1,270 ft.
I've put a link to the video of last year below, just to show what views we're hopefully going to be running in, fingers crossed we will have the same great weather that they have had for the previous couple of years as I can imagine it's going to be a real grueling event if not!! Having looked at the weather for this weekend it looks like we are in luck! Nice bit of sun and possibly not too hot!!
Wish us luck, and be sure to check out my even review afterwards!
One Life - Liv 4 It, Love It
