Trail Pursuit Brecon Beacons - Ultra, Marathon, Half & 10k

Ed Flood co-founder of Trail Pursuit at the inaugural event in the Lake District In this interview series, Ahotu will be speaking with the people behind some of the most unique races across the globe. We’ll be discussing the history of the event, challenges and how to overcome them, attracting sponsors, reaching new runners and more! This month, we’re catching up with Trail Pursuit co-founder Ed Flood. With the inaugural event taking place back in May, this race was one of the first to go ahead in the UK after the most recent lockdown. Read on to get an insight into what it takes to launch a trail running festival in the midst of a global pandemic! ‍ Thanks for joining us Ed. Trail Pursuit is a new race on the UK running circuit and in the trail world, for those that aren’t familiar with your event, could you tell us a little bit about it? We launched Trail Pursuit to make trail racing accessible and fun for both new and experienced runners. Our first event took place in the Lake District in May. Our aim was to create a trail race festival with other outdoor adventures like, yoga, wild swimming and with a range of distances available, from 5k all the way up to the marathon, to allow runners of all abilities to take part. It was a special weekend which brought together runners from around the country, many of which were running their first trail race. For the more experienced runners we had some really challenging routes which took in the stunning scenery of the Lake District. We supported the Brathay Trust, a local charity focused on empowering young people with life skills and had a great range of exhibitors at the race village. The race was a real success and had a great energy, particularly given it was one of the first larger events back post lockdown! How did you get into the industry and what led to you creating Trail Pursuit? I’ve always been interested in experiences and bringing people together, whilst my co-founder David has a lot of experience organising races. We joined forces to found Trail Pursuit back in May 2020 and wanted to create an immersive experience, which wasn’t just about turning up and racing, but also spending a bit more time in the area and appreciating the great outdoors. I’ve previously organised running tours to unique destinations across Europe, but wanted to bring a new and exciting race to the UK trail scene. You launched Trail Pursuit in the midst of the biggest crises for endurance sports in recent memory, it must have been quite a challenging lead-up to the event with the turbulent nature of lockdowns across the UK. How did you handle that? In some ways, the pandemic allowed us the opportunity to launch and offer runners something to look forward to. We were lucky that our event was always planned for May 2021, so we essentially spent the whole of last year and the pandemic raising awareness and promoting the event. We rallied a great range of ambassadors and sponsors who have all been very positive and helped create a supportive community around the event. Obviously the threat of lockdowns was always there, but luckily the timing worked out well and we were able to hold the event on the planned date and offer a great return to racing experience for around 1,500 participants! All in a Covid-secure manner of course. Your inaugural event took place in the stunning Lake District, which is a hugely popular destination for Brits and overseas visitors. Where did your runners come from for this year’s edition? Honestly all over, we had runners from Brighton, Cornwall, Scotland and even some sign-ups from overseas. We also had a real mix of runners with varying experience on the trails, the age range was something like 18 – 65 for the longer distances and we even had a kids mile which brought a family crowd as well. It was really rewarding to see such a diverse audience and exactly what we wanted when we created Trail Pursuit, we want our events to be as inclusive as possible! Online feedback and reviews for your event were very positive, how did it go for you and the rest of the organising team? We were, on the whole, very pleased and proud with how the event went, especially given the extra challenges of making the event Covid-secure and managing restrictions. Of course as it was our first event we learnt a lot as well and there were a few lessons to take away from the event, particularly around managing volunteers and managing multiple routes. We had really great feedback on our half & marathon routes and the race atmosphere in particular, the overall vibe of the event was spot on. The weather definitely helped as we were blessed with sunshine for the weekend which always puts everyone in a good mood! We’re excited to see what we can do with for future events as the pandemic eases and using the lessons learned at our inaugural race. What can participants expect from a Trail Pursuit event and what kind of runners do you appeal to? Energy, inclusivity, good-vibes, beautiful scenery, challenging routes and hopefully an opportunity to share it with like-minded people. We want people to come away from our events having tried something new, made some new friends and of course having appreciated beautiful parts of the UK! Because we’ve got so multiple distances at each festival, we hope the events are appealing to both newbie and experienced trail runners, regardless of ability. Aside from Ahotu (for extra visibility and online reach), what other tools/platforms do you use? We use a range of tools, Easol is our booking platform, whilst we also use marketplaces like Ahotu, World’s Marathons, FindARace and Let’s Do This to raise awareness for new runners. We’re very active on social and use Instagram in particular to help like-minded runners find us and get involved in the community we are building. You’ve got a range of sponsors and partners listed on your website, how have you gone about finding like-minded brands to work with? If the values are aligned and there is a natural synergy then it can happen quite organically. We had a great range of exhibitors and sponsors for our first event including Exhale Coffee, Hill Country Collective, Fractel, Raven Hill Brewery and others. We are always open to working with like-minded brands and hope to continue to do so for our race festivals in the future. What is your next event on the horizon and where can people go to learn more about Trail Pursuit? (E.g. Instagram, website etc). Our next event is our Brecon Beacons Trail Running Festival on the weekend of the 1st-3rd of October. We’ve got a range of distances available from 5k up to 50 mile Ultra, with camping/glamping, yoga, workshops, music, great food and all set in the heart of the beautiful Brecon Beacons national park. Runners can check out our instagram to see what we are all about – https://www.instagram.com/trail_pursuit Thanks for your time Ed. It’s great to hear how well the first edition of Trail Pursuit went and we look forward to working with you for future Trail Pursuit events across the UK!‍ Interested in taking part? You can register for upcoming Trail Pursuit events on Ahotu – Trail Pursuit Brecon Beacons – Ultra, Marathon, Half & 10k To feature in our interview series you can drop us an email on [email protected] Interested in promoting your race with World’s Marathons or Ahotu? Contact us on [email protected]