My third trail race - The Maverick Adidas Terrex Original West Sussex 2024

On the 3th February 2024 I took on my third trail race. My first one was here last year. This one didn't quite go to plan. Want to know what I mean by that? Then you must read on ⬇️

Here is some info on what was on offer:

There were 3 routes to choose from as per below. I went once again for the long route as I loved it so much last time. I knew what to expect from an elevation gain of 481m. My trail buddy Carla was joining me once again for a Maverick adventure 😜

The day before

The key info I like to know before any race is the weather forecast. Here is what Carla had to say in her own words:

"The weather forecast for tomorrow you will be pleased to know is clear, no rain lol temperature averaging 12 degrees"

My response "Phew that's what I wanted to hear for a change"

T-shirt and short was on the cards for me then 😊

Race day - the journey there

I left my house at 7:20am to head to East Croydon Station. Grabbed a coffee from Caffe Nero then headed to the platform to catch the train to Amberley. Train arrived on time at 7:53am and my first mission was to locate Carla as I got on the train. I walked through the carriages and you knew you were on the right train as there were runners everywhere. I ended up in the 6th carriage but Carla was in the 3rd. I told Carla to come to me as the train was going to split at one point and I was clearly in the right carriage. You definitely don't want to be in the wrong part of the train.

We were both very excited to take on the trails again as we enjoyed our morning coffee. We arrived just before 9am with an avalanche of runners departing the train too.

Race day - one hour to go

As soon as we entered the race village we headed for registration to pick up our bibs. I was asked if I still wanted to do the long distance and I said yes absolutely ✅ 

Next stop was the Adidas Terrex tent where we were greeted by the lovely Gina. Definitely a deja vu moment for me. This time I went for shoe trial. Check these bad boys out and they were brand new too. I was thinking they are going to get muddy later, poor trainers.

It was then time to walk around the village. Hello there medals whoop whoop

Hello there Tenzing which I just love

Pre race photos is always a given at race day to hype us all up that includes selfies and group photos.

Then some of me being different lol

Race day - Race begins "let's go"

Carla and I set off together crossing the start line with many of our friends from the lovely running community.

We were greeted by a nice incline to start with to warm us up. This was followed by an even better one. Check this one out:

At the top of this hill is where the adventure started for us both. I saw the photographer in sight so ofcourse I was ready as you can see

This is where it went wrong for us and we didn't even know then. That right turn we took was for the short route. The medium and long route was to the left. We completely missed it and there was no one even telling runners about that as what usually happens in such cases.

Anyhow we were enjoying our run not knowing what had happened. We then got to a car park and I am thinking this doesn't feel right then came the sign for the Amberley museum which I remembered when we arrived in the morning. Here is the photo I took.

We were almost at 7km and were back at the start. After talking to one of the volunteers it hit us both right in the face, we had completed the short route dear oh dear.

We didn't want to stop there so decided to run back to see where the split was and resume from there. The only problem is it would be all uphill. So we were running in the opposite direction to all runners. We had to keep saying to the runners don't worry you are running in the right direction and we took a wrong turn. I lost count of how many times we said that. It became comical and we were just laughing to start with.

We met many friends who were finishing their runs and we had to explain the mess that had happened. The answer we got from everyone about where the split was is that it happened at the food snack area. We were like we never passed that in our route. Runners were saying they got there at 7km but then we got to the finish line at 7km. It all got very confusing as you can imagine. This is how I felt

We just couldn't believe what had happened. We kept running and it was getting to us. We were determined to find this food snack area but never did. We eventually got to where the photographer was initially but there was no one around at all. All we could see were two arrows pointing to the right which is the route we initially took. We assumed we missed the food snack area somewhere along this route. So once again we went down the wrong route. I decided to play some music to get our spirits up and that definitely helped big time. We just told ourselves it is what it is and let's just enjoy it.

We could then see runners on our left coming up a hill and were just confused again. They must be doing the long route but where have they come from lol. 

We had clocked 17km at this point so asked one of the runners what distance they were on. They were at 21km with 2km to go. We decided to run a bit in the area to get some extra mileage in. Carla was thinking to phone a friend to give us some answers

She also made a new friend 

Nothing but love from me for running always

Gutted to have missed out on running through this part of the route from last time

 

Happy to have missed this though oh yea 

We rejoined the runners for the last 2km to finish together. 

Lots of comments from runners on how clean my trainers were. Remember earlier how bad I felt that the trainers would get muddy, oh well never happened. You can almost use this photo again for before and after lol

We finished the race around the 21km mark which we were pleased with considering the circumstances. It was certainly an adventure that won't be forgotton ever. A first for me in my running career in taking a wrong turn.

Here is how the route looked for me last year

This time lol. You can play the game spot the difference if you like.

As we approached the finish line we were greeted by runners cheering us on as they remembered us from earlier running past them in the opposite direction. We felt like champions hehe.

Post race photos are always a given too so check these out.

Funny photos

Nutrition

I was fueling throughout with those lovely protein rebel maple syrup energy gels

Final words

My love for trail running continues to grow. This was an absolute unique adventure to say the least and I look forward to tackling it again next year. Let's do this 😊