Severn Challenge

As an organised and expensive event this was very very disappointing. Yes it’s difficult terrain and a great distance but this is achievable with training. What didn’t help here was the inadequate support by a lone “Marshall” if you like who provided very limited and cheap quality food at each check point for people who had been up super early and for a long periods between check points. There was an atmosphere created that seemed to be in favour of people failing to complete rather than succeeding. Perhaps this was to create the illusion that this was super difficult and thus exclusive. Accommodation was poor, single man tents that for a 6 foot person were just too small. Issues over the size of kit bag you were allowed for a 5 day event were also prevalent. There were times when we were lost due to poor or non existent way markers be they removed or just not visible. If anything should have happened then medical support would have been non existent. One man supporting 5 runners is not enough and I would suggest a danger to those runners if the worst should have happened. At one point the tracker we were supplied with on days 1 & 2 was not given to us on day 3. We had been running to a plan and thus conserving ourselves for the 2 long days. However due to not being able to track us the organiser disqualified us without foundation for his assertion that we “knowingly left the path”. Also the organiser being asleep when you get to his check point is not acceptable. His disqualification was a bit rich when the path was almost impossible to follow at times anyway, for reasons including inaccessibility, no signage, getting lost or taking a detour off the path to use a toilet and then getting back on the path! We ultimately did this unsupported and at our own expense. It was fine for us after we were no longer constrained by a single person who couldn’t support very fast runners and those slower ones. It was the slower (but still within time limits) that were culled. Never have I run in events where support has been so negative, so “cheap” or disorganised. And never will I use this company for any event ever. If you want a better experience, download the route yourself, arrange stops and overnight accommodation yourself and it will be cheaper and a far better, epic event. I have competed in multi stage events before and they were excellent in comparison to this. The organiser arranged everything around his needs and not those of his paying customers. For a gross fee of circa £2500 for the 5 full competitors I fail to see where this was actually spent given the low quality of it all. And lastly the T-shirt is awful and if you get your medal after each stage then you will have been better off than we were! Wrong medal on day 1 no medal on day 2! An absolute shambles. We completed this event for MIND and as we had been sponsored we decided to carry on regardless. We completed this event and finished behind the first finisher, the person in second place wouldn’t have made the 4mph required however this fact was overlooked.

The last leg of The Severn Challenge was undulating and a good test of my ability to self navigate through poorly marked tracks....I would not recommend this company due to their lack of pre race information, inability to track me whilst out on course (raising real safety concerns), and the ‘one person’ at the checkpoints clear lack of interest in wanting to support me - for £70.......I expected more!