Trail Mix | What fruit best describes you as a trail runner – a slow-burning banana or an all-show, no go dragon fruit?
- Are you at every race like the common apple or are you more obsessed with selfies like a pineapple?
You have to be a little bit bananas to consider running hundreds of kilometres through the mountains fun. From the outside, trail and ultra runners look like a group of nuts. But in reality each runner is berry different from the next but the differences make them the apple of each others’ eyes. But what fruit describes you as a runner:
The slow-burner: Banana
Don’t underestimate this runner. They’re low key and blend into the pack, and may even sit a fair ways back at the beginning of races as they take a conservative pacing approach. But they’ve got a big store of energy that can sustain them for hours at a consistent pace, and when push comes to shove they’ll find that oomph to finish with a bang. The non-bananas might think they’ve left the bananas in the dust, but when they tap into that last reserve, they’ll come up from behind and give you the slip.
The speed demon: Grapes
Life can be unfair. While most trail runners, after years of plodding along for miles and miles on end, have not much speed left to speak of, the grapes among us somehow manage to effortlessly switch gears and transform themselves into speedsters, à la road and middle-distance runners. Their stride is long and smooth, at once bounding and gliding. They can whip out a sub four-minute kilometre easily and hold it steadily – after many kilometres of running up and down mountains. Like grapes, they pack a punch.
