“The path of Nepalese trail runner Mira Rai’s life must be about as statistically improbable as winning the lottery, getting struck by lightning, or something equally obscure,” says Meghan Hicks in her review of the 42 minute film on iRunFar.com. She has a point and doesn’t it just make for an uplifting story? Lloyd Belcher and Mira […]
Great Himal Race – The Ultimate Trail Documents in English 1. GHR 2017. Parcours Coureurs 45 jours 1. Great Himal Race 2017. Runners Registration Form_English Photo It’s so long! Look at the itinerary! « The race you can see from the moon… » (Avril – Mai 2017) Day 1. (31-03). Départ de Paris (50 m) […]
Mira’s work is done and Lloyd has nearly completed the editing, with the help of Shashank who’s been translating between English and Nepali and back again. The film is set to be around 42 minutes and it tells the remarkable story of Mira Rai who found trail running by chance and almost within a year of […]
If you want to do some big training days, or be a tourist in a different way, ask Upendra to guide you on some runs around the Kathmandu Valley. Upendra is currently getting his official guide licence. It is a tedious process requiring six-weeks attendance to classroom-based classes on guiding. Of course he is learning […]
Congratulations Upendra – a long deserved win. This years MSIG course was longer then 2015’s Asia Skyrunning championships, with very different conditions: it rained and was slippery underfoot, and Upendra was running with an ankle sprain sustained a week earlier in Kathmandu. “Sunuwar,” reports SCMP, “who lives 100 kilometres outside of Kathmandu, works as a trail running guide […]
Where to go running in Kathmandu? Would be great to have a library of trail running or hiking routes to follow on your smart phone (if you have one) or to print and take with you. Here’s a start, gathered from many GPS tracks recorded by many people. There are many more great running trails […]
If you are coming to Nepal to trek in the next few weeks, and you plan to, or have thought about taking diamox, please consider helping this study. First, check the email to the right from the study team from Utah University (note that it says Everest Region only). Find out more about diamox here […]
Mira comes from a remote village, fairly typical of rural villages across Nepal. As night comes, there’s maybe a little bit of solar light, some candle or oil lamp light and light from the fire in the kitchen area. Dim and limited would describe it. Mira took one of these solar lights home with her […]
Climbing (or trail running) mountainous ranges can be exhilarating as well as a dangerous experience for those who dare. Depending on individual capacity, altitude sickness can appear in mountain climbers any time between 8000 to over 12000 feet above ground level. Often at times, altitude sickness is dependent on the climbing speed of the individual […]
Congratulations to Bed and Bishnu Maya for great performances in Hong Kong this weekend. It’s Bishnu Maya‘s fourth and fifth trail races and her second 50km event. She looked pretty beaten up at the end, but that can be expected from Michael Maddess’s hilly Lantau course with the awesome-crazy 900m Dog’s Teeth climb. And she […]
The hardest part for Nepali trail runners is getting to the start line. There are few races in Nepal that offer real learning experiences for elite runners. To get the the top as a trail runner, you have run with the best trail runners. Roger Henke explains it well at the end of this blog […]
Manaslu Trail Race 2015 – words and images by Mark Brightwell The race starts in gloomy greyness at Soti Khola, 700m above sea level and flanked by the roaring waters of the Bhudi Gandaki. We will follow this river to its source at the snout of a glacier below the towering twin summits of Manaslu […]
UPDATE: Bishnu got a visa, and is flying to Hong Kong on 02DEC! It’s nice, we’re filling in the visa application form together. “It’s beautiful,” she says, thumbing through the pages of the passport. Phunchok from the Himalayan Children’s Foundation is observing, nodding. Bishnu Maya is staying at the home they have with nearly 100 […]
Home! Finished in 49:55hrs. Thanks every one for the messages and good wishes. And huge thanks to Mark Brightwell for running with me all night and listening to me hiccup for the last 6 hours. I’m hitting the shower and then bed. #Team7Hills Congratulations Seth. This is 50 hours of effort with no sleep. Great […]
“The stupid Official Volunteer directed Kiran to turn right instead of straight towards the dam. He thought the route might have changed, but they ended back at the starting point losing 1 hr 5 mins,” said coach Ramesh Bhattachan, “While going downhill Ras slipped and hurt his right thigh. Anyway they carried on till Check Point 8 Tai […]
Note: since 2019 there is a race along part of this route!! See Gosaikunda to Helambu Trail Race for map and GPS tracks. Our decision to walk from Dhunche to Kathmandu over the Tihar weekend was based partly on aesthetics and partly on pragmatism. Aside from the undeniable beauty of the Gosaikunda lakes and the spectacular […]
Happy news. It has long been known that Nepal has some fantastic trail runners that are world class, but they lack opportunities to compete. Travelling out of Nepal to race is simply expensive. Enter our hero Matt Moroz and China Mountain Trails. Matt first came to Nepal for the Mustang Trail Race. There he met […]
It’s not an official ISF sanctioned Vertical Kilometre race, but fulfils the criteria and is beautiful to boot. Hard work though, because of the altitude – from about 3500m to 4800m, we’ll update with the GPX track data later. But here are some of the photos from that stage of the Manaslu Mountain Trail Race […]
As trail runners we can certainly spend a moment to reflect what we can do with our legs and what that means for us. We can probably also try to image what suffering a serious injury or loss of a limb might mean. This happened to many people at the time of the earthquake, who were hit […]
This is a fundraiser to help restore Nepal’s damaged heritage sites. This is a great idea, to sell wonderful historic prints from the Nepal photography archive, and Peace Corps volunteers, to raise money for this specific cause. Click the image below to see all of the images offered, and info about the deal with DHL […]
As mentioned a couple of weeks earlier, the Dolomites Skyrace organisation, and the mail winner together collected a sum of money to assist the victims of the earthquake. Mira had a think about where she wanted that money to go. She wanted to help other sisters and in particular runners. This is what Danielle of […]
Thanks to a generous sponsor we could invite a number of runners to travel a race on the 1st of August. The monsoon period can be beautiful in different kinds of ways: blue skies, crisp white clouds with clear views to mountains between, or, alternatively, lukewarm cloud meeting mud. For the 18km race on the 1st August, the […]
This message left on the Trail Running Nepal website from Bruno. at http://www.irunfornepal.com/en/ He says: Hi Everyone, We’re releasing Today the first virtual race that sync automatically the runs to create a final valid leaderboard. We have partenered with Oxfam Intermón and 100% of donations will go to them to support Nepal. After a few months […]
It’s August 7th, approximately half way through the monsoon. Heavy rains cause big and small landslides through this period and generally people don’t travel much from the villages and everybody waits until the rains are over before doing anything substantial. Many people have been asking about safety for trekking in Nepal this coming season. Two […]
“I enjoyed it immensely. It’s a once in a lifetime race,” said Tite Togni, Mira’s big sister and mentor in Italy, about the Dolomites Skyrace which took place this weekend. Mira took part and finished 14th female in the 22km event comprising of a massive climb then descent at blistering pace. It’s a different game to […]
27th June 2015 Sindhupalchowk hosted a trail race on Saturday 27th and it was a great experience. Buoyed by the news of Mira Rai’s race win in France the day before, some 20 foreigners and 100+ locals gathered to race. It started only about half an hour late, which is the price you pay for […]
She ran the last 12km hard, she says, but for the rest, just “enjoying”, the “wow, beautiful place”, and revelling in this “great chance I have.” That mixture of a little bit of hard running and a lot of appreciation gave rise to a spectacular victory last Friday in the 80km Mont Blanc Ultra in […]
UPDATE: Follow Mira’s next race online on Facebook as it happens this Friday 26th June. An update from Lloyd Belcher who earlier this year took on the project of making a short film about Mira Rai, a trail runner with an extraordinary story. A description of the project can be found on the small crowdfunding website we […]
Newsflash…. On 27th June, there will be a 29km running race with shorter events of 15km and 1km. It’s a fund raiser and morale boosting event for the communities living near Thulo Sirubari in Sindhupalchowk. The Minister for Youth and Sport Purushottam Paudel has confirmed his attendance. French Ambassador has been invited also. Here is the […]
Just back from a few days in glorious Dhorpatan in Baglung district. The name comes from the flat meadows above the ~4000m high tree-line, which are locally known as patans, and the marshy flat open valley next to which the village itself sits called dhor. If you are a slightly adventurous trekker, trail runner or mountain biker, I can […]