A multi-day trail from Mae Tan, in Tak, heading north into Chiang Mai.
In a similar vein to how I decided I wanted to do the Northern Traverse, when I first saw the Tak Mountain Trail advertised (thank you for the stalking, Facebook) I knew I wanted to give it a try. This year was its first year and for anyone interested in trying it in the future I will try to give a brief overview of what to expect, although I'm certain I won't do it justice.
TMT (Tak Mountain Trail) was run in October 2022 over three days. The first day started in Mae Tan and headed north for about 64km, with around 3,500m of elevation gain. At the end of day one all runners reached HQ - a small school in a village hugging the top of a mountain, where the race organisers had set up camp beds and commandeered the canteen for the weekend. Day two started out from HQ and saw runners heading further north to complete a loop of approximately 52km with 3,000m of elevation gain before finding themselves back at HQ for a second night. After another night on camp beds, the third and final day was a 60+km route back to Mae Tan (thankfully this time with less elevation gain).
Getting to Mae Tan was a lot easier than I had first imagined, requiring a bus to Mae Sot and then a songthaew the rest of the way. Mae Tan itself though is a very small town with limited hotels available. The night before the race I ended up staying in a resort about 2km away from the start. Luckily I met another runner when picking up my race pack who kindly gave me a lift to the resort, and then to the start line the next morning. So take this as a reminder to double check distances if you don't have your own set of wheels! Also, while I am sure it would have been navigable without, having enough Thai to be able to figure out where the nearest restaurants and shops were definitely made life easier!
As is usually the case, Day 1 started early - at 4:30am. While early starts are never all that fun, this did mean that by the time dawn was breaking we were already winding our way up along the mountain roads. The first day started on small concrete roads, but these morphed into dirt tracks before reaching the first aid station. From then on most of the three days were along dirt roads which made running easier on the legs than concrete, but also more efficient than single track. We followed these tracks between mountain villages which allowed us to see a whole different side to life in Thailand.
Aid stations on all three days were approximately 12-15km apart, which meant some quite long efforts between them. As such, the race organisers required all runners to carry at least 2.5l of water and 1,000 calories of food with them. While this did make for heavier packs, I am very glad they did make this mandatory as I arrived at every aid station with no worries about whether or not I was going to make it before running out. The aid stations were usually in village schools and often had groups of students ready to cheer us on and run out to greet any incoming runners. They were also very well stocked. Hot meals were provided at most, and all others had plenty of fruit, water, high sugar drinks and other snacks.
Cut off times for the three days were reasonable - 16 hours for the first and third days, 15 for the second. This seemed enough time for everyone to finish, although I was happy to be finishing each day comfortably within that time. Aiming to run (sorry, move!) fast enough to have plenty of rest, but not so fast as to break yourself, seems to be a fine art. If you are considering this I would recommend considering these times carefully so you can make sure you have plenty of recovery time available.
Dinner and breakfast were served each day in the school canteen at HQ and were available from about an hour before the start time. There were always plenty of options. There was no way any of us was going to go hungry. I would say that if you are vegetarian or have any dietary requirements it would probably be worth contacting the race organisers first, however as long as your okay with eating pretty standard Thai food you'll be absolutely fine!
The organisers provided camp beds for us to sleep on, but we were expected to bring sleeping bags, pillows, etc. They did provide big duffel bags to put everything in, which were more than big enough. The school had solar powered charging points, but electricity was limited. In fact, on the first night it ran out quite early so it is worth bringing powerbanks to charge watches and phones. In this case, most people used their powerbanks and then were able to leave those charging the next day while we were out running.
In the interest of not talking forever (which I could definitely do!) I won't go into detail about my personal experience. Suffice it to say that I had an amazing time and highly recommend this race to anyone interested in trying a multi-day race. As a small event the organisers were able to keep track of us all, with motorbikes going back and forth throughout. They did an exceptional job and provided a truly stunning route. I won't waffle on any more, but I will leave some photos (taken by the race photographers) for you to look through to help whet your appetites.
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