More and more blogs, vlogs, trail running camps and experts are popping up telling “newbies” how to do this trail running thing properly. How to walk uphill, run downhill, be like Killian and what you need to be successful. What are we missing?

A few years ago I came across the Leave No Trace website and I was initially amused that some folks in the US had put the Seven Principles together and bothered to put them up on a website. I was surprised that this was not Standard Operating Procedure among ALL outdoor people. Quite simply I was naive. No longer.

Every time I go onto the trails now I find some rubbish. Discarded. I understand accidents happen and maybe we drop the odd gel wrapper “by mistake”. But then even more so we need to take collective responsibility for all our our actions. Firstly embrace the above principles in all your adventures and secondly take responsibility for other’s actions and clean up as best you can. We have the responsibility to ourselves to leave the trail behind us in a better condition than what we found it in.

We have a choice either we take this approach or we will reap the consequences and they are not pretty.

Leave No Trace should be the first thing that we teach and instill to “newbies” and long time trail partners. Without it there is no future.

Finally I applaud leaders like Lewis Pugh who champion the environmental cause. Go clean up your local beach or trail next time you are out.