On July 10th Stuart Thompson and I left the Fort Anne National Historic Site in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia on a 110km trail run through the Annapolis Valley ending at the Grand Pré UNESCO World Heritage Site. We arrived at the Harvest Moon Trailway trailhead at 11:48pm and began our run. The run started great, time flew by through the night and when the sun rose it replenished our energy levels. The night was very warm and humid (24 degrees celsius) which ended up being nothing compared to the upcoming day. Arriving at the halfway point of the trail in Kingston was a great checkpoint especially at the pace we were going but that pace quickly started to fade and things got tough. A mixture of the heat of the sun pounding down on us in the wide open, the fact that the trail was a gradual slight incline, both of us working all day and not sleeping before a massive trail run and so many other contributing factors broke us down. The trail was hard packed and smooth so for a trail runner who typically runs on technical terrain I found it very taxing on the body and mind to run so consistently in a straight line on a hard surface. At the end of the day we pulled each other out of our low points and got the job done. There were many cyclists and ATVs on the trail but not many runners which leads us to believe the possibility that we may be the first people to complete this trail entirely on foot.
The trail begins behind the Historic Gardens where you will find a sign showing all of the upcoming kilometre markings. The route used to be accessible off of Prince Albert Road but is now eroded into the wetlands with many large trees but accessing the trailhead behind the Gardens will not affect the 110km trail. From our experience we would recommend running this trail the opposite direction as we found out that there was a gradual incline for our entire run. It was a pleasure to run through the heart of the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.