Amidst the flurry of TRE announcements and distractions UTMB announces a comprehensive updated, upgraded, and redesigned dashboard for runners. In the past this piece always has served a few functions:

• World Series race registration entry point for events owned and operated by the UTMB Group
• Display and summary of stones, index and eligibility for the Finals
• Section to update communication preferences and personal info

It was clear that an update of this section of the website was highly overdue to support the growing event series.

Just ahead of the lottery for the 2026 UTMB Finals the new design is now rolled out to all runners. And here’s what we got:

• A fullscreen layout displaying one’s personal UTMB index and number of stones, the main elements one comes here for.
• An invitation to sign up for your next race – makes sense.
• Below that a list of past achievements.
• Then we’ll have a new section called MyUTMB+ – more on this in a little bit.
• And below that a selection of various links to news and merch.

The focus on the index and stones makes it really straightforward to check where one is at and to what Finals event one can apply for. This is all on point, so far.

MyUTMB+

Just the name alone: Every product with a + added to it has either failed or people have revolted against it. Five, maybe already ten years into everyone corporation adding a + behind a word or their name and we all know what this usually means: “how can we extract more money out of you”.

Practically this section is new and essentially a ‘rewards system’ for frequent flyers of the UTMB World Series. Every corporation has been doing this for decades, every consumer signs up voluntarily or not, but mostly ends up hating it. Now UTMB has its’ own “+”. Here is what it does offer:

• special discounts to products from partner brands. Alright this is a reasonable thing to include, even though 12% off at Suunto, when they have sales every other month seems … not worthwhile. But it’s a great way for corporations to track their ROI, that’s why this exists.
• Below that special offer section is a big table labeled “My Rewards” and this is where things gets interesting (or really really boring, depending on your mood):

For each race you complete, or engagement with the brand, you earn points, and your points put you into one of three categories: “Explorer”, “Trailblazer”, “Summiter”. The more points you have, the more perks you receive. And the big advantages you get for being a ‘summiter’ (the highest tier) is priority access, private sale opportunities, and special booster treatment for the 2027 Finals registration. Translation: Run lots of UTMB events, get priority in the registration queue. A reward for loyal fans.

I say this again: every corporation feels the need to roll out a system like this, and train their customers like lab rats to accumulate frequent flyer miles, shopping rewards points, and other little treats, that forever feel out of reach, can always get tweaked to just not be worth anything to the consumer, but offer endless tantalizing ways to market and sell a products.

Strategically I believe this “feature” will show us a glimpse of how UMTB is planning on addressing the eventual pinch point where races in their series get too manifold and runners accumulate too many stones so that their lottery chances diminish – like we will witness tomorrow at the annual heartbreak day of the Western States and Hardrock lotteries. By introducing a tiered system the casual flyer might have stones, but will have to wait at the gate and will get a shitty crammed seat at the back of the airplane with no overhead bin space available. The loyal UTMB stone chasers on the other side will sit up front with a glass of champagne in hand. (Can you tell I just spend too much time at overcrowded airports?)

I am so tired. And of course the UTMB critics will laugh at me and tell me “told you so”.

And while I might get back at them and suggest that this is “harmless in the grand scheme of things” (I mean, they could’ve announced a peace prize for our mad king instead) it’s just so tiresome and sad. When corporations gets too big and have too many growth hackers and systems optimizers with MBAs on staff, products like these get shipped. “We’re leaving money on the table” someone in the C-suite yells, and the faithful underlings dedicate resources to extract cash from their customers rather than just do about anything better with their time and resources. Consumers are tired of being treated like cattle and even if they might not revolt, the bored and stale taste in their mouths will make the once exciting product feel mediocre and lame.

Maybe my sentiment here is heightened by three days looking at foams on shoes inside an air conditioned conference center. After a couple of good night sleeps I will feel different about all this and ready to chase indexes, stones, points,… and what else comes next. After all I do want to be “summiter” in a super shoes, who doesn’t.

Or maybe all of this just presents a huge chance for the next innovator?

Folks choose trail running because they want adventure in their lives. Want to be wild, experience freedom, flirt with risk, feel excitement only time in the mountains can bring. My trail run should not feel like standing in line at Starbucks. The more trail running “grows up”, “becomes corporate”, gets their “act cleaned up”, the less it actually reflects the reason why people choose this sport in the first place.

Spoke with RD Krissy Moehl at TRE this week about one of the most historic and perfectly typical PNW races, the Chuckanut 50K. She mentioned that they decided to reduce the number of entries allowed, as last year’s record number of runner, along with really bad weather resulted in trail damage on the ridge – the most famous aspect of the course (it’s since been fixed during several work parties).

• Race date: 21 March 2026
• Location: Bellingham, Washington
• Entry fee: $160
• Keen will step up as sponsor of the event, alongside Patagonia. (This reflects in how these two brands are supporting/sponsoring Krissy herself).

Side note (and one of the reasons I called it a typical PNW event): I couldn’t for the life of me find the entry fee posted anywhere on the official website. I had to create an account, find the race, register myself (almost), to see the entry fee in the shopping cart. UltraSignup continues to get a lot of scorn from folks in our industry, but they made it incredible easy for RDs to put all the necessary information front and center, heck, one doesn’t even need to have their own website to host a trail race. But once RDs opt to go away from USU and with a different registration platform some of the basic user experience and informational elements just end up being forgotten.

Anyway, if I remember correctly 600 spots will be available. Let’s go!

While I am decompressing on the couch, Raziq beat me to the punch and has his TRE write up already published:

A huge part of that is the people, and while I didn’t see any single huge standout piece of innovation at the expo, there is still much to be excited about.

I agree with his statement above wholeheartedly. I go to TRE for the people. And while the products are the reason for TRE’s existence nothing really wowed me – and to be fair, I too am not a product reviewer. I am sure there’s some fantastic foam innovation I have missed. But, back to the people. That’s why these annual gatherings are important and valuable. And thanks to the big brands for footing the bill to make it all happen, I promise I will buy lots of shoes next year to make it worthwhile for you to keep doing this.

Chris Z shares the reality of the math and illuminates the rollercoaster of emotions that is annual WSER lottery day in his newsletter Das Letter Z:

Here are the official preliminary counts for the 2026 lottery: there are 11,335 entrants and 93,140 total tickets in the hat.
…
The breakdown of entrants by how many tickets each person has matters a lot, because a few people with hundreds of tickets shift the odds dramatically for everyone else.

And how cruel numbers can make you feel:

The unfairness, the randomness, the statistical cruelty, they all reinforce the same romantic idea: if your name finally gets called, it means something. The lottery is unreasonable. It’s also beautiful. A machine built on math that keeps the myth alive.

Unreasonable, yet beautiful – could be the motto for our sport, distilled into a couple words.

Episode 335 with Morgan Powell:

Very special guest Morgan Powell joins Singletrack to help me unveil the poster art for the Trail Running Film Festival’s Global Tour 2026. We chat about the inspiration behind the artwork and get to know Morgen, the artist and athlete behind it all.

Links

• Morgan Powell’s design studio: Unthaw.co
• TRFF press release

Via press release, published minutes ago by myself, but instead of sharing my own words, I am sharing poster artist Morgan Powell’s:

For the 2026 poster, I wanted to focus on some of the bits and pieces that come together to create a trail runner. The main focus is a runner literally made of nature. Trail runners are often thought of as going out into nature, but I think the real magic happens when it feels like you are actually a part of it.

This is the third year in a row that TRFF has commissioned a unique piece of art from an artist working at the intersection of the outdoors and movement. I’m so incredibly stocked to add this piece to our growing collection, and to give our upcoming tour a visual voice as we embark on these next few months of sharing stories with people who love trail running from all over the world.

Broken Arrow RD Brandon Madigan with the email announcement (and on Instagram):

Today, the Broken Arrow Skyrace, one of North America’s largest—and the most competitive—trail running event, is excited to announce a new multi-year partnership with ACG (All Conditions Gear), a Nike brand designed for all athletes who seek the challenge, adventure and connection of thriving in the wild. 

After Daybreak/Freetrail announced their partnership with ACG for their Gorge Waterfalls event a couple of weeks ago, this one was rumored to be next, and the people were correct. ACG scooping up the void that Salomon is leaving seems to be the logical move for Nike trying to establish themselves in trail and are here for real this time. I am still a bit hesitant in joining the rest of the media who are calling for ACG to roll into town to take over everything, but clearly these moves show that Nike is more than dabbling this time around.

We’re thrilled to announce that the 2026 Broken Arrow Skyrace will feature the largest prize purse of any trail race in the world, a total of $150,000 spread across three races.

There are several other initiatives that Broken Arrow is announcing or expanding on alongside this partnership with ACG, showing again that Broken Arrow is probably the only event in the US where a big brand partners don’t just get banners alongside the finish line chute.

The UTMB World Series is adding another event to the roster of races in the United States, and the second one on the East Coast:

Rothrock by UTMB stands apart as the heart of the East Coast. Set in the wilds of central Pennsylvania, this race delivers a pure trail experience that is rugged, raw, and wildly beautiful. Rooted in outdoor adventure and community spirit. 

The event is scheduled for 15 – 17 May 2026 with registration opening next week. There are two distances to choose from, a 50K and a 25K.

After their Pacific Trails California event, this is the second event that UTMB adds in North America with just two “shorter” distances, signaling a quite fascinating expansion strategy for the US.

Full transparency up front: The real reason as to why I will be in San Antonio, Texas for this year’s ‘The Running Event’ is that I am going on behalf of the Trail Running Film Festival. I’m here to drum up support for and raise awareness about our upcoming global film tour. I skipped it last year, thinking that the ROI hadn’t been worth the expenses for our small nonprofit. This year I am swinging for the fences again, hoping that our increased name recognition will help with me getting some proper face-time with the right folks who care and can help us grow TRFF into a global recognized film tour. We’re getting there and have the ambitions to match, but need brand partners by ours side to believe in this just as much as we are.

This year though I wasn’t able to get a badge on behalf of TRFF but needed to use my media credentials for Electric Cable Car to get my badge. As badge will say ‘media’ I thought I spend a moment thinking about what I am hoping to see at TRE, what I will be looking for are the industry is heading towards the new year.

So here are my bets for TRE 2025 – I am typing this on my flight to my layover in Las Vegas – you’re welcome.

What brands have the most buzz around their booth on the trade show floor.

Of course, this is what everyone is looking for and everyone will be talking about. It’ll be interesting for me to compare notes and see if I measure buzz in the same way as others. Will Satisfy shock us again? Will all other startup brands just copy Satisfy from last year? Will there be a new Satisfy? (God, I hate that I mentioned Satisfy three times in a row… so cliche…)

How much ‘trail’ will be in ‘running’ at TRE this year?

I wasn’t at TRE last year, but the overarching visual trend had been that ‘trail’ is the more photogenic sibling to running. But lately running fought back with gritty urban visuals evoking feelings of skateboarding and rural visuals of cowboys on ranches. Will there be a new trend or a doubling down on the same language? Switchback, the ‘outdoor’ portion of TRE has been growing over the past years, will be fun to see how much space – and attention – it’ll make up this year.

How will brands take advantage of their event and athlete sponsorship in their marketing through TRE?

It is always super fascinating to me how brands cash in on their athletes at events like these. Photos of them are on billboards, posters, video walls, and there are countless “happy hours” with athletes actually present at their sponsors’ booth. A few years ago at Outdoor Retailer I got an autographed copy of one of Kilian’s book and shared a smoothie with him at the Salomon booth. Those were the days.

What brand event sticks out, beyond the official scheduled programming.

Activations at UTMB in Chamonix are crazy town, with every brand – official sponsors or not – doing something or another, from group run to film screening to athlete meetup to product giveaway. TRE is a B2B event and therefore a bit more lowkey, but the brands, especially the ones that don’t have a flashy product to showcase at their booths, are usually doing something to draw attention to themselves.

Will the tariff madness be felt, and how will folks respond to being asked about it?

Let’s face it. The economy is a shit show and everyone is talking about it… except (especially American) businesses. Sure, you can say at weddings you should’t talk about funerals (is that something people say?), but these economic head winds are real and are affecting consumers, speciality retailers and product manufacturers. It will be a challenging needle to thread trying to get an anyone to be real about this, but I will try.

Will we get better charging cables from Suunto and Garmin?

I know that with longer battery lives watches don’t need to be charged that often, but the latest iteration of charging cables suck terribly. This has been a long hobby horse of mine and I was just recently told that it’s not just a Suunto issue but Garmin has the same problems. Will be fascinating to see if they realized that badly copying the Apple Watch charger isn’t great.

Better colored shoes

I am a huge fan of brightly, boldly colored shoes. But it takes someone with a good design sense to come up with the color combination that’ll make a shoe not look like a clown car. Startup brands are solving this by going ‘urban’ releasing their shoes in solid blacks, beige, and white. And while the latest trend in running clearly has been inspired by urban streetwear in the shoe color department you can tell that streetwear shoe designers still have the edge. Let’s see which shoe looks coolest.

What Running accessory is Most-Improved

GPS Watches leveled up over the last few years with great battery life and super visible screens. Shoes have now everything in them short of an electric motor. What’s the product that feels like it could actually improve running and make it more fun (yeah, yeah, and faster of course) and what product is just an overpriced shirt with holes in it?

The Best Espresso on the showroom floor at the Diadora booth

Every year I’ve been the Diadora booth hires a real barista who brings a real especially machine from a real coffee roaster from the East Coast. It’s delicious coffee the the barista slinging the beans the perfect antidote to the endless barrage of “here’s why our socks are worth $30” and “we’ve developed the bestest superfoam any foot has ever laid toes on”. I hope he’ll be back, I don’t know what I will do if I have to rely on automated push button coffee for the week.

Alright that’s it, time to pickup my badge and head into the madness… see you out there. (And actually, if you are in town for TRE, do send me a note, would love to meet up.)

A new (to me) platform:

Contribute to pools and payouts for top performers in marathons, ultras, and FKTs. Official results trigger payouts—no gambling, no betting, just performance.

Another “tool” shoved in between the relationship of athletes and their sport.
No byline of who’s behind this or who stands for this.

Not a great look.

Announced after the conclusion of this year’s WMTRC:

This renewed Commission strengthens WMRA’s commitment to athlete representation, transparency, and inclusive governance as the sport continues to evolve at global level.

What’s the goal of with this effort?

The WMRA Athletes Commission exists to:

• Strengthen the sport through athlete-centred governance and continuous dialogue.
• Ensure the WMRA Council benefits from the perspective, experience, and technical insight of current and former international athletes.
• Provide a formal structure for athletes to express their views on matters affecting the discipline.

How is this different from the PTRA?

The WMRA Athletes Commission is fully endorsed and organized by WMRA, thus meant to consult and support WMRA primarily. It feels a bit more akin to an employee council as supposed to a truly independent body operating on their own accord. Any maybe therein lies the rub. It’s yet another volunteer position for folks. But overall I’m not dissing on this being “yet another organization”. The more representation of varying interests – interests which aren’t just the businesses operating in our sport – the better.

Episode 334 with Alex Rienzie:

Almost exactly a year after Alex Rienzie first chatted with me on Singletrack he’s back with an update on the legal case that kept the trail running community on perpetual whiplash for the entire year of 2025. Now with a full pardon in hand, Alex can share what really went down behind the scenes of Michelino Sunseri’s FKT run on the Grand Teton. This is a story that takes us way beyond the mountains and the trails and into court rooms and board rooms and yes, all the way to the White House. What a bonkers story that makes one feel like up is down and down is up.

Links

• Racing Grand Teton – the film
• Alex Rienzie on Instagram
• Alex Rienzie on Singletrack

Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko is Australia’s second and smaller UTMB event, after UTA. One last chance for folks to get some stones before the UTMB lottery opens up in a few weeks.
An athlete worth highlighting is Andrea KOLBEINSDOTTIR from Island who won the women’s 50K race and came in third overall in 04:24:48.

Here are your 2025 podium finishers of the three races, as well as the total number of runners for the event broken down by gender.

KOSCI MILER (100M – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Stephanie AUSTON – Australia – 19:45:57
2. Christie LORI – Australia – 22:26:48
3. Jessica SCHLUTER – Australia – 23:55:15

Men:

1. Morgan GLAZIER – Great Britain – 17:38:25
2. Liam THIERENS – New Zealand – 18:09:54
3. Adrian DE LA NOUGEREDE – Great Britain – 18:37:50

KOSCI 100 (100K – 3 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Sophie BROOME – Great Britain – 11:58:10
2. Anna PILLINGER – Australia – 12:16:30
3. Charlotte LOMAS – Australia – 12:21:58

Men:

1. Loris LASSERE – France – 09:53:20
2. Godfrey SLATTERY – Australia – 10:02:25
3. Gerald MACPHERSON – Australia – 10:12:25

KOSCI 50 (50K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Andrea KOLBEINSDOTTIR – Island – 04:24:48
2. Lucy BARTHOLOMEW – Australia – 04:32:13
3. Demi CALDWELL – Australia – 04:34:16

Men:

1. Michael DIMUANTES – Australia – 04:04:08
2. Jack FERRIS – Australia – 04:12:25
3. Ronan MCNALLY – Irland – 04:30:19

KOSCI 30 (20K – 1 Stone) – Full Results

Women:

1. Kate AVERY – Great Britain – 02:42:35
2. Sara LEVETT – Australia – 02:45:11
3. Belinda JAMES – Australia – 03:06:21

Men:

1. Thomas BANKS – Australia – 02:22:08
2. Henry HUGMAN – Australia – 02:26:51
3. Alex BATE – Australia – 02:27:26

Below are the overall numbers for this year’s Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko:

• KOSCI MILER Starters: 340. DNF: 117 + Finishers: 223. Women 28 (13%), Men 195 (87%).
• KOSCI 100 Starters: 1,073. DNF: 180 + Finishers: 893. Women 177 (20%), Men 716 (80%).
• KOSCI 50 Starters: 1,266. DNF: 71 + Finishers: 1,195. Women 434 (36%), Men 761 (64%).
• KOSCI 30 Starters: 859. DNF: 31 + Finishers: 828. Women 464 (56%), Men 364 (44%).

Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko 2025 saw a total 3,538 starters and 3,139 finishers. 1,103 (35%) women and 2,036 (65%) men reached the finish line and earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2026).

This was almost the last event of the UMTB World Series for 2025. Starting today we still have a week of races and other festivities at Chiang Mai Thailand, the Asia Major from on 27 November to 07 December, 2025. And then we’ll start all over again and are heading to Cornwell in the UK for the Arc of Attrition in January of 2026, the first race of the series in the new yew year.

There are dozens of these videos on Youtube about the Matterhorn and I didn’t watch them all, so I don’t know if this is the best one, but I watched this one today, and man it was breathtakingly beautiful. I could almost sense my fear of heights bubble up while sitting on the couch. Beautiful images from an incredible mountain.

Of all the mountains I would want to climb – and don’t think I could, due to my fear of heights – this would be the one. I love the Matterhorn so much.

For his personal newsletter: ‘Late Entry‘ Zach Hauer, co-owner of Open Fuel wonders aloud about our over-consumption problem in the running world:

Pushing the narrative that the upper echelons of carb intake via sugary goo is how the passionate normie becomes elite, fuels waste.

Of course running is part of regular consumer culture and our everyday culture in a capitalistic society is incredibly wasteful – have you been in a Costco lately? But Zach’s article also reminds me of one of my favorite hobby horses: Running, and specifically trail running sits between the two chairs of “performance running” and “outdoor adventure”. These two cultures clash and we’re (especially us in the media, but also many brands) are WAY over-indexing on the performance running aspect of our hobby.

The running world will always push us to embrace any idea that suggests performance improvements are purchasable. Be that plates in shoes, holes in shirts, ice bandanas or whatever nutrition is the fad of the moment.

For decades the outdoor adventure world too has been driven by brands selling us stuff, gear, better and lighter layers. So that “other chair” isn’t much better, but that side of the media at least has better stories to tell. No one writes about what tent was used at Everest Basecamp, or what skis were used to get to the South Pole. When Kilian did his State of Elevation projects it became a story of the landscape he travelled through, the journey, the achievement of this continues movement. The gear he used wasn’t the focal point. I believe we (in the media) all could do a better job of inspiring people to adventure more, to “never stop exploring” rather than to endlessly optimize our next workout with new gear that’s just a quick online purchase away.

The Instagram accounts of the North American UTMB World Series Event are teasing a new event for the region:

A new UTMB World Series event is headed to North America, keep your eyes open for the reveal.

My guess is that this could be either just a marketing message for the recently announced Boréalys Mont-Tremblant event in Québec, Canada, or we will really, actually get another UTMB World Series event announcement before the end of the year.

German trail magazine ‘Alles Laufbar’ releases their version of trail running awards for 2025, the “11 Outstanding Trail Performances 2025” (auto translated via Safari browser tool):

An eventful trail running year is coming to an end. We have compiled the 11 most outstanding achievements of the year for you. It’s not just about race results – from world records in the vertical kilometer to months of FKTs in New Zealand to impressive wins in the best-run races of the year.

This one, in so many ways, is what I had been talking about in my screed from the beginning of the year about what awards for trail running should be. I had just brought this back up in my RE/RUN – January article as well. What sticks out to me is that focus on individual performances rather than the direct competition that’s so hard to measure in our sport. It gives the fans of our sport (that’s us!) a chance to reflect and celebrate, while still challenging us to think and compare and see if we’d have picked differently. I like it.

This article is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review. 
This was January 2025 in our world of trail running and mountain culture.

As the clock turned another page and January kicked off the year 2025 these were the stories set the tone for this shiny new year.

• Stian Angermund emerges, announcing the settlement in his doping case and his forthcoming return to racing.
• Michael Sunseri continues his legal battle around his Grand Teton FKT and we will hear so much more about this through the rest of the year.
• British SheRaces announces a racing series which temporality comes under scrutiny until they smartly reverse course.
• Jason Koop launches his AI Training Tool to much laughter and a serious lack of UI polish.
• And trail’s largest meme account whines about getting copied by others.

All these stories give that ‘Main character energy’ feeling, something we’ll be hearing a lot about throughout the year.

In other news, trail running brands are showing up at the Paris Fashion show, which too, signifies a trend that started sometime a few years ago with ‘Gorpcore’, then briefly gets compared to skateboarding culture and has now every running brand producing their own magazine. “Community”, “Culture”, “Commerce”.

The beginning of the year tends to also be one for bold predictions and naive resolutions. Two articles I posted I look back at now and want to pad myself on the head whispering “oh you sweet summer child…”. In my post ‘What The TROY (And UROY) Awards Get Wrong’ I pontificate about how to do ‘awards for trail running’ better, and while I don’t think what I complain about was so wrong, it’s now a year later and I am none the wiser. The noise around the various awards from the various media outlets will begin here momentarily, and I already know that I will feel compelled to think about how to improve this, but I can’t, for the life of me, come up with something that’s truly above and beyond better. Trail running media will, for while longer at least, or maybe even forever, float between incomplete and inconclusive numbers – which would allow us to actually measure and compare runners’ performances, and vibes – which will always be too myopic, regionally constraint, or just plain too subjective. It’s probably that way in any other industry/sport/genre, well of course it is, who am I kidding. In the end these awards are there to sell sponsorships and increase brand engagement. Folks know that finding ‘THE BEST’ in anything is inherently subjective, or just a fairly boring numbers game. So, where does this leave us? Well, let’s wait until this coming January and see if and how the exciting awards, be it ‘TROY’ or ‘UROY’, or the ‘Trail Running Awards’ will inspire me, and/or infuriate me to think of ‘yet another way’ on how to do this better.

The other article I published in January of 2025 was my big ‘2025 Predictions For Our Sport’ article. As I am rereading my thoughts there and consider what actually happened I come to the conclusion that I would’ve barely passed the class. But here I am a bit more forgiving of myself. Predictions are after all a crapshoot into the wind. Rereading this post motivates me to double down for another year. Stay tuned for this article coming in early January where I will, yet again, take a stab into the dark and predict what will happen in this coming year of 2026 in our tiny, but oh so fascinating world of trail running and mountain culture.

Lastly, I spoke of the futility of New Year’s resolutions. One I did keep for the entire year (and am quite proud of, if I say so myself): Electric Cable Car published results for EVERY UTMB World Series Event in 2025. Not just the ones the American and European elites showed up at, and not just the ones on the radar of most English-speakers, but every single one. (Well, there are two events still happening next week. So as of this writing, so I could still fail.) Is there another media outlet that published results for every single event in the series? All in all in 2025 the UTMB World Series will have hosted 53 Events plus 1 (Pacific Trails California) fully cancelled. When I started posting these results I was looking for stories among the numbers and results. Now that I have a full year of data I have some stories to share. And with it, lots and lots of numbers. But this too, will have to wait a bit until the last two events are completed, and until I can figure out how to properly use a pivot table.

This post is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review. I’ll be dropping February’s edition in the coming days. To catch up on all of them visit Re/Run.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen? No, not really, or maybe a little. But, I am trying something here and I hope you’ll join me.

‘Electric Cable Car’ is now on Substack. No, really.

Why? You ask. Well, I’m trying something out. And while I still think that Substack is a bad ‘publishing’ platform it might be worthwhile as a ‘distribution’ platform. Maybe, we shall see. I’ll keep you updated and see how things go and trust me to continue to make changes and try various things. After all variety is the spice of life…

So, what can you expect there?

Not the full website with its daily updates. God no, that would be awful. Electric Cable Car is still, and will always be here on its own website and domain, a blog, and news site, free of paywalls, subscription buttons and other clutter. But, Electric Cable Car on Substack will be the mirrored newsletter I have been sending out to my email subscribers about twice a month.

So, subscribe to my Substack, or to my regular newsletter. Either way, I’ll be hitting your inboxes (about) twice a month with a summary of the best of my daily updates you can read here on Electric Cable Car.

With heavy rains forcing a cancelation of the other UTMB event that was supposed to be on for this weekend, Pacific Trails California, all eyes were on Argentina’s second UTMB event, Patagonia BARILOCHE by UTMB. One of the last events for the year for runners to get stones for the upcoming lottery for the UTMB Finals Chamonix in 2026.

Here are your 2025 podium finishers of the three races, as well as the total number of runners for the event broken down by gender.

TRONADOR 130K (100M – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Mariana FERNANDEZ – Argentina – 21:10:16
2. Rachel SPAULDING – USA – 21:29:25
3. Milagros RIVAS – Argentina – 21:35:08

Men:

1. Ethan PETERS – Canada – 15:01:29
2. Remigio HUAMAN QUISPE – Peru – 15:46:40
3. Noam FRANCHI – France – 16:20:33

FREY 80K (100K – 3 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Lindsay ALLISON – USA – 11:06:22
2. Ayelen LIBERAL – Argentina – 11:33:13
3. Emiliana BOLONTRADE – Argentina – 12:33:33

Men:

1. Patricio GONZALEZ – Argentina – 09:08:18
2. Marcos RAMOS GONZALEZ – Spain – 09:30:03
3. 3. Thibaut BARONIAN – France – 10:02:49

BELLA VISTA 55K (50K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Anna TARASOVA – Spain – 06:06:56
2. Blanca LLUMIQUINGA – Ecuador – 06:30:34
3. Anabel OVIEDO ZELARAYÁN – Argentina – 06:30:49

Men:

1. Anders KJAEREVIK – Norway – 05:23:07
2. Valentin BENARD – France – 05:24:16
3. Brian PALACIOS – Argentina – 05:29:01

NAHUEL HUAPI 33K (20K – 1 Stone) – Full Results

Women:

1. Silvia GONZALEZ VICTORICA – Argentina – 03:38:03
2. Verónica GALVÁN – Argentina – 03:42:22
3. María Belén CABRERA – Argentina – 03:42:29

Men:

1. Javier MARIQUEO – Argentina – 02:52:24
2. Hugo César RODRIGUEZ – Argentina – 03:00:12
3. Ezequiel Alexis PAULUZAK – Argentina – 03:05:55

ARRAYANES 22K (20K – 1 Stone) – Full Results

Women:

1. Pía CARAYOL BRESSAN – Argentina – 01:47:35
2. Pema FRANCHI ANTELME – Ecuador – 01:54:01
3. Rosa Liliana GODOY – Argentina – 01:55:09

Men:

1. Marco Augusto VIDOZ – Argentina – 01:33:08
2. Luis VALLE BARRIENTOS – Chile – 01:33:51
3. Javier MARIQUEO – Argentina – 01:34:24

Below are the overall numbers for this year’s Patagonia BARILOCHE:

• TRONADOR 130K Starters: 272. DNF: 99 + Finishers: 173. Women 33 (19%), Men 140 (81%).
• FREY 80K Starters: 406. DNF: 75 + Finishers: 331. Women 86 (26%), Men 245 (74%).
• BELLA VISTA 55K Starters: 728. DNF: 66 + Finishers: 662. Women 203 (31%), Men 459 (69%).
• NAHUEL HUAPI 33K Starters: 785. DNF: 6 + Finishers: 779. Women 364 (47%), Men 415 (53%).
• ARRAYANES 22K Starters: 597. DNF: 0 + Finishers: 597. Women 331 (55%), Men 266 (45%).
• OTTO 12K Starters: 227. DNF: 3 + Finishers: 224. Women 144 (64%), Men 80 (36%).

Patagonia BARILOCHE by UTMB saw a total 3,015 starters and 2,766 finishers. 1,161 (42%) women and 1,605 (58%) men reached the finish line and earned a combined 4,385 stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2026).

Next up are the last two events of the UTMB World Series for 2025. We’re heading to Australia for Ultra Trail Kosciuszko on 27-29 November 2025 and for the Asia Major to Thailand for Chiang Mai Thailand for a full week of festivities from on 27 November to 07 December, 2025. For a full list of UTMB World Series events visit the ECC UTMB World Series events calendar.