By Mathias Eichler
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The Trail Running Film Festival - Online Watch Party Get your tickets.
Hardly a week goes by with me not seeing a new, or new to me hydration vest by a gear company not previously in the market of producing and selling them.
What once started out as a niche product made by very specific companies (Ultimate Direction, UltraSpire, CamelBak, Nathan) focusing on hydration is now a product offering peddled by Mammut, The North Face, Patagonia… everyone, even REI is making their own.
With the growth of our sport and the overall media attention it’s no surprise backpack makers (to frame that term loosely) would say ‘hey, we can do that too’. But I would suggest something else is the driving force here: ‘brand and logo placement’. The vest, once an obscure specialty item for ultra runners who weren’t cool enough to just run shirtless with two handhelds is now a hot item every runner has to have. Even if more and more races are requiring runners to carry gear and thus vests becoming a necessary piece of gear to carry said required gear I believe the main driving force here is that the vest is the most prominent and outward facing item a runner wears, even more prominent than their shoes. So, if a gear company is in the pro/influencer sponsorship game they will have to offer a vest just to place their logo prominently on their athletes and in their marketing shots.
Gone are the days when runners had a shoe sponsor and a separate clothing and a gear sponsor.
NNormal has to sell a race vest so Kilian doesn’t have to wear his old Salomon vests in product shots and at races.
Adidas was one of the first gear companies that had their trail team fitted out from head to toe in branded gear. So does The North Face and of course Salomon. But Salomon had been in the game for several years while The North Face and Adidas are still fairly new to the ‘race team circuit’.
Hoka doesn’t have a hydration vest yet, but as a shoe company they have been outfit their sponsored athletes very prominently in head-to-toe HOKA clothing over these last two years but when Jim Walmsley ran UTMB in 2022 he wore a pack with no brand name on it. So I assume one can expect a HOKA pack in the near future, maybe in time for this year’s UTMB. And one can hope it’s a better offering than this piece of weird branded product.
It’s kind of funny to think that new product iterations, (I won’t call it innovations), might be more driven by marketing desire for logo placement than the need to sell good product. Heck, some of the vests might not even need to be sold, just made for their athletes.
What I had already noticed when I was down in Auburn running Canyons is that HOKA was everywhere. Almost so that it felt HOKA was more prominently promoted than UTMB. Much has been said about the UTMB/Partnership, and often I’ve asked about the details of that partnership, but what’s coming into view and question is the partnership HOKA has with UTMB/Ironman, and in extend Western States. Yes, they are sponsoring the respective races but there seems to be a bit more than just a sponsor contract:
Today the US ‘by UTMB’ races which are all unaffiliated with Western States ran promotional Instagram messages announcing that Grindstone, which is also a UTMB race has been selected as a Golden Ticket event for Western States. Yes, Western States is also part of the UTMB World Series, and that relationship is also somewhat murky.
So, to recap:
This is all so very fascinating, and something that clearly requires more insight, more background info and more scrutiny going forward.
If anyone has any insight they want to share, off or on the record, please do reach out.
From the Daily:
Hoka continued its blistering sales for parent Deckers Brands, helping the company deliver record results as the brand added more than half a billion dollars of top-line revenue for fiscal year 2023.
HOKA will eat us all… so it seems and feels. But, when actually looking at the shoe choices of runners at trail races you can still huge diversity and barely any dominant brand. Maybe that’s just motivating for HOKA to push even harder?
In comparison:
Innsbruck, one of the Alps largest cities is no stranger to hosting large sporting events. Innsbruck hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 1976 and has been on the regular winter skiing circuit for decades. This week the attention is on summer trails when Innsbruck and the neighboring Stubaital region welcomes runners from all over the world to compete in the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships (WMTRC) – (damn I wish they would come up with a better name for that event). And while this is all super exciting to follow along as pros race these trails, what makes this event unique in trail running is that for the Championships only pros, selected by their national associations will compete wearing the bib of their country. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is awfully exciting to watch and follow, but of course a departure from our regular trail running events where amateurs (you and me) can run the same events as the pros. To prevent FOMO Innsbruck has partnered with the Innsbruck Alpine Trailrun Festival, an annual event held in the same region on several of the same trails as the WMTRC. This event has been on the calendar for several years and is organized by the Laufwerkstatt, an events team organizing various large scale outdoor sporting events in the region. So, The WMTRC is in great hands organizationally with the partnership of Tourism Tyrol and the Laufwerkstatt. And for folks wanting to get a taste of the trails pros compete on during the WMTRC, they can sign up to run the various distances at the Innsbruck Alpine Trailrun Festival.
And for folks in the area looking for something to do they can come and watch the Trail Running Film Festival on June 9th at the finish line in Neustift-Stubai, which surely will be one of the biggest screenings on our 73+ tour.
One of mountain running and trail running’s biggest events will take place in Aragón, Spain, in September 2025, bringing together 1,700 athletes from 70 countries.
With the 2023 edition kicking off this weekend in Innsbruck, Austria, sights are already set for the next iteration, two years from now in Spain. I’m glad to see this event gaining traction. It’s a great counterbalance to the Golden Trail Series and UTMB events, even though the World Championships are the classic “watch the pros run and don’t get to participate” events we’re familiar with from every other sport. And what makes trail running so great in many ways is the participatory nature of the everyday runner toeing the line with the pros at the biggest events.
MUT, Africa’s only UTMB race along the beautiful Garden Route in South Africa – been there, natch, just happened this weekend for the first time under the UTMB banner. And here are their numbers:
1,184 racers finished the six different distances of the MUT races, 518 were women, or 44%. So, I had heard that only two women finished the 100 Miler, and while, in that race doesn’t lead to a great percentage, the overall participation rate for all six events combined is the best we’ve seen so far. Yes, a bit skewed toward the shorter distances, but overall, pretty impressive participation by women, amazing.
As a side note:
With only two women finishers in the 100 Mile race all you had to do was cross the finish line in 48hrs (the race did have 25K of vert!) and you would’ve booked your ticket to Chamonix for this or next year. There were two women who DNFed (so 50% of the women’s field). So I am not suggesting that it was a cake walk, but, I am saying… if you’re an elite, and you want a ticket to race UTMB, this might be interesting to put on your calendar for 2024.
Matt Walsh in his Substack ‘Trailmix’ ponders the same questions I have:
…if anyone has a contact at UTMB that actually knows how the business is run AND responds to emails, do get in touch…
Yes, same here.
Matt thinks the UTMB expansion model might be more of a franchise model, rather than an outright purchase of the races. Which might sense if the races are new, but for the ones UTMB partners/takes over that might not work? Perhaps the franchise part is only a portion of the race. The areas where UTBM feels they can contribute the most… and get the most out financially? Surely, providing staffing for aid stations won’t be one of the areas that will be franchised.
Matt also points to the endless ‘dunking on UTMB’ of the social media verse, so much that editors of Outside compared their announced partnership with UTMB internally akin to:
… a poison chalice and that limiting the damage UTMB’s brand could have on Outside’s reputation would be a ‘big challenge’.
This in itself is kind of funny, given that Outside has NFTs and dealt with Warren Miller Films in a very … odd way and has since created quite a reputation for itself.
And finally, Buzz Burrell, in the comments, points out the misconception in the articles headline, insinuating that the UTMB brand currently doesn’t matter to races or racers:
Yes, joining the bandwagon and becoming “(trail race) by UTMB” has bumped every race that has signed on from hanging in there to selling out, so becoming a UTMB franchise has been a win for every race owner.
The events to race for a chance for Golden Tickets to Western States in 2024 are as followed:
Several notable changes compared to last year. There’s now a race on the East Coast: Grindstone. CCC is now a Golden Ticket race, which is new and I believe for the first time, maybe? The other thing of note is that these events are now all UTBM and Aravaipa events, which in itself is quite interesting.
Back in 2015 (the first time Web Archive has the page listed) the Golden Ticket events were:
A lot has changed since then, hasn’t it?
Announced this week on various social channels:
White Mountain Endurance is excited to announce that they will be officially be joining the Aravaipa Running family of races, marking Aravaipa’s official commitment to the East Coast trail running community.
That brings Aravaipa’s race calendar to 53 races in five different states including the 5 from White Mountain Endurance in New Hampshire.
UTMB has 36 across the globe in their World Series. Five in the US and one special partnership with Western States.
If you believe, or only read the NNormal marketing blog then you might be led to believe that Kilian had:
…a perfect day on the west ridge of Everest…
on his recent trip to the Himalayas.
In Kilian’s own words:
“I didn’t reach the summit I was aiming for, but everything else. It was a perfect day.”
But according to Explorersweb:
He describes the conditions as “horrible, with blue ice underneath and a top layer of deep snow. [it meant taking] two steps up and one down for 1,000m.”
Once on the ridge, he waited three hours for the winds to drop, sheltered by a cornice. He then proceeded over mixed terrain to the base of the Hornbein Couloir. He climbed this for “a few hundred meters.”
Then he broke a wind slab and triggered an avalanche that swept him down some 50 meters. After some consideration, he decided to turn around at that point. He descended in a heavy snowfall, with his previous footprints totally buried, and two to three meters of visibility. It was “interesting,” the athlete admitted.
Yes, sometimes staying alive, learning a lot in difficult conditions, making the right decisions, and being lucky to return to ones family is more than just “interesting” but actually “feels perfect”. I’m confused my the marketing speak, but glad to have him still with us. I bet his family is too.
Singletrack – Episode 275:
This week on Singletrack I am chatting with Nicole Amyx, filmmaker, ultra runner and colleague of mine at the Trail Running Film Festival. Nicole shares how she blends her passions of filmmaking and running, passed down from her parents, into an inspiring life just outside San Francisco. We chat about about the importance of finding a great story when making a documentary film and how running can give us balance and peace for everyday life.
It’s been fascinating following Kilian and Emelie on their “marketing trip” to the Himalayas. Say what you will about using a family vacation with kids for promotional purposes but what I find most intriguing is to see all the bespoke gear NNormal created for them. It’s brilliant product placement for NNormal getting their logo into all these cool shots, but what I want to know is how these items are made. There are backpacks, gaiters, duffel bags, high altitude mountaineering pants, jackets, etc. They can’t just use a third party product and slap their logo on it. All these items were made just for them for this one trip. Yes, there’s R&D experience that can be gained, but for NNormal, a brand co-owned by Camper, a classic fashion shoe brand, this is quite a departure and requires some in-house expertise (or outsourced expertise) to pull all these items of. Especially since the mountaineering equipment is supposed to keep them alive on the mountain, that’s not just a simple gear bag.
I’d love to know what mountaineering boots Kilian used on his summit attempt.
Vert.run “the #1 leading app for Trail & Ultra runners of all kinds” (lolz, what does that even mean?) is now offering the official online coaching for all UTMB races.
The unofficial coach for UTMB is my coach Matt Urbanski at Team RunRun. Better, I promise!
Dylan Bowman defines the mission statement of Freetrail:
… we’ve never explicitly defined what we mean by Trail Culture and what the specific attributes of Trail Culture are.
It’s good to see a media outlet to not just focus on pro athletes chasing sponsor contracts. All their points are super valid. Fluffy, but totally something I can subscribe too.
I am super excited about this brand new “By UTMB” race. It’s in a terrific location, feels very ‘were I grew up” and therefore is totally on my list of races I want to run one of these years (okay maybe next year_… except that my attendance wouldn’t help these sad sad gender split numbers:
Combined there were 3,568 finishers, 765 were women or just 21%. Not great, not great at all.
My buddy Nick Triolo travelled to L.A. to Strava’s annual ‘tech conference’: Camp Strava. He highlights the main announcement for Outside:
In short, lots of tech improvements are in the pipeline that are all about partnerships with other, existing companies and expanding the platform with more integrations.
PCT DAYS celebrates and promotes hiking, camping, backpacking & outdoor stewardship and offers a bit of something for everyone, whether you are an outdoor enthusiast or new to outdoor recreation. Over 100 exhibiting sponsors will be offering the latest outdoor products at the Gear Expo & Marketplace. Attendees can participate in activities, games, presentations, gear raffles, listen to live music, and meet with old and new friends in an amazing setting.
I very much love this.
One of the few remaining (did you see what I did there?) things that seem to be alright with the UK:
In Scotland, there is a right to walk through the countryside, leaving no trace, with some exceptions such as not trampling over land that is growing crops. Under a Labour government, people in England would be granted the same rights.
To tag on to the post I wrote a few days ago about public land permitting being handed by public agencies to private entities and they in turn start price gouging as this is the American Way. Here’s a story of a lawsuit being filed against the private contractor managing Recreation.gov, a website for the public used to obtain camping permits, wilderness permits and other recreation access.
In some sense it’s great that for this big big country, with lots of National Parks, Forest lands, and BLM areas that a website like Recreation.gov exists and someone looking for a campsite or backcountry permit has a one-stop shop to obtain those and plan their vacation. But, due to the size of the operation only mega corps have a chance to respond to the RFPs by the government that solicit help in managing these portals and services.
Here’s the company that got awarded the contract to manage Recreation.gov:
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American government and military contractor, specializing in intelligence.
A military intelligence company is managing campsites in National Parks? Yes, this is a somewhat gross simplification, but it shows the challenges of our federally managed public lands. Recreation.gov by-and-large is just a time-based shopping cart system like AirBnB or Expedia. It’s not a complicated website, yet the Federal agency awarding the contract to Booz Allen decided that a company with a history of military intelligence gathering is right for the job?
In similar vein, most National Park lodges and visitor centers are managed by ‘concession companies’ that bring their expertise from managing sport venues and conference centers. Yes, people go to our National Parks for the natural wonder and beauty and not for the warm hospitality, but if you’ve ever been disappointed in the mediocre overpriced hotdog offering at a National Park lodge, here’s your answer.
Many of the races in that area are planning with the realities of snow on the course. Canyons had to be rerouted quite a bit but, even races happening in June/July will still be dealing with snow on their trails.
The snow is a valid concern given our record breaking, historical snowfall in Lake Tahoe this winter.
Despite that, we’re extremely confident that the race will go on without any major impacts, as it did after big winters in 2017 and 2019 where we ran 80% or more of the entire course on snow.
Not brand new, but a first year event for UTMB, Valhöll is South America’s first UTMB event, announced back in October of last year along with Paraty Brazil which will happen later in September. Valhöll offered six distances for runners to chose from and here is how this broke down:
Total finisher for Valhöll Argentina combined: 1,991. Of those 705 women or 35% finished.
Offer shorter distances, increase women participation and change the look and feel of your events.
Like everyone else, UTMB also launches a podcast, because of course they would:
Each month two trail runners will meet to discuss what the sport means to them. They will share their passions, interests, beliefs and get to know each other along the way, taking the listeners on the journey with them.
I do love that they are pairing a pro athlete with an amateur to discuss their love for the sport. Remember this episode of Singletrack? Still one of my favorite episodes, and if it wouldn’t be so hard to put the logistics together I would love to do more of these. This gets as close as it gets to what makes our sport so special.
From a story on a bike race in NY with 30 year history:
Floyd Bennett Field is one of the most longstanding, unique, beloved, accessible and diverse races available to New Yorkers.
…
In 2019, when the then race promoter went in search of the same permit, he was directed to Aviator Sports, instead of NPS, who quoted a price of $2,000 per race. What had once been a $150 permit, had now become a $34,000 endeavor for the race season, with seemingly no explanation.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Another global running series launches, and again it’s promoted by a running shoes brand.
PROJECT PEAK is Saucony’s global trail running series culminating with El Cruce, the epic 3-day 100k race that traverses the iconic Andes Mountains.
The six events in the series are:
With the final being the El Cruce, a multi day event between December 1-6 , San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina.
Not sure what to say about this other than that it seems that global shoe brands seem to think that promoting, marketing and organizing these running event series seem to be good for business. The North Face did it for awhile, La Sportiva used to have a Mountain Cup that event stopped in Olympia (I ran one of their races in the series and other than a few La Sportiva flags at the start/finish there was no local tie-in) Salomon obviously has the Golden Trail Series and HOKA seems to “own” Western States, its Golden Ticket Qualifiers and of course the UTMB World Series. Some events like Western States, UTMB or the Cirque Series of course existed before and will without their title sponsors (ON is the sponsor for Cirque), but the idea of launching a running series and sort of loosely connecting a few existing races into a series, promoting it together on the brand’s website seems to be the current playbook for marketing efforts for (big global shoe) brands.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Brendan Leonard’s illustration in which he share’s an observation about us outdoor people. Basically, his point is, and you should really check out the entire comic strip on his Instagram, that he suggest that people are either uphill or downhill people:
Of course I am an uphill person and that’s why I find trail running such a thrill and worthwhile obsession and I find myself in good company.
Back in September I wrote an article outlining how “the rest of us” are getting into UTMB in Chamonix. UTMB made since a few changes, mainly for elite runners and I wanted to link to the article, which seems to outline this all pretty well. The general consensus I’ve heard is that this is now fixing some of the confusion we’ve experienced during the change from old qualification system to new qualification system (and COVID madness) and this are now as straightforward as before.
1 “The following year” explanation I had missed:
The qualification period for the UTMB Finals is the calendar year prior to the finals, Events and Majors in 2024 will qualify for the 2025 UTMB World Series Finals.
There are a couple permutation and temporary allowances while we’re still in a transition period, but that’s the gist of it. Again, these rules are for Elite runners, not for the rest of us, unless you’re fast… like really fast.
Yes, the racing season is heating up and there are A LOT of races happening around the globe each weekend. I won’t post the numbers of every big race, but I wanted to capture how the gender percentage numbers differ from continent to continent and get a general sense of how these big races are fairing in this department. So let’s head down under to Australia, to a race that’s been owned by Ironman since the early days of the UTMB World Tour.
UTA doesn’t have a 100 mile race, which tend to skew the numbers heavily in favor of the men, but these numbers are nonetheless some of the best I’ve seen so far. There were a total of 5,390 finishers (and a overall low DNF rate!) with 2,431 women or 45%. Yes, the shorter distances are helping boost the women participation and finishing numbers. Something to think about if you’re a race director.
Snowdonia seems to have been an absolutely brutal race with their UTS 100M marquee event posting a 41% finisher rate. Ouch. Here are their equally brutal numbers:
Snowdonia in Wales is the UK’s only UTMB race and saw 1794 finishers, 412 were women. That’s just barely 23%. That’s one of the lowest numbers I’ve recorded since tracking.
Another fun side fact is that this race was held in a National Park and invited thousands of runners. Something like this we’d never see in the US.
From the Trailhead Direct Blog:
This summer, Trailhead Direct continues to focus the transit-to-trails service on the most popular route, leaving from the Sound Transit Capitol Hill Link light rail station every 30 minutes with stops at the trailheads leading to Mount Si, Mount Teneriffe, and Little Si
Trailhead Direct is a seasonal service that operates on weekends and designated holidays.
From the heart of the city, directly to a trailhead… brilliant!
From their announcement on social media:
From day one, we have always said that “whether you finish first or last, at the Broken Arrow Skyrace, YOU are a rockstar.”
In our videos, social media and pre-race athlete profiles, we have always sought to balance compelling stories of BOTH elite AND recreational athletes. While we love our fasties, the reality is that our recreational runners are also a tremendous source of inspiration. We want to celebrate those stories!
…
We invite you nominate someone who is running Broken Arrow this June who has an inspirational story that deserves to be told. Our race team will then feature these winners DURING the livestream of both the VK and 26k. It is our goal to illustrate the importance and compelling stories of runners from ALL walks of life.
The Broken Arrow team around Brendan Madigan and Ethan Veneklasen continue to lead the way. Bravo!
Singletrack – Episode 274:
Lou D’Onofrio is back on Singletrack. After yet another stellar finish at the famous C&O Canal 100 just a couple of weeks ago it was high time to check back in with Lou on all his races and adventures across the East Coast.
This weekend is not just Mother’s Day, on the same Saturday are two trail races almost right next to each other on Seattle’s Eastside in the Issaquah Alps:
Insert thinking face emoji.
Imogen Foulkes for BBC:
Residents of the tiny Swiss village of Brienz have been told to pack their bags and leave immediately.
The reason: two million cubic metres of rock from the mountain above them is set to come loose and crash down to the valley in the next few days.
How will the rich European countries react to the effects of climate change when their exact way of life is being threatened?
An incomprehensible 4,709 runners registered for this first-year UTMB event in the Alsace region of France.
Just to put this in perspective: the much hyped Canyons Endurance Runs, one of the biggest events in North America, a UTMB World Major, and Western States qualifier, in the self-proclaimed ‘endurance capitol of the world’, Auburn California drew around ~1,900 runners across the various distances a couple of weeks ago.
Trail Alsace Grand Est, is a brand new race on trails. We have no racing history or story lines and this event draws over twice as many people for its inaugural year.
Absolutely massive.
The 2023 Global Tour travelled through 70+ cities across the world and is currently in the final days of the Virtual Viewing Week. Yes, there will be a few more locations showing our films, but after Monday, May 15th you will have had you last chance to see these amazing films. Do not miss out.
Alecsa Stewart writes for Freetrail:
However, one common theme that emerges from talking to female competitors across distances and experience levels is that small gestures go a long way. Women who feel seen and respected in races amplify that event’s reach and develop loyalty towards it. All it takes is showing interest and starting to include that female point of view. It’s good business, good community building, and a way to develop the trail culture that we all want.
This!
His always very lengthy reviews are always worth your time. You learn more than just about the specific product he’s reviewing, but about how GPS works and many other useful things.
I especially love the photos which give you a good idea on how big the watch is compared to others in its category.
He also followed it up with a complete user guide on Youtube for folks not familiar with the Suunto software.
His summary on the new Sunnto Vertical, their new flagship product:
The Suunto Vertical watch is finally the Suunto watch that should stop the bleeding, not just to Garmin, but also COROS. In particular, it’ll likely give any existing Suunto user pause to see where the hardware goes. Suunto has put forth a very accurate GPS watch on land, with good and clear mapping.
Still, I’m excited to see where this all might go. Suunto has spent a lot of time on the Suunto app/platform side in the last few years, and that’s certainly much appreciated. But with finally having a good hardware base to work from, it’s time to pivot to focusing on watch features to take advantage of that hardware and bring back that previous Suunto mojo. Making the hardware as good as they did was the hard part, now comes the (relatively) easy part: Adding in new software features to match.
Let’s go! I’m excited for this.
Transvulcania La Palma on the Spanish Canary Island off the coast of Morocco, Africa happened last week, May 4-6, 2023. Let’s take a look at the gender splits of their various race offerings. And yes, I am late again and only have finisher numbers.
I don’t have the numbers for their youth or kids races, but of the 4 races above there were a total of 1604 finishers and 412 were women, that’s 25.7%.
I don’t have anything smart to say anymore, but I wonder if there any sports were these percentages are reversed? And to the people who say “These numbers are improving and not that bad.” I would ask when they were the last time in a group setting were they were the minority and how they felt about it.
Somewhat local news, Olympic National Parks day lodge at Hurricane Ridge above Port Angeles on the Northern side of the park caught fire this week and burned completely to the ground. No one was present and the 17 mile road leading to Hurricane Ridge had been closed. The lodge had been closed for intensive renovations but no cause has been identified yet.
This might sound a but insensitive as many people have lots of memories attached to the building, but the structure, while ‘historic, in a west coast sense’ wasn’t an architectural marvel. I’m excited for an opportunity to build something new, modern, sustainable and fitting for our times.
Courtney Dauwalter’s sponsor and gear supplier Salomon FINALLY released her preferred race kit named “Shortney”. Shorts and shirts “oversized” or properly sized, depending on who you ask. But either way the wait is over.
That explains the Courtney Dauwalter mass media appearance in CNN.
Again I was late and didn’t get the starter numbers, just the finisher results, but here are the Cocodona gender split results for the 2023 events where Aravaipa offered three distances for the first time.
Since I don’t know if the DNFs include DNSs, I chose not to calculate the full totals.
But the big number that sticks out is Elden Crest where more women than men finished the race, nice!
The total across all three events: 297 finishers, 105 women or 35%.
All numbers pulled from the UltraSignup results page.
Singletrack – Episode 273:
One of the biggest trail running events in North America just went down in Auburn, California: The Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB. I have Jeff Urbanski with me to talk about his incredible 12th place finish in the 100 Mile race and I share a bit about my 50K effort, that yes, was not a DNF, how about that.
I just ran the 50K race downing Auburn, CA and thought I’d check on the finisher numbers for the various distances for one of American’s biggest trail race events, the Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB.
Combining results for all distances Canyons saw 1377 finishers and of those 475 were women crossing the finish line. That’s 34% in total. Which overall isn’t horrible, but still skewed by the higher numbers of the shorter distances and seeing that there were only 20 women finishing the 100M it’s clear our sport has a long way to go.
Singletrack – Episode 272:
Erik Stanley joins us from Austin, TX to share a bit of his amazing trail community with us. He’s the founder, coach, and race director at Trail Roots, a running community in the larger Austin area. Erik also hosts for the Trail Running Film Festival in Austin on April 20th.
Brian Metzler on stage with the Polettis in downtown Auburn during Canyons mentioned the new book by ‘Run The Alps’ founder Doug Meyer:
This is the improbable story of how Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) became one of the world’s great sporting events even as it set new limits of human endurance. It is a story of how world’s best runners, in the historic home of mountain adventures, brought about a revolution in running that has been felt across the globe.
I’m incredible excited about this book and, of course have it already pre-ordered. Doug, an American living in Chamonix, is probably best positioned to give us the backstory of UTMB. I doubt we will read a lot about strategic business decisions, which I am terribly interested in, but nonetheless it will fill in many missing pieces.
Here are some (somewhat random) observations about my first visit to a ‘by UTMB’ trail running event: The Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB that happened this last week in Auburn, CA.
Initially I was invited by Canyon’s race director Chaz Sheya to host the Trail Running Film Festival as an official entertainment offering during the race weekend at the Auburn State Theatre, but, you might’ve heard, that didn’t work out. Long story (for a different time).
A newly announced nutrition sponsor of the UTMB World Series offered samples in the vendor village. They had their liquid electrolytes and solid food offerings at the aid stations.
Mind you, it was hot, 90 degrees!, but their solid offerings were pretty boring: ‘stroop’/energy waffles (we’ve seen those on the ultra scene for a many years now) and gooey bars that sort of melted in the heat – not great.
Their liquid electrolyte drink (I tried the lime flavor for the last 7 miles when I was sure that it wouldn’t screw with my nutrition plan anymore) was sort of amazing. It wasn’t sweet, but tart and refreshing. I gotta do some research and see how “good” this powder is in comparison to my trusty Tailwind, but after having run 6hrs in the heat and only having had Tailwind and Spring Energy the tartness and not-sweetness of the Lime electrolyte drink was a welcome and refreshing change. Stay tuned for more on that.
Didn’t seem as bad as many had feared. The race had enough runners (1,900 across the 4 distances offered) that a vendor village made sense. Of course there was a merch store and almost more HOKA signage than UTMB World Series banners, but that’s about it. It all seemed pretty reasonable to me, but I am also someone who gets, and even likes a festival atmosphere at trail races, so why not. I am not originally from the Pacific Northwest, can you tell?
Outside from a couple event staff members wearing Ironman safety vests, I didn’t see the Ironman logo anywhere. Interestingly, the medal I received at the finish felt very corporate. Not bad, just mass-stamped and massive. A friend of mine just finished an Ironman and showed their medal on Facebook and you can clearly see that they are using the same vendor for both events. Me thinks that that’s where Ironman will save the most money, by leveraging the already existing machine they have built.
What I still don’t know, and quite frankly it’s driving me crazy, is how the partnership with the race directors and UTMB/Ironman actually works.
We sort of know how the partnership between UTMB and Ironman works and even there are still a lot of missing pieces, but how does UTMB/Ironman partner with the race directors on the ground.
I’ve said it before, I cannot for a second believe that, the Swiss team that build Eiger Ultra-Trail would sell their entire event to Ironman. It’s not happening. But maybe it’s different for races in the US?
After having observed at Canyons what UTMB/Ironman brings to the table and what the local race directors lift I don’t believe that UTMB/Ironman will be successful if they own these races outright and ‘just employ’ the race directors. Every aid station is managed by local volunteers who put in a sleepless weekend to ensure these events go off without a hitch. The race directors need the connections to the local community. If you remove this ‘people management element’ into a corporate office somewhere at “Business Park Drive 1” how is this supposed to work on an annual basis? These races happen all over the world, every single year. This isn’t like the Olympic Games where a giant corporate machine asks of for hundreds of unpaid volunteers to help in exchange for a once in a lifetime experience and a t-shirt.
Were there in Auburn. It was after all, the first UTMB World Series Major in the Americas, which was kind of a big deal. Michel (a seven time finisher of the UTMB) ran the 50K, and beat me by over 45minutes. Catherine (who was named race director for the inaugural UTMB event because she was the only one in the organizing group that didn’t also wanted to run the race) greeted the runners ahead of each race start and it was all pleasant and quite nice. There clearly is a language and cultural barrier there, and (for obvious reasons) I don’t mind that. It’s a good tension to have in our global sport.
On Friday afternoon I caught an interview with Catherine and Michael, conducted by Brian Metzler from Trailrunner Mag/Outside in the expo/vendor village. The interview was mostly fluff, but it was interesting to see them trying to create something that isn’t just HOKA Pro athlete content. Thank god.
The feeling I get is that the Polettis are genuine, love the race they build in Chamonix. Their World Series effort is strategic. They approach it from the point of view that if they wouldn’t step up someone from outside the trail running world would, and that would be worse than whatever UTMB is building right now. And I also think that whatever business deal the Polettis struck with Ironman ensures that whatever happens internationally, the actual UTMB Mont-Blanc event will always be in the hands of the Polettis. Again, this is just a feeling.
One interesting tidbit Catherine Poletti mentioned is that their children work for the tech company responsible for the live tracking and data presentation of all the races.
LiveTrail SARL is a start-up who is specialized in IT development in the outdoor sport area. Known for many years as the leader in live following of very long races, its more important client, UTMB®, is today the world summit trail races.
Two things:
Didn’t happen. After big media fanfare in the weeks leading up to the event a brief press release had been sent out that I had missed mentioning the cancelation:
Following the recce of the contingent courses (due to the exceptional conditions in the area) carried out by our production team last week, unfortunately, we have had to take the decision to cancel the live streaming.
Corinna Malcolm send me a bit more detail:
Combination of service and heat. For much of the WSER and canyons course you have to utilize starlink to get anything out (which is shaky) then you have equipment in the heat which is a whole other problem to contend with.
I told them in December that it would be an issue – they sent their crew out to the course ~3weeks ago TM preview the routes, filming locations, and service. They then decided that the data coverage wasn’t adequate and we were informed roughly a week before the event.
So clearly we have a very long way to go to, both in bringing tech to the races but also in communication and setting expectations around these events. Or they could just ask Aravaipa which seems to have this figured out. (fewer trees/less heat in Arizona?)
Was everywhere. As a sponsors of the UTMB World Series they really were ever-present. And clearly HOKA currently is everywhere, even beyond the trails. Free People, Nordstroms… every fashion outlet is featuring the “cute, colorful and blocky shoes from the outdoors”.
But this got me thinking. When Hoka One One launched, that’s what was their name. A mouthful no one could pronounce. In fact back in 2018 Hoka.com was still owned by a Dutch Technology firm. HOKA didn’t own or use the domain Hoka.com until the Fall of 2021. Around that time HOKA must’ve acquired the domain (4 letter domains aren’t cheap!) and redirected it to hokaoneone.com, their homepage. Now hokaoneone.com is redirecting to hoka.com.
This tells me that HOKA was aiming to simplify their brand and what better way than to use a simple four letter word, designed in sans serif font that looks similar to NIKE. But also similar to UTMB. In Auburn the white UTMB on dark blue and the white HOKA on light blue felt almost interchangeable to the casual observer. Almost.
Calls itself the Endurance Capitol of the World and I don’t want to take this away from them, but I just got to chuckle at of the most American things ever. Every American small town seem to have the need of a marketing slogan, some pick the claim of the WORLD’S largest lava lamp or host an WORLD’s largest onion festival. Baseball in American plays a World Series…
Another thought I had is that Ironman might be getting ‘not great’ advice from the team in Chamonix who might be dealing with difficult mountain terrain in the Alps but clearly have infrastructure in place (Helicopters! Cell coverage! eBikes! mountain huts!) which allows a complete different level of support when it comes to media coverage and racer safety.
Which brings me to a conversation I had with a local trail runner who mentioned some safety issues for the 100M and 100K runners and the aid station captains receiving subpar support from race headquarters when calling for support for runners. My thought is that Euro races are trying to promote self-reliance and individual responsibility of the runners, but this comes from a perspective and mindset which puts runners into mountainous and potentially treacherous terrain, but at the same time these Euro mountains offer a certain level of support (huts every couple miles, cell coverage, search and rescue support, helicopters on standby). That infrastructure doesn’t exist in the US wilderness. Further, while Euro races are comparably cheaper than US counterparts most require you to obtain a special insurance policy that will take care of any evac. needs. Growing pains? Maybe. But UTMB/Ironman wants to sit on the top of the heap. They gotta step up and deliver a race experience for every runner and not just the elites. A trail race experience that raises the bar, and keeps them out of legal troubles down the road.
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