Update:

The TDS 2024 is sold out! Congratulations to the latest entrants for this final sprint. Your dream is about to become a reality.

UTMB just sent out a note inviting people to sign up to race TDS:

So it’s now or never to grab one of the last 83 race bibs for the TDS and its iconic route, which will take you through the Aosta Valley and the Beaufortain.

It’s almost April, and this race is still not sold out. (I don’t remember how this compares to last year. Was TDS sold out by this time around?) The race is harder, shorter and less iconic than UTMB – it’s not the full loop – but you’re still there in Chamonix during UTMB week, you still are part of the main gig, and you now even get 4 stones. Puzzles me why this event is’t as popular as the others.

In comparison, here are last year’s numbers:

• UTMB (170KM) Starters: 2,814. 2,473 Men, 340 Women (12%)
• CCC (100KM) Starters: 2,406. 1,932 Men, 474 Women (20%)
• OCC (55KM) Starters: 1,953. 1,409 Men, 544 Women (28%)
• TDS (145KM) Starters: 1,871. 1,662 Men, 209 Women (11%)
• MCC (40KM) Starters: 1,384. 934 Men, 450 Women (33%)
• ETC (15KM) Starters: 1,808. 1,035 Men, 773 Women (43%)

Fewer people ran TDS compared to the shorter OCC. And yes while it’s harder and longer this doesn’t usually scare trail runners away, as seen by the starter numbers for UTMB. I’m not sure what the total entry spots are for TDS for 2024, but with numbers for the lottery for UTMB, CCC, OCC up this year it’s fascinating that TDS isn’t sold out yet. Will be interesting to see if UTMB bumped up the entry numbers for this year.

Announced for 04/01/2024. This has been a long time coming and there’s no information on the website yet, so this better not be an April Fools’ Joke.

Updated: Now launched on the website. The women’s shoe is available now, the men’s shoe will be available on April 29th.

Adidas Terrex athlete Marcel Höche and I chatted about the shoes on Singletrack a few weeks ago.

The team behind the Swiss Alps 100 adds the popular Backyard Ultra format to their already massively busy race weekend. Their deceptively hard, yet beautiful 100 miler put this event on the map, but the team continues to innovate offering shorter distances and even a hike and fly event, an event which is like a small RedBull XAlps. Events like the Swiss Alps 100 proof that there’s lots of space in our trail running sport for race directors to innovate and create unique races that don’t fit the generic mold we’ve come to expect from the races most of the media tends to cover. More of it, please.

The ECC newsletter just went out to almost 3,000 subscribers. What is it? A summery of the links I share here daily, along with the latest Singletrack episode and a few other fun things. If you come here often and don’t want to mis a thing, consider signing up. I usually send it about twice a month. Here’s what this week’s and issue #168 looked like. And just like the website, the newsletter can be sponsored. If you have a product or service you’d want to share with my audience, do get in touch.

Aiways? You ask:

Aiways is the innovative electric vehicle manufacturer with visions for sustainability, innovation, and adventure. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in the realms of eco-friendly mobility and outdoor sports

Or in Aiways own words:

With the mission to drive this progress in a positive way, Chinese entrepreneurs Samuel Fu and Gary Gu founded Aiways in 2017. And the desire to make electric driving as enjoyable, exciting, and accessible as possible has turned into a global Aiways network.

I’m curious if this announcement will generate any online chatter? And if not, why? Is the Skyrunner World Series just too small compared to UTMB? Is this not news anymore because the UTMB Dacia partnership came before them?

New women-powered podcast incoming:

The Trail Network Podcast brings the untold stories of magical moments amongst trail runners to life. These stories of runners on and off the trail capture the spirit of trailrunning and the power of friendship and connection.

Hosted by ultra runners Leah Yingling, Rachel Drake, Katie Asmuth, and Hilary Yang. No website yet, here’s their Instagram and produced by Sandyboy Productions.

The Seattle Times:

Lou Whittaker, a Seattle-born and -raised mountaineer and glacier travel guide who climbed Mount Rainier more than 250 times, died Sunday at 95.

…

In 1984, he led the first successful American summit of the North Col of Mount Everest. In 1989, the adventurer led the first American expedition of 12 climbers up Kanchenjunga, in the Himalayas, the world’s third-highest peak, and got six people to the summit.

…

When a Seattle Times reporter asked Lou Whittaker “Why do you climb a mountain” in 1989, he replied: “If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”

Lou Whittaker is undoubtably a global icon in the mountaineering world, but he also put Seattle and the surrounding areas toward Mt. Rainier on the global map. There are very few big city urban areas, which are at sea level that are associated with the outdoors in the way Seattle is.

Singletrack – Episode 298:

Chrissi Faber is from Germany, lives in New Zealand and just very cool came in 3rd at the Tarawera Ultra Trail Miler. We chat about her race day experience, the event and its origins and the evolution under UTMB ownership.

Links

• Chrissi Faber on Instagram
• Chrissi Faber on UTMB
• Tarawera Ultra Trail by UTMB

This is a post mostly for myself, but having spoken to a few other folks it seems there was some confusion on how elites can qualify directly for the Finals in Chamonix by placing in the top 3, or top 10 (at Majors), and how this plays out in reality.

From the official UTMB website:

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.

I never parsed this sentence correctly and not until I chatted with Chrissi Faber for Singletrack (will post episode this weekend!) who came in 3rd at the Tarawera Miler last month, was I made aware of this.

All races in 2024 will allow you to qualify directly for 2025. Not for 2024. This qualification window is closed. So… seemingly, if you race, and place in any of the races in this calendar year you won’t be able to make it “last minute” to Chamonix. That window is closed, as of 12/31, 2023, and your last chance for direct qualification via placement was in Thailand at the Doi Inthanon by UTMB events.

IMPORTANT: this only addresses the direct qualification process by placing in the top 3/top 10 and not the index selection process: If your Index is high enough you can get special considerations that are beyond this post.

Announced via the official press release tool Instagram:

Mile & Stone presents Trail Business Club, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of trail running business.

Things are moving fast now in the trail B2B world. After Dylan Bowman launched his new venture ‘Second Nature‘ last week, the French outfit Mile & Stone launch their podcast focused on the B2B world of our little sport. There’s no mention of it on their website yet, but you can find the French language podcast on most podcast players.

And just what I said to DBO’s podcast launch, I say here as well: ‘Welcome to the party Trail Business Club!’

100% well deserved media hype over the achievement of a lifetime. So incredible we were able to witness this performance of the first woman finishing the Barkley Marathons.

Social media was all over this for days. Mainstream media picked it up as well.

It’s only March and we already have the ultra trail performance of the year wrapped up. Everyone else can just take a down year.

Here are the results for Chianti Ultra Trail in Tuscany, Italy on March 23-24, 2024, the second UTMB event on the 2024 UTMB World Series Calendar, and the first of the year in Europe. (For full results visit the UTMB website):

Ultra Trail Chianti Castles (103km – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Azara GARCIA DE LOS SALMONES – Spain – 10:12:29
2. Heidi Annemarie SCHWARTZ – Germany – 11:34:08
3. Nicoletta GOSSA – Italy – 12:15:10

Men:

1. Andreas REITERER – Italy – 08:40:33
2. Sébastien SPEHLER – France – 08:52:02
3. Paul CORNUT CHAUVINC – France – 08:52:37

Chianti Ultra Trail (73KM – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Emily HAWGOOD – Zimbabwe – 07:22:14
2. Tara GROSVENOR – Great Britain – 07:28:17
3. Paula BARBOSA – Portugal – 07:48:32

Men:

1. Aleix TODA MAS – Spain – 05:55:41
2. Davide CHERAZ – Italy – 05:56:38
3. Andres GARCIA BLANCO – Spain – 05:59:10

Chianti Marathon Trail (43KM – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Nuria GIL CLAPERA – Spain – 03:20:45
2. Camilla MAGLIANO – Italy – 03:23:14
3. Theres LEBOEUF – Switzerland – 03:27:09

Men:

1. Robbie SIMPSON – Great Britain – 02:50:42
2. Simon PACCARD – France – 02:52:43
3. Bertie HOUGHTON – Great Britain – 02:56:56

Chianti Half Trail (20KM – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Anna HOFER – Italy – 01:34:44
2. Franziska ALTHAUS – Germany – 01:40:07
3. Simona CARGNINO – Italy – 01:43:02

Men:

1. Matteo ROSSI – Italy – 01:21:40
2. Vincent LOUSTAU – France – 01:22:01
3. Fleury ROUX – France – 01:23:40

Chianti Wine Run (15KM – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Irina MANIC – Moldovia – 01:17:44
2. Marcela VILLALOBOS MARTINEZ – Mexico – 01:19:57
3. Lara PARON – Italy – 01:24:34

Men:

1. Alvïn ALEXANDRE – France – 01:02:00
2. Karl MIDLANE – Zambia – 01:02:31
3. Thomas REICHL – Austria – 01:03:08

Combined, the events had 3,026 racers and 2,917 finishers broken down by distance and gender:

• Ultra Trail Chianti Castles Starters: 412 – DNF 30 – Finishers 365. Women: 52 (14%) – Men: 313 (86%)
• Chianti Ultra Trail Starters: 694 – DNF: 39 – Finishers: 655. Women: 111 (17%) – Men: 544 (83%)
• Chianti Marathon Trail Starters: 822 – DNF: 16 – Finishers: 806. Women: 181 (22%) – Men: 625 (78%)
• Chianti Half Trail Starters: 768 – DNF: 5 – Finishers: 763. Women: 268 (35%) – Men: 495 (65%)
• Chianti Wine Run Starters: 330 – DNF: 2 – Finishers: 328. Women: 161 (49%) – Men: 167 (51%)

In total the event saw 2,917 finishers, 773 (27%) women and 2,144 (63%) men reached the finish line and earned themselves stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025¹).

Just like with most races and especially the big European ones the longer distances see a fairly uneven (and very sad) gender split. With the shorter distances the numbers reach the ballpark averages we see across most major races. So while the event weekend might start to feel reasonably even in numbers there’s still lots of work to be done to encourage women to aim for the stars and push themselves to achieve the bigger distances.

Chianti also saw a relatively low DNF rate (just over 100 across all events combined!), which is an indicator that this race might be pretty tame and a good way to get some “easy” stones.

Next up on the UTMB World Series Calendar: Istria 100 on April 4-7 in Croatia.

Why do I just count finish line numbers, you ask?
The UTMB Live webpage shows these numbers easily, and I don’t want to wait until full results are posted to share these numbers.

__________

1
Something I learned just recently: If you come in one of the top spots (1-3) at one of the World Series Events you don’t punch you ticket for this year’s Finals, but for the following year. So runners listed above get entry to the Finals in 2025.

From the intro on the website:

The Berkeley Marathons UK was conceived following a chance encounter with Lazarus Lake at The National Running Show UK in January 2020. After hearing that my family were from Berkeley, Gloucestershire, UK, Laz exclaimed: “you should set up your own race!” Armed with 2 rules from Laz, 1, make it open to all types of runner 2, make it nearly impossible, the story began.

Fascinating, on all levels, including the fact that Las went to the National Running Show in the UK at some point.

Via their email newsletter:

Over time, Fastest Known Time record keepers become aware of opportunities to refine and clarify the language defining FKTs. Since Outside’s acquisition of FKT in 2022, regional editors have reviewed the existing guidelines and agreed on modest changes including the use of public outlets, less specific restrictions on rock climbing within routes, and more.  

Key elements that jumped out on me:

• Must be at least 5 miles long or with at least 500 feet of climbing.
• Can be on any surface – road, trail, or off-trail.
• It’s great that people are out doing fun local routes. However, Fastest Known Times is a “bucket-list” of the best routes in the world!

Especially the last point is probably the one many folks have been asking for the most. With the greater visibility lots of routes were submitted that felt too regional, too personal and too arbitrary at times… or seen from a business perspective: too hard to monetize.

You can see the side by side comparisons on what has changed in this document.

I had read about this awhile back but totally forgot, but the French have a race inspired by Barkley Marathons: ‘The Chartreuse Terminorum’

40 entrants in search of the Lost Time between Valleys and Peaks of the Exceptionnal forest of Grande Chartreuse.

I know nothing about this event, but looking at the photos on their official Facebook page it looks EXACTLY like Barkley… just in French.

Who, you ask? Oh just former German National Team soccer player and 2014 World Champion who got the assist for the only goal in the Finals against Argentina. He also scored two goals in the semifinals against Brazil. That Andre Schürrle just ran the Chianti Marathon Trail by UTMB in 05:43:49. Came in 486th place – out of 806 and got himself 2 Running Stones. Welcome to trail running Andre!

The Strava marketing team seems to have been taken over the band’s Instagram:

Calling all runners! To celebrate the release of “Running” we’re inviting you to the Pearl Jam Running Club. Want to join? It’s simple…

Something like this you expect from U2, not Pearl Jam. Feels a bit more cringe than grunge?

Dylan Bowman and Aaron Lutze launch a new media venture – for now a podcast and Substack:

Second Nature formed after years of Dylan and I talking daily about the business of outdoor sports. Our shared fascination with the brands, athletes and media that make up the outdoor sports world has always been a mainstay of our discussions.

We’ve always done deep dives on brands and had in-depth conversations with other athletes, and now we’re organizing it into a podcast and newsletter format so that we can share what we’ve learned with everyone here.

Expect the pod and newsletter to share news, insights and the occasional interview focused on the business of outdoor sports. Our backgrounds have given us different perspectives on this world, and we’re keen to share what we know.

I listened to Dylan and Aaron on Freetrail back in November and I had a hunch something like this was brewing. With our sport growing and Mile & Stone and others entering the space aiming to track the business side of things, it seems to make sense to split that B2B convo from the Freetrail general feed and leave that one focused on athletes and their performance. I, here at Electric Cable Car say: welcome to the party.

LIVE: This weekend (Mar 23-24, 2024) on our Global Race Series Calendar:

XTERRA heads to Asia this weekend:

Kenting, Taiwan’s tropical landscapes will set the stage for the 2024 Asia-Pacific Championship for an exhilarating race weekend of off-road racing that will also play host to the highly anticipated Asia-Pacific Trail Run Championship.

8 different type of events are offered, including a full triathlon, and a mountain bike race. For trail runners a marathon and half marathon distance are on tap. For Elites there’s a combined prize purse of US$30,200 up for grabs.

Some of the more interesting sponsors include: SEIKO and INEOS Grenadier among others.

Here’s a link to the full XTERRA race calendar.

Find more trail races on ECC’s Global Race Series Calendar

LIVE: This weekend (Mar 22-24, 2024) on our Global Race Series Calendar:

‘Chianti Ultra Trail’ is UTMB’s second race of the 2024 calendar year and the first one in Europe. The Alps are still covered in snow, but Tuscany, among the lower lying areas of Italy are ready for trail racing among wine country.

Several big names on the starting list among them Andreas REITERER, Pau CAPELL, Scott HAWKER, Dani JUNG, Cody LIND, Emily HAWGOOD, Robbie SIMPSON, Dakota JONES.

Chianti offers runners a 103 KM, 73 KM, 43 KM, 20KM and a 15KM race with a chance to get their stones for the lottery.

Once the results are in I will post the gender splits for the various distances.

Here’s a link to the UTMB live feed for the races.

Find more trail races on ECC’s Global Race Series Calendar

For pros:

This is THE SUMMIT: a space where influential business leaders and innovators will discuss pressing issues in an intimate setting designed to foster solutions-oriented dialogue. Join us for thought-provoking panelist discussions and plenty of opportunities to mix and mingle with thought leaders. Come discover the impact one day can make.

I mentioned ‘The Outside Festival‘ back in December when it was first announced and not much was clear. Now the website has a lot more details. It has a bit of a SXSW for the Outdoor space feel to it. My interest is piqued.

I mentioned the Rennsteiglauf before and talked about the race with Daniela Oemus on Singletrack. The 2024 edition, which is their 51st year running this event, reports now more than 13,000 participants – making the event Europe largest ‘Crosslauf’ or cross country run. Amazing tradition.

Bonus: good friend and official spellchecker of Electric Cable Car Federico Hernandez will be at the starting line for this year’s edition.

Really great snapshot of the 2024 race that’s updating in as-close-to-realtime as Keith Dunn will allow. For folks who don’t want to doomscrolling through Twitter/X.

It’s like Willy Wonka but for endurance nutrition:

We’re so excited about our launch of Rapid Hydration that we’re inviting you along for the ride! Celebrate with us in our home base and get ready to experience Colorado’s playground the Tailwind way. 

Enter our Golden Ticket Sweepstakes for a chance to win a FREE 4-night, fun-filled stay in your #1 destination for Rapid Hydration, Durango, Colorado!

Let’s go!

From Daybreak’s website:

The 2024 Gorge Waterfalls 100K is a Qualifier for the 2025 Western States Endurance Run. Runners must finish under 18 hours to be eligible.

Each distance is also a UTMB® Index race.

The races aren’t listed on the official UTMB Index races calendar, but neither is Kodiak… which is LITERALLY A UTMB WORLD SERIES EVENT.

From their joined Instagram post:

We are thrilled to announce that WSER and Mountain Outpost, a leading North American live broadcast production company in trail and ultra running, have joined forces to bring the 2024 Western States Endurance Run livestream to audiences worldwide.

Better coverage for our sport is a net positive so, I’m not here to gripe. But it is fascinating that among the many filmmakers and media groups who have been covering our sport over the past decade or so only the Aravaipa team has figured out, and invested heavily into, making live-streaming possible. Not just are they the largest racing organization in the US, with them covering both Hardrock and WSER, they (as in Mountain Outpost) are also the only broadcasting company uniquely positioned to livestream large scale trail running events – and actually deliver a decent product. Where’s iRunFar? Where’s Outside? Where are all the individual creators who have invested heavily into their Youtube presence and “pivoted heavily into video” these past few years? Even Freetrail, who provides a lot of on-camera talent doesn’t have its own broadcasting capabilities on that scale and relied on Mountain Outpost for their live coverage of last month’s inaugural Big Alta race.

“It’s only called a monopoly if it’s from the Mont-Blanc region of France, otherwise it’s just called sparking business partnerships.”

For folks not interesting in chasing the #BM100 hashtag on Twitter/X @taka_does_stuff and anna_propriate@epicure.social have compiled a Google spreadsheet with historical results which they are keeping up to date with who’s running this year and their finisher times for each loop. Great way to not get bogged down with trolls on Twitter and just get to the numbers and results.

Finally caved and added the newer shows and several of the older ones with special guests to Youtube.

If you enjoy audio podcasts on YouTube, you can listen to them and look at the still cover image – not planning on adding video version of the show – for now.

Not everyday that I link to the New York Post:

Biden has recently been photographed sporting a black pair of Hoka Transport sneakers with his formal suits rather than more traditional dress shoes.

Hokas, they are literally everywhere.

They also have a waffle knit sweater with the words: ‘Tour du Mont-Blanc‘ on it. My best guess is that the combo of gorpcore and Paris hosting the Olympic Games (Ralph Lauren is the official outfitter for the US Olympics team) made them design these products. I don’t care about Ralph Lauren as a brand, but I’m a sucker for stuff like this.

Brought to you by the same folks who do build Vacation Races, the popular Half Marathons around National Parks and a few other ventures, this new outfit is aiming to upscale the 100 mile trail racing experience.

Their first event the Zion 100-Mile Challenge happening late August during UTMB week, is hosted at Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort and will put you back at least $3K.

What you get for it is: 4 nights of accommodation, food and drink and a training plan to help you succeed… and of course a lot more… I hope.

With the 100-Mile Challenge events, the goal for every registered athlete is to run 100 miles in 60-hours or less. As athletes work to achieve that goal, there are Milestones at iconic race distances along the way (Half Marathon, Marathon, 50K, 50 Mile, 100K and 100 Mile). The award you receive at the end of the event is directly correlated to the cumulative distance you run.

For example, if at the end of the event, you ran 55 total miles, you will have passed the 50-Mile Milestone but you will have not yet reached the 100K Milestone (which is about 62 miles) and you’ll receive the 50-Mile Milestone award. The only way to earn the next Milestone award is to run the distance required to reach it.

The Milestones are intended to be “short-term goals” on the way to the ultimate goal of running 100 miles!

Not sure what the target demo is. Is the goal of achieving an ultra distance but broken up into these chunks really worth the price of admission here?

Is this an American interpretation of the ‘Run the Alps’ style trips?

Well, it feels super niche, but I applaud the creativity here, and am curious to follow how this all will play out.

This was the 30th! Anniversary of this much loved early season ‘rust buster’ ultra in Bellingham, Washington. One of the ‘old school ultras’ as labeled by Ultrarunning Magazine the event saw yet another incredible sunny and warm race day.

There were a total of 585 finishers:

• Men: 364 (62%)
• Women: 218 (37%)
• Non-binary: 3 (.5%)

Top 3 women:

1. Claire DeVoe – 4:13:25
2. Jade Belzberg – 4:14:58
3. Priscilla Forgie – 4:15:36

Top 3 men:

1. Francesco Puppi – 3:26:31
2. Matt Daniels – 3:28:43
3. Dylan Humberger – 3:39:41

Francesco ran a new official course record time (Adam Peterman ran a faster time in 2022 on an altered and shorter course).

Friend of Singletrack Thomas Reiss finished in 5:02:48 – congrats.

Back in 2017 I ran Chuckanut for its 25th anniversary in very different weather.

More on Chuckanut 50 from race director Kris Moehl on Singletrack.

All eyes are on Keith Dunn’s Twitter/X account – the in-official, official live commentator for the Barkley Marathons about to go down at Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. The race that is insanely hard to get into, insanely hard to complete, but insanely addicting to follow on Twitter/X.

Dylan Bowman in the Freetrail Newsletter posted here on LinkedIn for folks who aren’t subscribed:

Trail running is more like surfing than it is like track and field. While we admire the great athletes and performances in the sport, there is nothing more culturally celebrated than Golden Hour and the heroic final finishers. The FURTHER event made me feel like lululemon “gets it” from a brand level.

…

Even though it wasn’t technically a trail race, FURTHER felt in line with #TrailCulture. 

…

FURTHER was probably lululemon’s most important brand activation in many years and a seminal moment for women’s sports.

There’s no doubt that luluemon really broke the mold with this marketing effort. It really delivered and was very impressive all around.

In the comments on LinkedIn Ethan Veneklasen added a slight caveat to DBO’s observations which I feel is important to add:

… the one thing that did NOT feel consistent with the trail running culture to me was that it was not an open event. It was a closed event…put on by a corporate entity…solely to highlight their athletes and set up a record attempt. One of the things that make trail running so unique and, indeed, special is that regular schmos (like me) get to line up on the same course at the same time as fasties (like you).

Ethan’s not trying to knock lululemon here, but comment on DBO’s definition of the event being “trail culture”. Trail running clearly is inspirational, but beyond that, one of the defining criteria is that it is accessible. The inspiration in trail running doesn’t just come from folks watching world record shattering feats by professional athletes – we’ve had this in many sports before – but from the direct and open invitation for everyone to participate as well. And not just participation by buying the gear, but actually letting your feet touch dirt and experience this adventure for yourselves – that’s trail running.

LIVE: This weekend (Mar 17, 2024) on our Global Race Series Calendar:

The ‘XTERRA Black Canyon Trail Run’ is XTERRA’s 3rd race of their season and first in the US. The event is produced locally by Shendo Cat Racing.

The XTERRA race is a Half Marathon and is part of a bigger event series offering multiple race distances starting in and around Black Canyon City in Arizona. From comparing the GPX files it looks like it’s using some of the same trails as Aravaipa’s Black Canyon Ultras.

I can’t find any information on a starting list (registration is open up until day off) or a live feed.

Find more trail races on ECC’s Global Race Series Calendar

A couple of weeks ago UTMB posted an initial starting list for their Finals in Chamonix. This was never meant as a complete list as many runners are still getting qualified at various World Series Events happening between now and August. I.E.: The initial CCC list had been missing, but is now added.

But the big news is that on that initial list UTMB posted Jim Walmsley was listed as running UTMB. He has since been removed.

I don’t want to say it, but is this another PR blunder by UTMB? Did they jump the gun adding Jim to the list and he went like “Oh no, I’m not coming”?

Adam and Jeannine have been killing it up with the promotion of the Trail Running Film Festival up there in Vancouver. Tour kicks off tonight. Let’s go!

Nick Triolo for Outside Run:

The film is co-directed by Christine River and Ellie Windham, and it’s recently been selected as one of eight films for the 2024 Trail Running Film Festival, which starts this week and will tour to more than 50 locations worldwide.

Global Tour is kicking off tonight. Let’s go!

From the official press release:

On achieves strong full year results in 2023, significantly exceeding the expectations set at the beginning of the year, reaching net sales of CHF 1,792.1 million. This reflects a reported growth rate of 46.6% year-over-year and over 55% on a constant currency basis. On further reports a gross profit margin of 59.6%, net income of CHF 79.6 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.5%, showcasing On’s ongoing commitment to combine strong growth with continuously increasing profitability.

Just bonkers numbers for a brand that didn’t exist just a few years ago. What one can do when Roger Federer infuses lots of cash into your company.

*not an official term used in their investor filing.

On Community Trail Running, Adam’s fabulous Substack he’s been posting interviews (just like for the last tour) with filmmakers and athletes featured in the Trail Running Film Festival Global Tour presented by Brooks, which is kicking off tonight in Athens, Georgia.

• Episode 78 is with filmmaker Michael Grasela
• Episode 79 is with athlete Brian Reynolds
• Episode 80 is with filmmaker Dom Bush
• More to come.

All episodes are just around 15min so there’s no reason to not listen to all of them.

Popular UK running magazine ‘Like The Wind‘ is touring the US (West Coast for now):

In honor of our 10th anniversary Like the Wind magazine is touring the US, and we want to meet you. 

From April to June 2024, our very own Like the Wind co-founders, Simon and Julie Freeman, are crossing the pond and they’re ready to hear your running stories. Simon and Julie will be traveling cross-country uncovering reasons why we run from LtW readers and runners around the US. 

Check their email newsletter for locations and dates.

LBA is a special race, not just personally for me, but because we don’t have DNF’s, everyone runs their race, their distance, their speed and “wins” their day. Here are some numbers:

Collectively you racked up 2,784 miles in our little neighborhood woods and completed this loop 696 times. Almost half of you ran an ultra on Saturday. 4 folks broke the 100K mark. Several of you set new distance and duration PR’s. One of you ran their 185th ultra race – wow, we are speechless and in awe!

For a race director it’s an insanely exhausting day, but it’s also insanely rewarding and I cannot wait do it all over again next year.

Mike Foote on Instagram:

One of the worlds largest auto manufacturers recently reached out seeking to sponsor The Rut. Initially I was excited about the opportunity. We are trying to bring new initiatives to light at the event and could use the resources.

It’s always great to get some behind the curtain details on how these conversations go and how these deals come together, or in this case not. Mike chose in the end to not take the sponsorship and while he didn’t say this I wonder if this would’ve gone differently if we didn’t have to watch all that UTMB talk over the past few months.

And it happened in the Alps this past weekend.

While over here in the West Coast I was happy that we didn’t have to deal with snow the Europeans are leaning into this white stuff and just create competition around it.

From the article announcing the World Championships:

The SkySnow discipline – running on snow at altitude with micro-crampons – was introduced as a natural extension of skyrunning during the winter season. The first SkySnow World Championships in 2022 in Sierra Nevada, Spain, were an immediate success with athletes participating from 15 countries. In this second edition, 21 countries from across the globe will battle for the medals and world titles, including the reigning World Champions, Luca Del Pero from Italy and Virginia Pérez from Spain.

The events were organized by Tarvisio Trail Running and held in Tarvisio, North Eastern Italy, and offered two disciplines:

• Vertical: The Monte Lussari Vertical – 3.6 km long and 974m of vertical climb, will take place in the dark, athletes illuminating the course with their headlamps. 
• Classic: Monte Mangart Winter Trail: 15.4 km long with 515m vertical climb.

The nighttime run looks absolutely spectacular and I can see why the ISF is eyeing to get this sport into the Olympics.

This is the 5th Little Backyard Adventure and this year for the first time we’re adding to the 6hr race a 12hr event.

We’re super grateful for the support from Heritage Bank, Kevin Hayward State Farm, Tailwind Nutrition, OlyFed, Hydrapak and Rock Candy Running’s coaching partner: Team RunRun.

For this year’s event we’re having a record 91 runners signed up. That’s over double of last year.

For the 6hr race we have 48 runners:

• Women: 16 33%
• Men: 31 65%
• Non-binary: 1 2%

For the 12hr race we have 43 runners:

• Women: 18 – 42%
• Men: 23 – 54%
• Non-binary: 2 – 4%

The 91 runners for the event are broken down by gender like so:

• Women: 34 – 37%
• Men: 54 – 59%
• Non-binary: 3 – 3%

We’ve got 3 runners under 20 at the starting line and one 70! You’re all awesome!

Last year, when we offered only a 6hr race we had 5! People run 10 loops – 40 miles.
This, along with the persistent requests from the community to offer a 12 hour event in Olympia we finally pulled the trigger got the support from the City for the event.

We’ve got about a dozen folks who ran one of the permutations of LBA before. Welcome back.

The 12 hr event is new. There’s no data here. Will we see folks run 100K? How many?

The loop is about 4 miles with 200ft of vert, depending on what watch you ask and how cloudy the sky is. The nicer weather these last few days dried out the course and most of the puddles are gone, which should invite some fast running. But the sharp corners of the course will make it tricky to maintain pace and it’ll be interesting to see what happens when we enter the twilight zone of 10+ loops.

The course has one aid station, right at the start/finish where we keep track of how many loops folks are clocking. We will try to update the numbers through the event online. No promises on how this will go – stay tuned.

Time to adventure!

Interested in following along from afar? Check the live page for updates throughout the event and follow the event with hashtag #littlebackyardadventure on Instagram.

French broadcaster continues partnership to livestream a variety of UTMB World Series events. Here’s the list:

• April 26-27: The Canyons Endurance Run
• June 7: Tenerife Bluetrail
• July 4: Val d’Aran
• July 17-21: Eiger Ultra Trail
• August 26 – September 1: Dacia UTMB Mont-Blanc
• September 13, 2024: Wildstrubel
• October 4: Nice Côte d’Azur
• December 6-8: Doi Inthanon Thailand

Let’s hope that the Starlinks work this time around.

Some brands sponsor races, some brands put on entire race series (Salomon Golden Trail Series), some brands sponsor athletes to let them wear their gear at prominent races and there’s this. Lululemon must’ve asked themselves “what if we do something that’s never been done before?”

10 athletes, 6 days, 2.5miles of gravel, dirt and pavement, custom rooms to relax and recharge, and endless photo opportunities.

It’s like a mashup of a fashion runway and a trail race, and I mean that in the best possible way.

From a much-welcomed newsletter sent to race directors by David Callahan & Jay Kelley, co-CEOs of UltraSignup:

The platform’s technical overhaul is making significant progress, setting the stage for necessary, desirable, and innovative advancements. Our vision is to continue evolving UltraSignup in a way that adds more value to both race directors and runners, specifically within the trail running niche, as
opposed to other platforms who aim to service all kinds of events and tickets. We are committed to vertical growth, focusing on our core community rather than expanding into unrelated areas.

Man, I love UltraSignup and what it has done for the ultra running community. The combination of race registration platform, calendar and historical results is unmatched. And no upshot can compete with it easily, or even slowly and meticulously, especially if you think of the database of historical results. The biggest races in the US (Western States, Hardrock, Aravaipa, Destination Trail are all still using UltraSignup). What drew me to the platform as a runner was the – what felt almost complete – racing calendar. If a race wasn’t on UltraSignup did it even exist?

So of course, when I became a race director I have never seriously considered any other platform, not even now that I’m in my sixth year doing it – even though I get the regular friendly, but persistent calls from RunSignup. UltraSignups customer service is great and the ability to relaunch an event which from the pervious year is pretty easy to do. The stickiness is real.

But, and of course there has to be a “but”, the platform is aging, glitchy and buggy in places, and with competitors offering shiny alternatives, and others jumping ship, it becomes harder and harder to justify staying.

That age-old Wayne Gretzky quote comes to mind:

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

One of the beauties of software design is the iterative nature of development. One can constantly improve various elements on a sort of rolling approach. You don’t have to move houses if you want something better, you can refresh and improve on the same infrastructure you’ve been operating on. Of course this has limits – sometimes there’s too much technical debt, and an outdated software stack. That’s when you gotta start with a clean slate and that does take time. I just hope that when it’s time UltraSignup to unveil that new shiny race registration platform “the puck hasn’t been moved”.

Tom Reynolds profiles Canadian Christian Meier, winner of last year’s TDS:

By his own admission Meier was not a winner on the bike. 

But in the summer of 2023, only two years after his first steps proper on two trail-running feet, he won the prestigious TDS race in Chamonix.

Kinda amazing to see someone with so much dedication that he’s able to switch disciplines and stay committed to learning the skills required to not just participate but excel.

Here in the PNW there are several ex-Sounders, (soccer players!) who show up and sometimes win local ultra races. This is just amazing to me.

Here’s their list of top names for the men’s race and here for the women’s race.

Most notably on the list: Jim Walmsley, who on Oct 27th posted on his Strava:

So what do we race next year then?

This was posted just a day after UTMB announced their Whistler race and it sounded to many like a direct response to that announcement and the corresponding kerfuffle.

Bill Yang on Twitter/X:

Interesting. USA still represented well.

Ian Corliss on Twitter/X:

Mmmmm well, the #boycott didn’t work

Exactly. And I don’t think this list would’ve looked much differently if CMTR would’ve been able to pull a race in Chillwack out of their hats.

Important note from iRunFar:

These entrants lists will continue to evolve in the coming months, as more elites gain access to the various races.

We’ll keep you updated as more runners sign on. But I hope this will be an important step in letting us focus on what trail running is all about: Running awesome trails around the world.