The winter edition of the Spine Race is currently happening in the UK amidst brutal weather conditions.

The Brits seem to have a knack for putting on really hard races in really tough conditions, don’t they? Is that a carry over from their old big mountain expedition days?

But the real reason for mentioning the Spine Race here is that I want to point you to their absolutely spectacular logo. There are lots of race logos out there, some are historically significant but really very mediocre, others are just mediocre. This one, is just fantastic all around. I want to know who the designer was. My hat’s off to them.

UTMB today announced a 3 year global partnership with Chinese outdoor brand Aonijie:

UTMB World Series and Aonijie join forces to deliver an exceptional experience for athletes and trail running enthusiasts across the globe.

This partnership replaces longterm sponsor Camelbak as UTMB’s hydration pack supplier. On one side it’s kind of funny to have a dedicated hydration pack supplier sponsor (In German that would’ve been just one single compound word!) on the side, UTMB has made the mandatory kit a standard for ultra races and increasingly the elite runners have their custom packs (showcasing their sponsor logos and hiding the Salomon logo) and everyone else has the regular Salomon ones. So, clearly there’s room for a brand to position itself as competitor. And further, UTMB as a truly global racing series has the chance to attract global bands interested in shaking up and reshaping the landscape of established outdoor businesses and brands we’ve come to associate with trail running. For example Aonijie doesn’t just make hydration packs, but poles that look very similar to market leader LEKI’s and toe socks that look like Injinji’s.

Announced on his Instagram:

From frosty, snowy Belgium to New Zealand’s summertime – with @karelsabbe_crew I’m about to embark on an amazing journey. 

12 years after having hiked most of this splendid trail, I’m revisiting New Zealand in search of the @fastestknowntime of the Te Araroa Trail.

The Te Araroa? You ask:

Te Araroa (The Long Pathway) is New Zealand’s long distance tramping route, stretching circa 3,000 kilometres (1,900 mi) along the length of the country’s two main islands from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

Karel is starting his attempt January 15 or 16 and live tracking can be found here.

Remember last year? Chipotle is back with a new challenge. More cities, more ways to win. And I cannot wait to see what new devious ways folks will come up with to beat the system this time around.

A GPS smartwatch for $99 is insanely cheap. I’d love to take that one for a spin when it ships. Here’s what Victoria Song from The Verge has to say about it:

It’s too early for me to make a definitive call on the Active 2, but so far, it’s looking like it could be a compelling option for folks who want a simpler smartwatch without breaking the bank.

I just went to the product page and searched for two things trail runners are interested in:

• Sync to 3rd Party Fitness Apps: Strava
• Continuous GPS Usage: Up to 21 hours

Strava connectivity is a must, and they have it. Battery is weak, not usually for LONG ultras, but for most trail runners it would be enough juice for their long runs. We’ll keep an eye out on this product when it actually can be tested in the wild.

I’m throwing in a late addition to my ‘Predictions for 2025‘ post. And this is more of an open question than a straight prediction. Here it goes: Trail running and especially trail media will have to redefine itself in our post-social -media-age. But what will that look like?

Trail running, trail media, but even further the entire world of influencer culture, and with it the elite athletes have grown alongside social media over the course of the last few years. Media personalities have created entire followings, communities, and business models on these social media platforms. Elite athletes have contract stipulations that require a social media presences with strong engagement. Brands favor athletes with big followings on these platforms and the engagement metrics almost are more important than the athletes actual athletic performances. And while the latest wave of trail running growth was a bit behind the early days of social media when Twitter reigned, the visually captivating images lend themselves perfectly for Instagram. How many athletes became stars because of these tools? Now I am always someone who’s quick to jump on the ‘worry train’ and call for the end of something, but I see a trend where folks are increasingly fed up with the rulers of these platforms and the perceived dominance and lock in seems to be crumbling. The algorithms that were initially designed to create stickiness increasingly serve so many ads, and so few of the accounts one actually wants to see in their feed that dropping a platform from ones daily habit of media diet is becoming an easier and easier decision.

I’ve already noticed many race organizations who’ve build entire marketing strategies around “just posting their event announcements to Facebook” had to adjust and rebuild their social graph on Instagram. Now, over the course of the past few months a multitude of voices have opened Substack accounts and have abandoned posting on Instagram. For the end user, the casual trail runner, this what it is. Folks will adjust their media habits, build new routines and find their accounts and people who they want to follow. But for entrepreneurs, media startups, race organizations, and elite athletes with contracts this can be a tricky situation. Where do you put your effort in order to engage with the following you’re trying to market and sell to?

Social media killed, or almost killed, the open web. It used to be easy to find and follow blogs but almost everyone was lured to the social media silos, the dopamine hit of quick engagement, and the simplicity of the account setup and the posting tools. But this trend is reversing. Facebook is completely unusable these days. It used to be the gold standard in effectiveness for promoting local events. Instagram, another Zuckerberg Meta product increasingly becomes useless due to the algorithms scrambling the timeline. No one thought that the “global market square of ideas and conversations” Twitter would ever become irrelevant, and yet unless you’re interested in what Elon has to say it pretty much isn’t worth anyone’s time. How long until this happens to Instagram? For the past couple of years creators on YouTube have been loudly complaining that Google’s various changes are screwing with their ability to generate ad revenue on that platform. The trolls in the comments have made the community aspect of Youtube largely unusable. UTMB already pulled the livestreams for their World Series Finals in 2024 off the platform and onto their own website. If YouTube follows the latest content moderation policies that Meta just announced this week, where will the live-streaming of Western States and other races go?

There was this brief moment where we followed a bunch of likeminded folks who told us about local events which we signed up for and where we entertained ourselves by watching clips and photos of our heroes who inspired us to go out and do cool shit – the simplicity of it all – this is over.

Of course there will be new apps, new platforms, new tools for folks to gather, engage, share and communicate, but the gold rush is over. Silicon Valley and its creations are increasingly seen as questionable contributions to the global good and not the harbinger of the next great paradise where milk and honey flows out of bits and bytes.

Disruption is good I am told, but we usually like to be at the wheel and be the folks who are the disrupters. Being disrupted by outside forces ain’t so great. It might still be an opportunity in the end, and here, in the land of opportunity, we will do our darnedest to spin every day’s events as an opportunity, but it will come at a cost. A cost to rebuild, reset, and redefine our connections.

This year we’ve already seen more than the usual amount of noise during silly season when athletes re-sign their contracts and brands reshuffle their rosters. Of course is also due to other factors as outdoor companies are struggling to adjust their businesses post-pandemic. But their easy marketing strategies are also being disrupted by the very platforms they use to share their product announcements.

I mentioned above that this is not a prediction for the year, but rather a question. A question of where we’ll go from here. I have no answers. I just have a feeling, based on having been a user of the internet for almost 30 years, but it’s too early to make predictions. So I’ll leave it as a question:

How will trail running change in a post social media world?*

* And yes, thank you for bringing this up, of course, trail running won’t change. The pure and simple activity of putting on a pair of shoes and finding some peace and adventure on a trail in the outdoors will not change.

Life Time, fitness club operator and Leadville 100 owners are expanding their “qualifier events” to Lake Tahoe and on the same weekend as another trail race, the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Runs. It’s hard to shove more content worth extrapolating into one sentence. High end fitness club operators Life Time bought the Leadville Trail Series a few years ago and while Leadville is considered one of the historic 100 mile races it has been sort of floundering and sitting stale – until last year David Roche broke the long held course record. Leadville has (always?) been a somewhat weird hybrid event by offering mountain biking and trail running races at the same event. Life Time club members also get priority registration. So, if you pay membership dues at a fancy fitness country club you get a benefit when registering for a 100 mile trail race. It works, somewhere, but it also feels a bit like a stretch. Anyway, part of the Leadville Trail Series are small handful of shorter races: a couple shorter races in Leadville, one in Austin, TX, and now one in Tahoe (and one coming in October to Anniston, AL). When completing a qualifying race one is given a “coin” (not a stone!) which acts as registration access for the full Leadville 100 event. This feels like a subtle attempt to copy the UTMB World Series qualifying system – not a bad idea.

But the biggest thing that sticks out here is the fact that Leadville chooses to put a trail running event on the same weekend (July 19-20) at the North Lake Tahoe region right next to the already established Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Runs. Anyone bothered by this? I wonder what’s different here to when UTMB expands their series in North America?

Brendan Leonard had his witty, funny and sometimes sarcastic comic strip and column on Outside for 6.5 years. Just before the holidays Outside told him: no more.

If you want to keep up with Brendan’s writing and drawing, he’s had his own website since 2011. And from what I am gathering, he isn’t planning on turning it into a bitcoin/NFT/social network/app-extravaganza.

Alex Rienzie in an open letter posted on his blog:

The ongoing Grand Teton speed record drama might seem silly, but the potential criminal charges hanging over Michelino’s head are serious.

I think that’s an important piece to remember as we discuss this issue. No matter on what side you fall on when thinking about the FKT attempt and possible inclusion, a criminal charge is a gross overreach for Michelino Sunseri’s “illegal activity”.

The NPS stripped Michelino of his record by contacting FastestKnownTime.com, telling the private site to reject his record. The NPS dragged Michelino’s name through the mud by leaking comments to the press, utterly terrifying any other potential trail users in the process. In effect, the NPS ran a masterclass on using a press cycle to distribute a message, making an example of Michelino to make up for their own shortcomings.

This information is news to me.

I can’t shake that this seemingly overblown response by the NPS isn’t just business as usual, but there’s something else going on.

One, of the most expensive trail race in the world, Destination Trail’s Moab 240 opened registration for their lottery a couple of days ago. Cost of the entry fee: $2055.30 (including UltraSignup fees).

• That’s $8.56 per mile (race is 240 miles long)
• or $137 per aid station (there are 15 full aid stations, that’s about 1 every 16 miles)
• and $17.56 for each hour (if you spend the max time of 117hrs on the trails)

I’m not listing these numbers to shame the race organization for their choice to charge the amount they do. Clearly the’ve created an event that costly to run, is in high demand, and sells out year after year. But, it is incredible nonetheless that these 200 mile events are becoming so popular when the prices for a “week of summer camp for adults” are reaching these heights.

The Swiss Wildstrubel by UTMB event held in Crans Montana announced a new logo today. The designer in me of course wants to take it apart, as it has been tradition on the great internets. But what I find way more interesting is trying to read into this redesign if this might be a trend into something to come for more of the UTMB World Series event logos. Scrolling down their Instagram page you can still see the old logo for comparison.

Here’s their official description of the redesign:

Discover our new logo, designed to better reflect the unique essence of this event.

Highlighting the Tour of the massif, a rare and spectacular experience connecting Kandersteg, Adelboden, Crans-Montana, and other iconic destinations.

Icy tones, a Swiss cross, and a dynamic design symbolize the identity and energy of this exceptional event.

The refresh feels very Swiss. Clean letters… very Helvetica (it’s not, I know, but still).

428 employees will lose their jobs in this cut to a side of the business that hadn’t been making money in awhile.

From the letter by CEO Eric Artz part of the official press release:

Second, it is important we all understand the economics of the Experiences business. Experiences served 40,000 customers in 2024—less than 0.4% of all co-op customers—and costs significantly more to run than it brings in. When we look at the all-up costs of running this business, including costs like marketing and technology, we are losing millions of dollars every year and subsidizing Experiences with profits from other parts of the business. Even at our peak in 2019—our best year for Experiences ever—we did not generate a profit.

Less than a year ago REI bought land for a “clamping experience” near the Grand Canyon.

And the folks working in that division were laid off, but not the leadership who let this side of the business lose money for that many years?

Change.org petition started by Alex Rienzie to get the criminal charges against Michelino Sunseri dropped:

We urge the NPS to recommend that the U.S. Attorney settles this prosecution with a reasonable civil compromise, potentially including mandatory volunteer hours. There’s no need for continued escalation when a sensible, kind resolution is available.

Supporting this petition does not require you to believe Michelino’s FKT should be accepted or that the old climber’s trail should be used, merely that banishment is a step too far.

Rules broken or not, the heavy-handedness of the charges brought by the NPS seem completely over the top. Even if the NPS wanted to send a message to the big brand (The North Face) congratulating Sunseri on Instagram, the message they are actually sending is not the one they think they are. Especially with the Explore Act that just passed.

BAOUW the sports nutrition company from Annecy-le-Vieux,, France announces this news on LinkedIn:

Vincent Bouillard, winner of the UTMB 2024, joins the Baouw Athletes Team!
…
This new collaboration reinforces our commitment to delivering high-performing products, adapted to the needs of exceptional athletes and sportspeople who value their well-being.

With Vincent, we will continue to push the boundaries of innovation to meet the most demanding expectations.

Vincent joins a team with Hillary Gerardi, Xavier Thevenard and other high profile athletes.

Park City ski patrollers are on strike during on of the busiest times of the year:

• A ski patrol strike at Park City Mountain resort has led to complaints of lines and delays at the popular winter sports destination.
• Shares of Vail Resorts, which owns Park City, have dropped more than 5% in the last five trading days.

No one argues that ski patrollers aren’t necessary in a ski resort and therefore expendable. The argument is always about a slippery slope that if “we give into the demands of the little guys then everyone will want a raise”. Maybe the slippery slope argument should be turned around: “if we continue to act as greedy asshats and create horrible working conditions leading to awful customer service experiences than maybe no one will love our product and stay away, leading to lower shareholder value?”

Just over the holidays I read a LinkedIn conversation in which affluent white collar people were bemoaning the state of customer service and wondering about the cause of it all. All these apparent smart businesspeople and no one has figured out that really everyone is motivated by money. A society preaching financial self-reliance for decades finds itself now wondering why people aren’t will to work for nothing.

Every year the trail running world gathers to celebrate its top athletes for Freetrail’s TROY and Ultrarunning Magazine’s UROY and every year the online world gathers to debate and argue if the order by which the athletes are ranked feels fair and correct. Of course there are biases, everyone has them. We favor athletes based on the regions we live in. Or by which race distance we favor ourselves and know most about. Or because we heard someone say something cool on a podcast. Biases are valid to a point. Even the Oscars enrage people every year because their favorite movie or star was overlooked.

But just because biases are real we shouldn’t aim to create a celebration and recognition that’s fair and deserving for the people on the list and for the fan who follow along. We will never please everyone, that’s for sure. Further, I doubt that at this point being ranked on any of these lists really gives significant contract negotiation power, or even bonuses, but it’s worth considering that if you’re name is “in the media” it’s always a good thing for you and your sponsor. These awards do hold value.

So, what are the problems and how do we fix it?

With TROY Freetrail tried addressing the biggest glaring shortcoming of Ultrarunning Magazine’s UROY : UROY only considers North American runners and TROY is international. But by going international TROY created two problems:

1. it’s hard to follow performances from all over the world. (And to be fair, the Freetrail folks acknowledge that.)
2. once you look beyond the US, the sport gets more diverse. Historically in North American the 100 mile ultra distance was favored and considered the crown jewel of racing, so UROY was able to essentially just look at that distance for consideration. But by TROY taking an international approach judges found themselves comparing apples to oranges, VK races to Barkley finishes (at the extremes).

The other problem I see with both awards is that “the runner of the year” is too broad of a statement and too vague. It always creates tension, and an unnecessary tension that is, to compare a Barkley finish to a Golden Trail performance. Runners who focus on the 100 mile distance aren’t competing as often as folks on shorter racing circuits. If someone races 15 times in a year and does well in some of the events it’s worth calling it a season, but if someone ran one amazing 100 miler is that their year? Of course, the folks who get to vote know this. And they struggle with this and the public debates this and they get mad. The aim is to crown the “greatest”, but it’s too simplistic that too many variables can’t be considered. There’s beauty in the fringes and in the diversity, and that should be celebrated.

The solution, or at least the one I’m offering:

The Golden Globes/Academy Awards do two things well:

• They breaks the awards in different categories that allow different skills and projects to be highlighted¹.
• And they consider an individual performance over an entire year of performances.

Here’s what I think would make more sense:

Preselect the top 3-10 (depending on competitiveness of the category) women and men in the following categories, and announce just the winners (and maybe the runner ups) in each:

• 200mile+ performance
• 100K/100M performance
• 50M/50K performance
• Short race (sub ultra) performance
• FKT/personal project
• Most inspiring/jaw-dropping performance
• Newcomer performance of the year²
• Lifetime achievement award²

This can be massaged of course, but you get the idea. By focusing on performance and by breaking things up by distance one could be more fair to the athletes focusing on their favorite discipline. Very few athletes compete in short and long distances and do well in either (Kilian aside), so throwing them all into the same pot fees unfair to the athlete.

I believe that this type of ‘award show’ would create just as much buzz in the media and gets people talking and celebrating the efforts by the folks being nominated and ultimately winning. Maybe I’m wrong and I’m overlooking something. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but it would be something different and new.

A big side bar here:

Last year during “award season” I had already worked on these thoughts. I had even come up with a name for these awards and thought I might run it for this year. Then I opted instead for my RE:RUN 2024, focusing on stories more so than performances and individual athletes. We also had Mile & Stone entering the fray with their ‘Trail Running Awards’ and I didn’t feel we needed another one of these. See the amazing xkcd comic for reference.

1 – I acknowledge that even the Golden Globes can be confusing when certain types of shows (The Bear) are put into the comedy category when they maybe should instead be considered a drama – but that’s for a different discussion.
2 – Freetrail does award a rookie of the year and a lifetime achievement award called the ‘Bill Dooper Spirit Award’ on their 2024 Year In Review episode with Dylan Bowman and Corinne Malcolm.

Karel announced this partnership with Polestar the Swedish electric carmaker on Instagram:

Last week I ran 76km to Brussels to pick up my Polestar 4 – excited for this partnership and curious to see where this car will take me!

Another one of my predictions for the year that’s already been fulfilled:

We will see a real, big time non-endemic brands enter our sport. Either joining as UTMB partner and/or as sponsors for one of the big athletes in our sport.

I guess Polestar is not that huge of a deal. We’ve had Dacia at UTMB and in the past several European athletes have had car sponsorships: Kilian and Mercedes-Benz (I believe it was through a local/regional dealership) and with Ida Sophie Hegemann and Volkswagen. My bet is that there’s actually very little cash being handed over, just a car to drive for a season. But in any case. I need to up my prediction game if I want to make predictions that last the whole year.

The battle of “larch supremacy” is raging in Washington State with several race organizations offering races in the Cascades in the fall during peak larch season. Gretchen Walla with Walla Trails was one of the first to tap people’s love for golden larches by hosting a race during that magical fall season: The Golden 6 Hour – on the Swauk Forest Discovery Trail, a 2.45 mile loop near the top of Blewett Pass between Leavenworth and Cle Elum has been going since 2021.

I love everything fall. The colors, pumpkins, hot soups, warm sweaters, etc. It was brought to my attention that there was a sweet but neglected loop near the top of Blewett Pass that had larches and loads of autumn color.

Then last year in 2024 Rainshadow Running added their March Madness event on the same weekend at the Loup Loup Ski Bowl near Twisp. This race also is on a looped course.

It’s not everyday you stumble into such a brilliant and terrible idea. While scouting the trails on the eastern edge of the North Cascades at the Loup Loup Ski Bowl for a different race idea (stay tuned for details on that one) we couldn’t help but notice that it seemed like every tree was a larch! 

Evergreen Trail Runs just today announced their “larch peeking” event called ‘Mad Meadows’:

October is such a magical time in the Eastern Cascades that we couldn’t resist offering a new event! This course has a bit of it all: smooth single track, incredible views, steep climbs, and technical sections. Oh, and did we mention it’s Larch Season over here?

Evergreen are the first to announce a date for 2025: October 11. Ostensibly this is the same weekend as Rainshadow’s and Wall Trails’ races – both were on the second weekend of October in 2024.

Most of these events are small. Walla Trails’ had 80 runners in 2024 and sold out. Rainshadow’s had just 60 across the various distances. Clearly there’s room for more events in the area – the more the merrier… maybe? But also: Where’s the creativity, people?

Francesco Puppi commenting on Substack:

…
Maybe as Europeans we have a problem wi the running media (who are they? where are they? what are they talking about?), or am I missing something?
…
I see an important marketing/media gap here (the fact that there aren’t relevant media talking about running/trail running, in general, especially in Europe).

Not to be flippant here, but maybe Europeans were taking some time off between Xmas and New Year’s and are away from their computers?

But Puppi has a point, the US media has a huge language advantage being able to publish in English and being read globally. Any other local media would publish first in their native language and thus is limiting its own potential readership. This then also limits the exposure and reach for athlete from these countries. But all this to say, I agree with Puppi, after all a European-centric “Freetrail” would certainly not put Walmsely ahead of Bouillard in the ‘Trail Runner of the Year’ awards.

Nick Cornell on his blog in response to and inspired by Tara Dower’s “record-breaking deal“:

The problem I have is with Altra calling their own deal huge and record breaking while not releasing the actual financial details. If you’re going to claim something as groundbreaking you need to provide tangible facts so I can decide for myself. I don’t listen to the landlord who tells me his rental unit is light filled and spacious. No, I go to that apartment and I decide for myself. I don’t believe the company that is offering me a competitive wage. No, I specifically ask them what the wage is and what benefits they are offering me so I can decide for myself. You don’t get to toot your own horn about a shrouded contract.

Exactly. And:

I truly believe these NDAs will not be around forever. It’ll take one or two brands to move against the norms and start openly disclosing what they are paying their athletes. This is an incredible marketing opportunity. One company gets to be the leader in contract openness within trail running. That’s a once in a lifetime industry marketing opportunity. I certainly think this will come from a smaller brand. Large corporations will take too long to pivot their policies on something like this.

Alright, what brand/or athlete will be the first to open the doors?