Hot off the presses via iRunFar:

At the pre-race briefing on Thursday, September 17, co-race director Fred Abramowitz announced that the 2027 and 2028 women’s and men’s champions will be awarded $100,000 for their wins.

Race sponsor Insight Global is putting up the prize money, and the race organization says more information is coming soon. This will make winning the 2027 and 2028 Run Rabbit Run 100 one of the richest wins in trail and ultra. Wow!

iRunFar’s coverage of the Run Rabbit Run 100 is brought to you by REl and The North Face. Thank you!

Shared the whole post verbatim to point out a few things:

1. This is a massive prize purse – biggest in trail running. Will this move the needle for some elites for NEXT year who might want to skip UTMB and Worlds to focus on cashing a really big check?
2. Will be interesting how these numbers will trickle down to the rest of the podium.
3. Will the events who are currently in an arms race (ahem) to show off market with their big prize purses respond to this?
4. Who is ‘Insight Global‘?
5. And who at the Run Rabbit Run organization has the connections to get these non endemic sponsors to pony up that amount of cash?

The bonus point that I’m making here is that it’s interesting to see that REI is sponsoring iRunFar’s race coverage. This might be REI’s first foray into the trail running marketing space. And I’m not talking about them selling shoes, but them actually getting engaged with the “racing aspect” of trail running. This is new.

The list is getting longer, it now boasts 282 in total (up from 267 for 2027). Most of the twenty new races added are UTMB World Series races. The WSER – UTMB partnership is going strong.

Just released this month, Vert.Run offers a snapshot of who trail runners are and what makes them tick. (You can download the full report in PDF form from the link above.) How their data is gathered:

This report draws on data from 97,000 selected accounts in the Vert.run community, to have a more accurate data set. To keep the picture as accurate and current as possible, training volume, training days, and weekly-rhythm figures (hardest and longest sessions) reflect our most recent cohort: the latest 15,000 accounts created. The footwear, fueling, and race-goal sections draw on what we learn as athletes plan their gear, nutrition, and races with Vert.

Vert’s community is a sub-segment of the broader trail running world, specifically, runners who actively seek out coaching and structure for their training. It isn’t everyone who runs trails. But it’s a real and growing slice of the sport, and we believe it offers one of the clearest windows available into how today’s trail runner actually trains.

Yes, this report skews toward the more engaged and focused runner – the one seeking out a coach to achieve a goal and not just the casual runner.

It also shows the obvious global appeal of our sport. A large number of runners are coming from regions that don’t yet have the same representation or focus in our media, or on the podiums.

One of the biggest opportunities that I see in this report is the data around slower runners, those battling cutoffs (hey that’s me!).

Most ITRA and UTMB index scores entered cluster in the same solid mid-pack band, runners who already know roughly what they’re capable of. But a meaningful minority sit well below that line, under a 300 index score, exactly the runners for whom knowing if they’ll make the cutoff is a real, practical concern.

(Highlighted by me.)

These slow runners actually pay for their bibs, as supposed to many elites who expect their entry to be comped. Managing high demand for a race by tightening the cutoffs isn’t just a form of discrimination it also creates an opportunity for other race organizations to compete on inclusivity.

Not a surprise to hear this after all this mayor kerfuffle over the past few weeks. Word is that the expo, or Ultra-Trail® Village, which had grown in size over the past few years, will be reduced over 60% for 2027.

This will change a lot. And while it’s the right and first of possibly several steps to mitigate the increased pressure on the Chamonix Valley it will also dramatically increase the challenges for brands to have a presence during UTMB week. Will this lead to more ambushing events? Or an alternate expo in a nearby town – the indie expo if you will, since the reduced official village will clearly increase their fees and thus force smaller indie brands to forgo their booth altogether? Maybe brands will abandon the week altogether as a platform to showcase their products. And I purposely wrote “showcase” as sales at the expo will be disallowed going forward as well. With all these changes at least they are letting the brands and vendors know early enough so that alternate plans can be made. Maybe we will see even more vending machines at nearby refugios next year?

All of the UTMB race recap blog posts by the elite runners are great reads, and almost mandatory for us trail super fans. And not because you learn something new about race, but about the person behind the athlete. Joaquin Lopez’s blog is one of my favorite’s. And at Latinos Runs he shares his UTMB experience. My favorite part isn’t from the race, but the award ceremony after:

The next day, 30 minutes before going up on the podium, I walked into the tent by the stage, first of all the award winners to arrive. Soon enough people started showing up, Gautier, Baptiste, Ben, Blandine, Rachel, Lucy, and little by little the tent filled up. Gautier and I started talking and suddenly Hannes walked in with a six pack of German beers. He said hi, and with a lighter started popping the caps off the beers like a pro who knows what he’s doing. There we were, Ben, Hannes, Gautier, Baptiste and me, sharing stories with a beer in hand. For the first time in that tent, (although this was my third time there) I felt like one of the group, I wasn’t the shy Latino sitting quietly in the corner of the tent staring at the floor without talking to anyone. I was one more of them, laughing, asking questions, engaging.

I love this so much. Hannes, bringing a pack of beer to share with his fellow competitors. Yes, it’s the most German thing you can think of and that might make you smirk. But among all the stereotypes one has of “typical” Germans this gesture highlights exactly one of the core tenants of German life. It’s not about the beer, or the innate ability to open the bottles by any means imaginable, it’s the fact that his gesture of hospitality is what brings people together. It’s mid-September right now. Oktoberfest kicked off in my favorite city in the world München. And while folks talk about the Trachten or costumes, the absurd amounts of beer consumed and the absurd prices folks pay for them, most of all Oktoberfest is about the very notion of bringing people together, around a table, the “ice breaker” (if you will) being a Brezn, and a shared Prost over a beer. This is what brings people together. Be it 6 million gathering annually at the Theresianwiese in the heart of München or a handful elite athletes in a tent in Chamonix waiting for their finisher awards. Life can be that simple. And that is beautiful.

Kyle Frost from Here & There takes the data he’s been collecting for:

Visitation, reservations and economic data for public lands, normalized across agencies and searchable by park or state.

And puts it all on its own website: publiclandsdata.com. He writes:

Federal agencies publish an enormous amount of recreation data, but much of it is “hidden” in random CSV files and distributed across various agency websites. I built this site as a one-stop resource to see recreation data in one place and organized the data into clearer takeaways and visualizations where possible.

This is super cool stuff. And probably the reason why this hasn’t been done prior is that many organizations you are advocating for public lands in various ways all live in their various silos and care only about their silos. Which isn’t a bad thing in it of itself, but shows one of the challenges of our public lands in this vast country being managed federally.

Great post by Caleb Olson who’s joining the choruses of guys post UTMB who are shooting their shot. He concludes with the following paragraph:

If you’re reading this and you see your name on this list, let me know if you want to race and let’s figure something out. There’s no rule that says we can only have super deep competitive races at WSER and UTMB, it would just take a little coordination and planning for a bunch of us to show up for MIUT or TGC or Andorra or something. My schedule is pretty open right now. If the much more likely thing happens where the people on this list don’t read this, maybe I’ll message some of them and see if I can find out where I can test myself against them next.

Where have we heard this before?

Jim Walmsley, Zach Miller, Kilian Jornet all announced, shortly have having had varying degrees of success at the UTMB Finals in Chamonix, that they’d like to find a different race for the top elites to gather and race each other. “Will it succeed this time?” Is probably the wrong question. But what I do wonder is what it would actually take to make this happen? If several of the top athletes actually would pull it off to coordinate their calendars and travel to a ‘different race’ all in the same year, and not get sidelined by injury, would the media follow, immediately, like for the first year, not just in consequential years, after they had success at whichever event they choose to gather? I’m not suggesting that this is a pointless endeavor, I am just wondering what it would actually take for this to be successful. It could possibly, open up the annual trail racing calendar and create a shift and possibly a different focus and storyline around a new event.

Just like in the last few years I’m sharing the Lavaredo lottery numbers with a comparison to the previous years.

With the continued increase in interest in this event – which is hundred percent valid by the way, it’s a massively beautiful course – it’s not surprising that the cost for a bib also continues to rise. But also, beyond just the interest in this particular event, these numbers tell the story of the continued and much-talked-about growth in the sport of trail running. No wonder the UTMB Group seems to be firing on all cylinders.

A few months ago when we were working on bringing the Skyrunner World Series to Beast of Big Creek the team approached me suggesting I’d add SWS sponsor RECCO reflectors as mandatory equipment requirement. Back then I declined, thinking of the added cost to every runner, the fact that Mount Ellinor isn’t really “hard and remote” environment, and most of all that the current network wasn’t really covering the Olympic Mountains.

Given the recent news around Kalie McCrystal my thoughts about this have very much changed. Somehow the individual reflector isn’t stocked at REI, which feels like a massive oversight, but you can yours on Amazon – where I ordered mine this morning. And you should too.

From their press announcement:

AllTrails and REI Co-op today announced a multi-year partnership designed to help people discover trails, plan adventures, and spend more time outside. By bringing together AllTrails’ and REI’s member communities, the partnership makes it easier to explore the outdoors while fostering a connection with nature and taking care of public lands.

Smart partnership.

From Kalie’s family, shared by Hilary Gerardi:

It has been two weeks since our dearest Kalie went missing during a reconnaissance on the Matterhorn. Since then, the Guardia di Finanza mountain rescue team has worked tirelessly to explore every possible avenue at their disposal. They have been unwavering in their professionalism, kindness, and commitment to finding Kalie. As a family, it has meant a great deal to us throughout the search to know that everything that could be done was being done. We are eternally grateful to them. We also wish to extend our gratitude to the RCMP and the Canadian Embassy for their support and assistance during this time.

The outpouring of love and support for Kalie has been nothing short of incredible. The constant support of Hillary Gerardi, who first raised the alarm about Kalie, has been indispensable to us. Friends and loved ones from around the world mobilised and went to remarkable lengths to help find her and bring her home. How beautiful it has been to witness the love that surrounded her.

The Matterhorn is as majestic as it is unforgiving. Despite Kalie’s exceptional skill and experience in technical mountain terrain, including her previous experience on the Matterhorn itself, everything we now know suggests she fell while descending.

Despite the efforts of so many over the past weeks, the search has not led us to Kalie. This is not the outcome any of us had hoped for, and it is very difficult to accept.

Kalie was an incredibly special person. She moved through life with equal parts determination and fun. Her absence will undoubtedly leave a huge hole in the communities she was so invested in, across Skyrunning, Squamish and beyond.

For our family, things will never be the same again. Kalie meant so much to us as a sister and daughter, and the loss of her is something we will carry with us forever.

While we desperately wish we could have found her, we find peace in knowing that she was doing what made her feel most alive until her very last moments, and that she remains among the mountains where she felt most at home.

Wendy Cooper & Jody McCrystal
Kalie’s Mum & Sister

I had met Kalie just a few weeks prior at Beast of Big Creek. This one hits very close to home. Everyone here at our Rock Candy is thinking of Kalie and her family in this moment.

The Cirque Series is landing back in the PNW this coming weekend – September 19th – close to Mount Rainier for their eighth race of the season.

I just received word that the Cirque team is still looking for a few volunteers for the event. If you got time, and are looking to snag a free race entry for next year email Steve.

From the official press release:

Crystal Palace Football Club are delighted to announce a new multi-year partnership with Brooks Running, who will become the Club’s Official Footwear Partner across both the men’s and women’s first teams.

Crystal Palace FC is an English Premiere League soccer/football team, for those unfamiliar. This is a big deal, wow.

Dakota Jones with yet another banger of a blog post and a response to Ben Dhiman’s race report of his win at UTMB this year:

…it seems a little rich for Ben Dhiman to suggest that he’s the first person ever to try to run fast at UTMB.

And further:

… don’t patronize me man. The problem with Ben’s statement is not that it’s false. It’s that Ben doesn’t seem to realize there might be other reasons for running a race than simply winning.

Dakota is as eloquent as ever and tries to be fair to Ben here. He closes bringing his response to the heart of what trail running should be all about:

I want to look to leaders who can figure out how to compete for the win and simultaneously be inclusive of the sport as a whole. Do their successes include others? We’re not in the stone age because we haven’t been running fast enough. We’re here because we’re specializing the sport toward exclusive, elite outcomes. True innovation will include everyone.

This is trail running.

Co-owner Zach Hauer shares his business’s numbers from these last few month in a refreshingly honest blog post:

I imagine that anyone reading this who has a lick of business acumen is probably yelling at the screen because you’ve identified a dozen areas of opportunity for us to work on.
…
Much like in sport, success is best achieved with consistency over multiple cycles. You build towards a goal, hit that goal, take time to recover, and then apply what you’ve learned to your next build.

And much like in sports folks need cheerleaders and supporters in their corner. I for one am here for this openness.

Ken Seals, creator of The Ultra Minute with this fascinating editorial project covering Meg Eckert’s astonishing run and new world record (pending verification):

Eckert won the EMU Six-Day Race, this year’s GOMU world championship, ahead of every other runner, man or woman. She covered 1,024.319 kilometers. She broke her own women’s world record and Joe Fejes’ American record, set in 2015.
…
We wanted a closer look, so we used the official lap data to explore her six days and nights: the pace, the pauses, and the same loop, more than a thousand times.

This project reminds me a bit of the NYT’s ‘Snowfall’ from a few years ago. Really well done.

Jonathan Turner for Tri247:

Salomon will become the title partner of the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona from 2027 after agreeing a major five-year global deal with The IRONMAN Group.

The agreement will put the name of a brand traditionally associated with skiing, mountain sport and trail running on triathlon’s biggest annual event through to 2031.

Salomon is looking for new territory to cover and the next growth market opportunity. Their sponsorship of the Milano/Cortina Winter Olympics showed their ambition to get into these type of sports – more urban structure, less adventurous mountain trail. Their announcement and hype video makes me a bit sad though, using the incredible clips from the Alps, UTMB, Hardrock and others to promote pounding pavement to run an Ironman just doesn’t sit right with me. We shall see where this goes.

Coming up this weekend is the first Skyrunner USA National Series Finale in a very long time. Marathon Sport’s Kismet Cliff Run is happening in the White Mountains around Conway, New Hampshire. From Ryan Kerrigan in the US Skyrunning newsletter:

We’re so grateful to have a series back in the US. It feels like skyrunning has finally found a foothold. While skyrunning has always had a dedicated US audience, these runners have felt a bit like lone wolves trying to claw their way into the world circuits with little support. It’s a big mountain to climb still but we’re already feeling an uptick in interest for future races and skyrunning in general. Thanks to dedicated, tireless and amazing race directors skyrunning has a home again.

$20,000 in prize money are on the line. Kismet race director Tom Hooper shares:

Marathon Sports and the Kismet Cliff Run crew are super excited to be part of the US Skyrunning National Series. We are happy to share the beauty and ruggedness of the New Hampshire White Mountains with the participants. We hope this is just the start for the Merrell SkyRunner® US Series, and we would like to see it continue to grow for years to come.

Winner of Beast of Big Creek‘s men’s race Morgan Elliot will be on the line as well as 4th and 7th place finisher of the women’s race Carmen Graves and Robin Vieira Brower.

Doug Mayer follows up his articles sharing the views of the Mayor of Chamonix in Trailrunner with a conversation post-event. Three things seem to be the main concern:

Leading up to the race, Laffin put his concerns around UTMB in three buckets: the race itself, the brands that organize activations, and crowds.

And speaking of brands:

“A vending machine was flown to a refuge in the mountains,” Laffin points out. “That’s unacceptable. Another brand was on the vertical kilometer without asking for authorization. Some brands have an approach where they think they can do whatever they want.”

Hmmmm… both “activations” were done by Nike ACG. Unless there was another brand hosting an event on the vertical kilometer. Curious that neither the mayor nor Mayer (ha!) choose to mention the brand by name. Several other brands are called out in the article. No mention of Nike/ACG.

I’m just gonna add a side note here: Can you imagine what it would look like if Red Bull would get interested in the sport of trail running? Like for real?

DC Rainmaker with the story:

“This is not a race”- That’s the (repeated) words of the announcer at last night’s running event at Apple Campus. And I suspect those same words might have been spoken five months ago on April 1st, 2026, when a bunch of runners gathered for a 50KM event around the famed Apple campus loop (often called ‘The Spaceship’).

Hilarious and fascinating event running loops around the Apple Campus in Cupertino.

Perfect timing for this story as Apple announced new phones and watches today.