By Mathias Eichler
It is time. In October you can stream TRFF'26 - from the comfort of our couch, with friends, and popcorn. Ten films, hours of inspiration.
SkyMan, the team behind the Skyrunner World Series is taking skyrunning to the pavement (link to full press release):
With Skybound, we wanted a challenge that acts as a sort of bridge between a road marathon and the Skyrunner World Series – and vice versa, said Etienne Rodriguez of Skyman, Altitude, elevation change, landscape, and vistas are fundamental to Skyrunning – Skybound has it all. Without the technical terrain, the difference with Skybound is that running is central. Pikes Peak provides the perfect backdrop to a road marathon at altitude.
The inaugural event will be held on 7 August 2027 and is produced in partnership with Colorado Springs Sports Corporation and Satori Endurance. Registration opens 1 December 2026.
Since the blockbuster announcement from a few weeks ago we’ve been wondering how the money would trickle down beyond the first place. Today we get the rest of the places:
Prize Structure (Equal for Men & Women)
- 1st Place: $100,000
- 2nd Place: $25,000
- 3rd Place: $15,000
- 4th Place: $10,000
- 5th Place: $5,000
- 6th Place: $2,000
- 7th Place: $1,000
That’s a total of $316,000 handed out among the top 7! place finishers. (RRR also offers additional prize money to various masters and other placements. For sake of simplicity I am listing here only the top 7. There website lists a total of $350,000 in prize money that will be awarded in 2027.)
In comparison to other races (those are 2026 numbers):
There’s still plenty of time for the above, and any other race organization to respond. If this this move the needle with the elite athletes still waits to be seen, but as it right stands now Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat Springs, Colorado stands above the rest of the trail race world, by a lot.
PS: I left the various race series out of consideration here as runners really need to commit to racing the entire series to qualify for the prize purse for the Finals.
Announced today via Instagram:
Massive congratulations to Robin on taking 1st place overall in the Skyrunner USA Series!
Robin wins outright the U.S. Skyrunner National Series 2026, that’s back on U.S. soil after a several year hiatus. She raced three of the four races in this year’s series – I believe the only one to do so – and therefore is the well-deserved champion.
Robin’s results:
Congrats. Let’s go 2027!
Article by Mattie Schuler who joined us at Beast of Big Creek in August, and quotes yours truly:
Once the Beast met all these factors, it drew the attention of the Skyrunner World Series, which desperately wanted a race back on US soil.
Now the 2026 event is already in past and all our eyes are set toward 2027.
The Aravapia Running team around Jamil Coury has been pretty quiet over the summer and I had already been wondering what they were up to. Now we know the answer: ‘RaceGoat‘ – race registration platform built for their own events (Just initially, or exclusively? That’s the questions here).
RaceGoat is created by Jamil Coury’s vibe coding shop ‘Dead Reckoning Labs‘, which I previously mentioned on ECC. The platform is simple, but ambitious. The single, bare-bones designed registration page pulls all the necessary info together, one needs to sign up for one of their trail races. They also created an “Index” for finishers, because we needed another one.
RaceGoat is race registration built for trail, ultra and road races: one account for your registrations and race history, and prices shown with the service fee included.
There are some fascinating business implications that come with this, but they will need a bit of digesting to process. A couple things are clear:
Where does this leave my article from 2024 ‘Jamil Coury is the Most Powerful Person in Trail Running‘? In need of serious updating, that’s where.
A question initially prompted by Aaron Shimmons of Trail Talk, which in turn had been prompted by a whole bunch of online chatter around the question if there is an overarching culture in trail running. One that connects us as runners, across continents and experiences, and something that might be worth protecting.
‘What is Trail Culture’ isn’t a snarky or pretentious question, but an honest one. We keep talking about it. And we talk about this so called culture being beleaguered, or even attacked, in need of protection even.
The sport of trail running continues to grow. New people are introduced to it and are entering it from all sides and through and with various experiences. Often this question around culture is brought up in the context of something that’s in need of protecting. But if we can’t define it, how can we (not just) protect – but maybe in a bit more welcoming way – teach or introduce it to the folks entering “our” space. And by the folks entering our space I don’t just mean the new trail runners who strap themselves into a running vest for the first time at a local trail race. I include, and maybe mostly am talking about the influencers (anyone with influence, and varying degree of fame) and I mean of course the brands. They are the ones who are putting serious dollars behind their campaigns promoting “trail” as a place to be and if anyone is introduced to a version of trail that’s overly commercial, overly hyped, overly manufactured, it ends up not being the “consumers” fault if their vision of trail is more a frankenstein-ed version – something produced in a brand’s conference room; as supposed to the word of mouth inspiration that actually builds and shares real culture.
In a way I am only explaining this from my perspective and through the lens of my own experiences. Everyone has a different way of interpreting why they run on trails. Everyone has a different story, has had a different entry point into the sport, and is in a different place in their lives and careers. But for me, this is what makes trail running trail running.
I run, I train (to a varying degree), I race, I set goals. But I do all that for the purpose of adventure. Trail running is adventure sport for me. Trail running is exploring new places, getting off the beaten path, finding new routes, scenery, vistas. For me it’s not about pace, about crowns, about podiums. It’s not even about podiums (especially not for my slow ass). It’s about the proverbial freedom of the hills and about seeking that flow state. Trail running culture is adventure culture.
Yes, most versions of trail running area form of endurance sport. We run, we run long (or far), we count our miles, and we sign up for races to get ourselves 100M buckles. But it’s the places, the locations we run through, we collect in our memories and seek out for our adventures. The races might give us medals but the trails give us memories. And the longing for these trails is what motivates us to train and stick with it.
Yes, many of the newer trail podcasts are focusing on the course record, that magical number, but compared to most other sport it’s the stories that make trail running special. In fact I would go so far as to say that the stories we share about our adventures on the trails are so intrinsically linked to our experiences that these things belong together – way more than the data behind our efforts. This is what trail running connects to other mountain sport and what sets it apart to the sports we play in arenas.
Often we train in solidarity, but we come together to race. One might spend hours on trails by themselves, but we share our experiences with others in our community. Be it online, via the media platforms or in person at events or over a beverage after run groups.
A sport so simple that it doesn’t require a lot of gear or skill, trail running invites folks to experience it for themselves. Go on a run. It also helps that running by itself is not very spectacular and therefore hard to capture on screen. We’re trying to make it interesting, but still, the most interesting piece about trail running is doing it yourself, not sitting on a couch and watching others do it.
That, in a nutshell is ‘trail culture’ for me. Maybe there are more points, maybe I will revisit this in at a later time. Maybe I even missed something. But for now, for me, and without going too deep, this is it.
Josh Rosenthal announces:
Join Borderlands and the Salt Lake trail running community for a live evening celebrating the people, races, and strange traditions that make local ultrarunning worth protecting. Stories, conversation, special guests from the trail running world, and a live musical performance from Aaron Gillespie of UNDEROATH + The Almost.
On Instagram we get a bit more info:
People worth listening to. A film. A live audience. Music. Drinks. Two hours in a room with people who care about the same weird thing you do.
Folks invited to speak will be:
Anton Krupicka, Tim Twietmeyer, Bob Crowley, Jazmine Lowther, Michelino Sunseri will share the stage, which sounds like a fascinating lineup. But who’s Aaron Gillespie? According to Wikipedia he’s one of the “10 Best Clean Singers in Metalcore” and has been previously in various “Christian bands”. Woof Salt Lake City, never change, never change.
The historic event is happening right now on Reunion Island, a French Territory in the Indian Ocean (ahhhh colonialism, what joy). But, what I wanted to highlight is their list of sponsors. Not a single shoe brand on the list, barely any outdoor brands at all, but a slew of non-endemic partners including Allianz (insurance company), La Poste (postal service), Caisse d’Epargne (banking), and several others. Fascinating, and peculiar. It seems that these non-endemic brands are easier to get for sponsoring island races than the ones in the Alps (or other more commonly associated locations with “trail”). Is that because these races, which require expensive air travel, seemingly have a more affluent demographic, or do these events in remote regions have “cheaper” partnership offerings?
Announced today via Instagram:
It’s one of the biggest independent trail running event in the region, and in 2027 it joins World Trail Majors.
Welcome to the family, Innsbruck. We can’t wait to run it.
Innsbruck Alpine already has the announcement on their website and Egon Theiner has the story on ‘Trail Running World’ (translated via my browser tool):
Alexander Pittl, Managing Director of the Laufwerkstatt, speaks of an honor: “It is a privilege for us to become part of this important international ultra-running series. We share the same values and passion for the mountains as the other races in the series.” Nevertheless, the organizer wants to remain independent, and he is convinced that runners who experience his mountains will immediately fall in love with the alpine-urban spirit of Innsbruck.
Announced a few years ago with much fanfare the World Trail Majors seem to have never really fully taken off and almost disappeared into obscurity. I do believe that their scoring system of their ‘Series’ isn’t working and they struggle to attract sponsors to help with promoting the series overall, but having a “home” for events that don’t want to stay completely independent and don’t want to join/be bought by UTMB is a good thing for our sport.
What’s fascinating with Innsbruck Alpine’s model is the way they are going about managing their huge number of runners – over 10,000 are expected to run in 2027: Innsbruck Alpine is offering 12! different races throughout the week. Only three races are ultra distances with many shorter ones including a vertical race, a night race, and what they call the Business Trail:
The K7 Business Trail is the perfect after-work run for all companies, organizations and institutions.
Experience the joy of running together with your work colleagues, club friends, partners or customers and let the day end in a fun atmosphere after work.
A completely unique concept that works in a mountain city of this size and probably couldn’t be replicated in most other cities. But nonetheless it shows what other event managers are doing “for the sport” in introducing folks to the trails, beyond drone shots of Mont-Blanc with an invitation to collect Running Stones.
Ray Maker took the new watch through its paces:
Suunto has just announced the new Suunto Race 3S, a small-form-factor watch that believes it needs a big-form-factor price increase.
Suunto releases the titanium watch first and hasn’t announce a cheaper steel modal alongside it. This is something they’d done in the past and I wouldn’t be surprised if the cheaper steel model will follow in short order. So Ray’s price increase comment here seems a bit of a stretch as the previous Race S Titanium was $449.
The price of the Race S Titanium went from $449 to the new $599, not the $349 he mentioned. Given the overall RAM and shortage due to the AI datacenter hype this seems like a price increase in line with the rest of the market.
I do agree with Ray that the watch seems expensive compared to the rest of the lineup. It now sits in an odd place with the Vertical 2 being $599 (Steel) and $699 (Titanium) and the Race 2 being $499 (Steel) and $599 (Titanium).
Their entry level watch, the Run 2 already has seen a big price increase from the first iteration to the second. One can assume when Suunto will upgrade the Vertical and Race from 2 to 3 models we will see the price increases bring their product back in line. This might be good time to pickup one of these 2 models right now before that happens.
There’s a lot happening in the world of Backyard Ultras, but the main noise seems to be certain influencers whining about not getting the recognition they deserve. This posturing is such a turn off for me, that I don’t even want to post about anything else that’s happening on the side of the sport. And I am certainly not going to link to it. But a couple of things are happening and are worth mentioning.
Laz’s Big’s Backyard Ultra is happening in a few days in Tennessee and Germany’s Last Soul Ultra’s sponsor rappid. is sponsoring the livestream of the event. rappid. is the clothing brand by Kim Gottwald of (Texas’ Go One More fame), who’s behind all this. The Brand is currently not selling to the US and when browsing their web shop every single product seems to be out of stock.
And speaking of Kim, there’s now a new “Backyard Ultra World Series“, which seems to be a qualifying series for Germany’s ‘Final’ – the Lost Soul Ultra in August 2027. How this all fits in with Big’s which has its own qualifying circuit and bills itself as the World Team Championship, I don’t fully understand yet. Maybe Lost Soul is for individuals and Big’s is for teams?
I’ve said before that Backyard Ultras pose a fascinating format – one that would be a interesting fit for the Olympic Games, and clearly the attention the livestreams of these events get on YouTube is something worth noting. But it me it’s an odd fraction of our sport. It can barely be considered trail and there’s no adventure or sense of place in running endless loops. Maybe in a few years this version of the sport establishes itself. It certainly lives in our larger eco system of running and endurance sport and therefore is part of “what we’re doing here”, but it also seems so far away from the mountains, physically and philosophically that it’s hard for me to take it serious. Even when I interviewed some folks from that world I had a hard time being convinced that this is something I should be signing up for.
This version of the sport is very self-contained and attracts a specific breed of people. Keeping these folks entertained on a loop somewhere in a field isn’t a bad thing. Let them go one more. Maybe if sponsors are walking away from races like Western States or UTMB and put their attention toward the Backyard Ultras will elite feel the tension of where to focus their attention, but – and maybe I am being naive here – I don’t see this happening anytime soon.
This weekend I spend a few days in the San Bernadino mountains above Los Angeles, California in Big Bear for the Kodiak Ultramarathons by UTMB event.
I flew into Ontario International Airport (the closest to Big Bear), spent 24 hours in Palm Springs visiting a friend (Hi Etienne) and took the Aerial Tramway up to Mount San Jacinto for a cool night time hike (gotta take a cable car whenever and wherever I can). During the day Palm Springs was hot AF – 104F to be precise, but also weirdly lovely (You into mid-century modern stuff? This is the place for you). The following day I drove the scenic route via 29 Palms and the Lucerne Valley to Big Bear and arrived to cooler temperatures and rain on the horizon. Big Bear is a funky town. A bit ramshackle, a bit upscale, and a bit ski (and lake) resort. Close to LA, it invites lots of weekend travelers and is (as North American is concerned) really a great location for a UTMB event, and the American Major, no less. The start and finish area for most races is right in town and while most of the trails aren’t technical, the scenery with views of the lake below is pretty lovely. There are enough amenities close by to make the stay worthwhile and the drive from the nearest airport is pretty reasonable – unless there’s 2 inches of rain in the forecast.
I’ve visited Big Bear once before, DNF’ed the 100K before UTMB designated the event their Major. Since the Major designation the UTMB team upped their expo game and made the event feel worthy of the designation. Is it comparable to Chamonix? Shut up, nothing is.
I ran the 21K on Saturday but on Friday I spend the day volunteering at the Camp Whittle aid station, the 2nd (19miles in) of the 100M race. Let’s start there.
One one side we have the people that make the aid station happen. True volunteers who do this for the love of the game, but more so, for the relationships they honor. This is a key component that isn’t often talked about. Some folks volunteer for race credits, or because they really love the hustle and bustle at an aid station or just love to help out, but most get activated, are willing to show up, and give up their weekend, because they know someone at the organization they are doing it for. And I don’t mean this disparaging at all. Folks don’t show up to volunteer at a random event because the brand behind it seems cool, folks volunteer because they respect and love the race director. (Or another connection in the organization. It could be that the aid station captain is the glue that brings people together) What I am trying to get at here is that when UTMB buys existing races they aren’t just buying the name (and brand recognition) of an event, or the course layout and permits, but UTMB needs the people who have built the relationships within the community to ensure that this event can continue and can continue to grow.
Folks also don’t show up to volunteer at an UTMB event because the work is particularly glamorous and or elevated compared to other trail races. Yes, refilling water bottles for elites is maybe a bit cool, and maybe being able to track the race via the UTMB Live website is a perk other races don’t offer, but in the end, the work at an aid station is the same at any trail race. Put out the water, mix the electrolyte drink, cut the watermelon, boil some potatoes. An UTMB aid station is like any other – maybe with an additional timing mat, or two.
I expected a bit more corporate polish, if you will. In a sense it really did feel just like any other trail race where things might fly a bit by the seat of the pants. Nothing bad happened, and I don’t want to distract from the stellar volunteers and aid station captains who truly owned their stop along the race and deeply cared about the runners, but maybe it’s a good thing that this expectation of mine didn’t get met. No corporate structure can make up incredible people caring and showing up when it counts.
Big Bear is a cool little town and UTMB has found a good home there for their Americas Major at Kodiak. The event didn’t feel overproduced while they still aimed to do the event’s importance justice. With over 2,300 starters and an average elite sized field, Kodiak is still UTMB smallest Major in their World Series and I am curious what UTMB’s plan is for the future with the events in North America. This too will deserve another thought and longer article.
I mentioned already that this was my second time at Kodiak. I previously DNF’ed the 100K back in 2023. This time I didn’t take any chances and ONLY signed up for the 21K. After a year of ups and down, and mostly downs battling life’s distractions and a broken toe, I decided that a half marathon would be something I could probably pull off without much training. And I actually did. To my surprise the altitude didn’t affect me much. This previously had been a big issue living and training at sea level. I took it out slow, knowing that the only real crux of the race would be the big climb up the ski slope to Snow Summit. After having survived this one well, and moved up in the field not he climb I took the rest of the downhill chill with a mix of running and power walking. I walk fast, but know I should run more, especially on the downhills. But, given my odd, or rather unproductive year of running I am taking 284th place and an Index of 371. Ha, you laugh and wonder why this deserves a race report and to that I respond with: “because it’s my blog and I can write whatever I want to over here”.
I wore the new NNormal ‘Modular Trail Vest’ (more on that later), my trusty La Sportiva Prodigio Pros (I wore the same shoes for Lavaredo Ultra Trail last year, which tells you how my running has been going this past year), Terignota’s Sendero shorts (I might never wear another pair of running shorts they are that good) and a running shirt I bought off of Instagram in the blue and white checkered pattern of the Bavarian flag.
I drank a bunch of Tailwind and had a random gel I still had left from TrailCon. It was a 21K, not much was needed here.
Now, I have 9 Running Stones, and Index making me eligible to put my hat into any UTMB Finals lottery of my choosing, but let’s face it, as my running is currently going any big ultra isn’t in the cards, now is it. What I did notice when perusing my UTMB dashboard is that if I don’t put my hat into the ring for the UTMB or CCC I will need another Index qualifier for 2028. Stones are still good, but Index is expiring. This throws up some interesting questions I am currently not wanting to answer. But, I did take notice.
And with that, I guess my off-season begins… or rather continues, who know.
Teased via Instagram, confirmed at the Suunto booth at this past weekend’s Kodiak’s Expo.
I don’t know where Suunto will put the S and the 3 in their naming, but I’m just going with that. (Watch was just announced, changed the title of this post to reflect the actual name.) Why the 3 and not the 2? The sales rep I chatted with didn’t know either. So, Suunto Race S 3 it is. The smaller version of their fantastic Race watch, with, I am told, a much improved charging cable. Good.
From the official Destination Trail Instagram account:
After a lot of careful discussion, we’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to call the Moab 240. The weather has become too dangerous to safely continue — we’ve received reports of aid station structures blowing away, trees falling down, wind, rain, freezing temps — and we’re expecting conditions to get worse tonight.
The weather: National Weather Service issues Flash Flood Warnings across central, southern Utah
Right call.
The creator Romain writes:
I finished three of the four races on this site. Somewhere on those trails, one question stuck with me: how many people have actually finished all four? UTMB, the Diagonale des Fous, Western States and Hardrock are, for many of us, the monuments of ultra trail running. Nobody seemed to have the answer.
The site brings all the data together in handy statistics and tables to tell the story of how many people have achieved racing these four Big Ones, how their faired, and who is close to getting this done themselves. Several handy tables and stats allow you to dig into the historical data.
Over the last year or so we’ve seen several “AI-coded projects” being released to the public but several of them failed to have any sort of editorial direction – they “Why do we need this?” is often missing. Ultra Moments on the other hand actually makes sense. It’s exhaustive, clear to understand, and simple in its scope – just four races, throughout history. The kind of data journalism that’s actually done well. And as Romain points out and gives credit to, couldn’t be done without the DUV Ultra Marathon Statistics database – which is maintained by humans.
Short mountain races are having a moment right now in North America and ‘Mountain Tiger‘ is just the latest in a string of great events across the region worth checking out.
Mountain Tiger was founded with the goal of getting more people to interact with the wilderness, preferably from atop a windy ridge with a big view.
Of course there’s the Cirque Series and Washington State has its own Vert Running Series. Canada just launched their Skyunning National Series for 2027 and the US re-launched theirs this year.
For years we were told that folks will only travel for a trail race if it’s an ‘ultra’, but I am wondering if this sentiment is changing. Broken Arrow proofed out the concept by bringing several shorter distances together around a festival atmosphere around the start/finish line area and this might’ve given folks a taste for a different type of racing experience. As the Golden Trail Series is retreating and having given up their National Series (and Salomon looking for their next growth opportunity on the road) trail runners in North America might be getting an appetite for short, steep trail races.
Now we just need to media to stop calling this part of our sport SUB-ultra.
Somewhat buried in the press release promoting UltraSignup’s upcoming US Trail Running Conference in Nashville is a tidbit worth pulling out:
The event will bring together leaders from across the sport while giving attendees an early look at the company’s newly rebuilt registration platform.
The next generation of UltraSignup will introduce a significantly improved experience for race directors and runners, with new tools designed to make managing, discovering and registering for races easier.
Yes, finally! USU 2.0 is almost ready for primetime. It’s been a longtime coming and lots of expectations are resting on this launch (and probably just as many trepidations from folks who don’t want their cheese moved). But I am told that beta testers have already been putting the product through its paces and shortly after the conference more folks will be able to test drive the platform for real.
UltraSignup hosts about 75% of trail race registrations in the US and, after having onboarded a new payment processor earlier this year the team from Nashville is now eyeing international expansion.
This is Mike McKnight beginning his explanation on a recent Instagram post calling out the entire BPC 157 kerfuffle from the last few weeks.
Mike continues:
I didn’t know the substance was banned when I took it.
And the meat of his argument:
I’m not going to self-penalize myself if the governing body for this very thing did nothing after I was reported.
I would wager this is exactly how anyone else in his position would react too. Would it be NICE if Mike would “self-penalize” himself here? Maybe. But who’s actually expecting this too happen?
There is probably an arguments that can be made around the fact that he SHOULD have known, and that he as a coach SHOULD NOT recommend a WADA banned substance to his coaching clients, but that’s a bit of a different story? Anyone can claim to be a coach and sell their “wisdom” to eager buyers. This is the American way.
So, if the argument now is that Mike SHOULD take atonement into his own hands, “do the right thing” for the sake of the sport and our trail culture, then I got a bridge to sell to you, or rather a podcast with the name ‘Singletrack’.
Since this seems to be the conversation of the moment, I am here offering you the ‘World Mushroom Championship 2026‘. Link here to the Instagram post showing the start of the “race”.
And yes, if you translate the comments on Instagram, there are folks arguing over the seemingly egotistical nature of this event not respecting, well, nature.
Fantastic, just fantastic.
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