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.

As volunteering at an UTMB event goes, there are two sides to this:

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.

The Americas Major

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.

The 21K Race – My Race

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”.

Gear

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.

And now?

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. 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.

ABC News and CNN are on the case.

Weather-related disasters are catnip for mainstream media.

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.

I’ll be at Kodiak Ultra Marathons by UTMB in Big Bear, California this week. I’m organizing a casual meetup for folks who are in town and want to hang out for a bit. Here are the deets:

• Time: Thursday, 6pm
• Location: De La Nonna (they seem to have an incredible patio overlooking the lake)

We’ll be there for a couple of hours, have some drinks, share a pizza or two. Would love to see you.

*Let me know if you think you’ll be able to make it and I’ll be sure to reserve a big enough space!

For the month of October the full lineup of the Trail Running Film Festival’s Official Selection 2026 is available online.

The TRFF’26 Festival Reel:

• Becky Bates, Not a Running Story – Scot Proudfoot
• We Belong – Milo Zanecchia
• Fellsman – Billy Barraclough
• Dipsea Generations – Paddy O’Leary
• Dick’s-A-Thon – Dylan Young
• Project Tombstone – Max Haimowitz
• Songs and Flowers – Julen Elorza

Is joining our TRFF’26 Long Films:

• The Romsdal Method – Hans Kristian Smedsrød
• Off Course – Carrie Highman, Tim Highman
• Unmuted Running for the Glaciers – Luca Jaenichen

Just $15 for several hours of trail running inspiration. What a steal.

Previously teased via Instagram, now with a brand new website:

Skyrunning Canada is Canada’s national organization for the sport of skyrunning. We work to develop the sport nationally, support athletes and race organizers, and connect the Canadian skyrunning community to the international sport through the International Skyrunning Federation.

Races officially announced (so far):

• Wildside Skyrace in BC | 26 – 27 June
• Stoked Scramble in Revelstoke BC | 16 – 18 July
• Meet the Minotaur in Crowsnest Pass AB | 27 – 28 August (previously part of the Skyrunner World Series)

But according to the website there will be more:

Six of the nine Canadian Skyrunning National Series™ races also carry Skyrunner® National Series (SNS) designation — Canada’s link to the international Skyrunner® World Series.

Exciting times in North American skyrunning.

And where our neighbors to the north are ahead of the U.S.:

The Canadian Skyrunning National Series™ is Canada’s national competition for skyrunning. Athletes earn Series Points throughout the season, building toward the final Series standings, podiums and prize money.

This is something that never really materialized in this year’s inaugural year of the U.S. National Series. Let’s hope 2027 will bring in improved system and organization to the National Series here in the U.S.

Another cryptic and rushed announcement by UTMB, shared only on Instagram:

The direct qualification rules for the UTMB World Series Finals evolve (UTMB, CCC and OCC) to allow top runners in every category to qualify closer to home, while protecting lottery access for the entire community.

In the comments on the post UTMB shared some more details:

To be clear on the why: this change allows top runners to qualify closer to home while capping direct slots at Majors (from 210 down to 60) to avoid overcrowding the Finals and preserve lottery chances for the community.

We aren’t removing age group qualifications – a new system dedicated to age categories across the whole circuit will be announced shortly. In the meantime, Majors still double your Running Stones for the lottery.

In the Trail Talk WhatsApp group UTMB’s Fabrice Perrin shares some insight on the vague timing of the announcement:

Context on the timing: Val d’Aran registrations were about to open, and we didn’t want anyone signing up thinking they could still qualify for the Finals through their age group… if that’s no longer the case.

So we chose to say it now, even though the replacement pathway is still being finalised… Not ideal, I know, but better than letting people find out afterwards.

It’s not about shutting age-groupers out, quite the opposite. More soon.

This seems to be the first major adjustment of the UTMB qualification process since its inception. How major, will yet to be seen. But what is clear is that with the continue growth of the World Series and the continued demand by athletes to race one of the Finals UTMB has a lot of wiggle room to tighten the screws in various places.

In any case, in two weeks I’ll be at Kodiak getting myself my 2 (Major!) stones for the year. – And no, I’m not gunning for an age group place anytime soon.

Adding a few random weekend thoughts and some wild predictions about last week’s announcement that Run Rabbit Run is going to increase their prize money in 2027 and 2028 for the men and women’s race winner to $100,000 each, courtesy of non-endemic sponsor and longtime race supporter Insight Global.

The Risk vs. Reward is Too High for Athletes

As it currently stands, with just the first place winners receiving the really big payout, my guess is that not many elites will take the bait. Maybe they reach out to the RD and hope to snag an elite bib, put themselves on the starting list to “play the game”, but if this large sum doesn’t trickle down to the top ten in some ways – via other brands jump on board to fill out the table – I would wager very few top elites will forgo UTMB to focus on WINNING RRR. Of course, this hypothesis dramatically changes if the top ten receive similar bumps in prize money.

HOKA is still Title Sponsor of UTMB Through 2028

I would wager UTMB/Hoka will not announce any drastic increase in prize money for 2027 – mid deal cycle. This cushion of time will give both organizations a chance to see how athletes and elites will respond to this announcement by RRR/Insight Global. Further, they are busy with the mayor of Chamonix anyways and have other things to worry about, including the UCI Championships – word is that UTMB might have to move their dates for the Finals in 2027. And then there’s the WMTRC in Cape Town in 2027 as well, and while the date for this event isn’t until early October this does play into the consideration for athletes as their are planning their 2027 calendar of races.

The Challenge of the Non-Endempic Partnership

When races like Gorge Waterfalls and Broken Arrow announced their prize purses the deal also added several high profile ACG athletes to the race lineup, and consequentially to the podiums. To a point that at Gorge 42% of the total purse was won by Nike athlete/employees.

This suggest that when shoe brands or – endemic sponsors if you will – are sponsoring a race, they include contractual incentives for their athletes to show up at said event. I’m not suggesting that there’s any expectation to “win that money back” that would be preposterous – but also quite frankly hilarious. But it does highlight that brands who are “all in” on an event have a strong incentive to have their athletes show up and represent the brand throughout the weekend. Merrell, as title sponsor of the Skyrunner World Series, brought their whole US trail team to Beast of Big Creek this summer. A non-endemic sponsor doesn’t have the same ability to activate any athletes for an event. This could be a crucial and missing piece for RRR/Insight Global here.

RRR is Run by a Nonprofit

Common conversation often used as an explainer excuse, on why Hardrock100 and Western States are NOT paying out prize money is that both events are managed and owned by nonprofit organizations. So far a lot (most) of the media’s attention has been around a possible UTMB response here (and given the close proximity of both events on the calendar, this makes some sense) but shouldn’t this announcement also put some pressure on Hardrock and WSER? And maybe a renewed call, or even the beginnings of a call for Hardrock and WSER to step up?

Raising the Profile for Run Rabbit Run

I am told that RRR race director Fred Abramowitz passionately believes RRR can be one of THE big races on our trail calendar (UTMB, Hardrock, Western States, Diagonale des Fous). And one can assume that the focus on prize money (which RRR has offered since its inception) is the mechanism for RRR to get there. RRR competes on various fronts, but mostly on the calendar due to its date being in close proximity to UTMB. As an America race, run by a nonprofit – like Hardrock and WSER – and with the unique distinction of having one of the largest prize purse in trail running, what would happen if RRR would move its date to early Summer? Of course this is entirely hypothetical as I have no idea if this could happen in Colorado’s Steamboat Springs, due to weather, snow melt in the Rockies and a variety of other factors. But how different would the conversation be if RRR competed on the calendar with similar races, in the same country, the ones offering NO prize money? Would that mean immediate game over? All of a sudden we’d be talking about a possibly very lucrative RRR+UTMB double.

Why don’t I start this one off with an Odyssey reference, after all this movie had been the talk of the town throughout the summer , but I digress. I’m not here to talk about movies, but if I would, I would talk about the Trail Running Film Festival streaming the 2027 tour reel all October long online. Tickets will be available starting Oct. 1. Oh, I did digress, I wasn’t going to talk about movies, and neither was I talking about the last two year’s men’s winners of the UTMB Finals, Tom Evans and Ben Dhiaman, both ASICS athletes.

This proverbial Trojan horse I am talking about here is ‘njuko’. Who, what?

njuko is a online events registration platform. The company is based out of France, but since 2022 owned by ASICS – the Japanese shoe and sportswear company. And further, ASICS owns several other registration platforms, among them Race Roster and GetMeRegistered. Why does ASICS own event registration platforms? And what’s the value her for a shoe company? The data, I would presume. Athlete information, runner data, event insights – all available, globally through registration platforms.

Now, back to njuko. As you might have guessed, they are a white-label event registration platform that is powering every (probably) UTMB World Series race registration globally. Yes, ASICS the shoe company and competitor to HOKA, title sponsor of the UTMB World Series is behind the company that’s controlling every transaction for every race registration for the UTMB World Series. That’s a lot of data.

Make what you will with this information but this is fascinating and will deserve a lot more digging and ruminating.

PS: Thanks to a friendly tipster for pointing me into this direction.

New dates for Ultra Trail Whistler by UTMB are set for 2027. And in the coming year they will be in June. The end of June to be precise, 25-27 June, 2027. The same weekend as Western States, Lavaredo Ultra Trail and Mont-Blanc Marathon. Yes, the busiest weekend in trail.

I will give the UTMB/Ironman team that the Whistler resort is very busy in the summer, and mountain biking still reigns supreme for Vail Resorts – and that alone might be the reason for this endless reshuffling of dates. But after several years of trying it seems is event just can’t find a footing on the calendar. (Side note: Coast Mountain Trail Running (which vowed to never go back to Whistler) has their Whistler Half Marathon in early June as well.)

Not sure what to make of all this, but as I reiterated several times before, Whistler as a resort – it’s large, it’s beautiful, it’s not too high up; and Whistler as a location – it’s close to a major city and airport and has excellent infrastructure as previous OIympic Games host, has all the make up to be THE North American location for a massive trail running event akin to Cortina, Chamonix, or Garmisch-Partenkirchen. But whatever the reasons behind the scenes are – we’re now several years into this idea – it seems like this is just not going to happen. What a huge wasted opportunity.

The other Canadian UTMB World Series event: Boréalys Mont-Tremblant by UTMB was held in mid-August this year (no 2027 date announced yet). This is a week before the UTMB Finals week and totally overshadowed by it. There’s no love by UTMB for Canada, so it seems.

This is an interesting snippet out of Egon Theiner’s interview on the German language ‘Trail Running World‘ blog with Marino Giacometti, founder of the International Skyrunning Federation. Giacometti says:

Trail running, as you say, is assigned to World Athletics. Our connection to the UIAA exists because skyrunning is a mountain sport, not athletics.

I’ve been touching on this idea that “Skyrunning goes up and down the mountain. Trail running goes around it” in my interview with Etienne on Singletrack.

Josh Rosenthal on Borderlands:

Directed by Max Lowe and produced by Evan Hayes, the film follows photographer Aisha McAdams as she documents HOKA athletes Jim Walmsley and Vincent Bouillard competing at the Western States Endurance Run and Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB).

Learning to Fly will be available globally on Prime Video following a limited theatrical run and a series of private screenings, including events hosted for REI and Scheels.

Another fascinating step for REI to embrace the ‘racing side’ of trail running.

In an essay reflecting on the recent death of Ida Amelie Robsahm and Kalie McCrystal Ian quotes the great mountaineer Reinhold Messner:

“If death was not a possibility, coming out (of the mountains) would be nothing. It would be kindergarten, but not an adventure and not an art.”

He continues with his own words in an essay which is is an absolute must read from top to bottom:

For those of us drawn to mountains, the attraction is not recklessness. It is something much deeper. Mountains provide perspective in a world increasingly dominated by distraction. They challenge us physically and mentally. They expose weaknesses and reveal strengths. They offer moments of fear, humility, joy, wonder and achievement.

In many ways, mountain running allows us to experience the full spectrum of what it means to be alive.

The lows are real.

The highs are extraordinary.

I’m glad we have voices like Ian’s in our sport, we’re better off for it.

Jujuy Fuerza Sagrada by UTMB was just announced at the beginning of this month. Registration opened yesterday and within a day the team announced it sold out all distances.

ALL DISTANCES ARE SOLD OUT.

In record time, thousands of runners said yes to an adventure that hasn’t even begun yet, but is already making history.

Momentum.