By Mathias Eichler
Come race the world!
Beast of Big Creek is North America's only stop on the Skyrunner World Series. Mount Ellinor is waiting for you.
Electric Cable Car is part of Trail Tracks Network.
Martin Biela still working on trying to reverse-engineer the UTMB Index and fully get the details on how it actually works:
Beginning of last week a Calculation details view appeared on every runner’s profile — no announcement, no blog post. Click the big blue UTMB Index card, or any category card, and a panel folds out showing exactly how that number was built, row by row.
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Here’s what the rule turns out to be: your UTMB Index is governed by two mechanics that the panel shows but never explains. A clock that ages every result on a fixed schedule, and a floor that stops your weaker races from dragging you down. Once you can see both, the index stops being a verdict handed down from above and becomes something you can actually read — and plan around.
The mechanics behind it all are a bit over my head, but it’s good to get a better understanding of how this all works. Especially if you’re a pro runner and that Index is important for your livelihood, having a better understanding can help you make better decisions. Although, you should probably refrain from running and optimizing for a number – cause that’s certainly NOT what trail running is supposed to be all about.
From their FAQ for the new product:
Team Subscriptions let groups or organizations purchase multiple Strava annual subscriptions and share them with their teammates. You’ll receive unique codes that recipients can redeem to unlock the full Strava experience for a year.
No tech company has ever not offered an “enterprise” model = selling a version of their product to businesses and hoping that the corporate expense departments will forget about the annual subscriptions renewing.
Here’s Raziq’s TrailCon recap:
There were repeated comparisons to skateboarding, and I reject them wholeheartedly based on the simple fact that skateboarders are cool. Skating is an anti-establishment subculture. Skaters challenge societal norms simply by using the built environment (parking lots, stairs, railings) for a secondary, often-destructive recreational activity.
I loved my few days at TrailCon, but I also admit that I am not cool – my kids keep reminding me. I loved being outdoors in the mountains – and not stuck in a nondescript trade show hall. I love the conversations and interactions I had with folks all week. But yes, I agree with Raziq’s point, the sport of trail running has room to grow. And TrailCon has room to move beyond the feeling of being an expanded podcast panel turned into a trade show into something that feels like it more organically reflects the full diversity of our sport. Give it time, and invite the right partners to help you nurture it.
What started out as just a newsletter for the French outlet was recently expanded to include a full website where their articles can be accessed (and linked to!). Naturally still in French, so use the translation tool of your browser. This is a very welcome addition to our trail media landscape.
After this massive week Jonathan Levitt posts his follow up thoughts on his blog. One thing he points out which I sort of forgot about:
I did not hear a single real panel conversation about how AI is changing the way runners find the products they buy.
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That felt like a miss.
He’s right, there wasn’t much talk. Maybe because trail running doesn’t happen in the echo chamber of tech investing and tech reporting but is closer to the real world. And there AI is largely hated and rarely useful.
In fact, spending a week not hearing about AI felt refreshing.
Sure, at the ‘Second Nature’ mixer on Wednesday morning folks shared their vibe-built industry disrupters, but none of these project felt like they had any real impact on our sport yet.
Josh watched the livestream. I usually do as well, but this year I had the opportunity to be onsite and follow the race live. It’s a complete different experience. And yet, I agree with several of Josh’s takes here:
Technology has largely solved the “where” problem. Storytelling still has to solve the “who” problem. Commentators had issues knowing who was on screen and sometimes they had issues knowing why those on screen mattered.
There were several moments when the livestream commentators responded to nothing but the ticker refreshing, which I also have on my phone. Is there no better way to give these folks insight information? And if there is not, why’s no one else starting their own live commentary? Just for diversity’s sake.
John Sugden shares some quick recap charts for this year’s Western States race:
Imagine telling someone that three men would go under 14 hours, four under the course record, and none of them would have been named Jim, Kilian, Hans, Hayden, Zach, or Adam?
There will be plenty of debates on how the masterminds (nerds) of our sport so completely misread the men’s field in their predictions ahead of the race, but this is for another time. John charts highlight the way both the men’s and women’s races unfolded. What a fascinating year it was to be on the ground as supposed to glued to the livestream.
I previously mentioned the app Western States released a few month ago in the lead up to the race. Now with just a few hours before race start it’s worth reminding folks to download the app to follow along. For folks who aren’t wanting to install an app on their phone, or want to view the data in their browser there’s a web view as well. in Some of the data and the way it is displaying it will be quite fascinating to explore during the actual race. This might be a good alternative for folks who don’t want to watch the livestream.
Nutrition brands were a-plenty at TrailCon but I got get the impression that things felt a bit dialed down from the past two years at TrailCon when the onslaught of new hydration brands promoting all kinds of magical numbers and gains felt almost nauseating. Good, let’s be more reasonable, and healthier.
Eoin Comerford, via LinkedIn post:
As a reaction to a packed June calendar, the folks at Switchback Event just announced that next year’s show is moving earlier in the season, running May 22-24.
I had been wondering about this when it was first announced that TRE was spinning out their Switchback event and moving it to June, now it seems TrailCon has won. They keep their date in June – which for them is clearly the only time of the year a conference can work in Olympic Valley.
A panel I had missed at TrailCon was titled ‘How Trail Running’s Top Leaders Think About Growth, Culture, And What’s Next’. It was moderated by Ian MacGregor, CEO of SkratchLabs with panelist Renee Augustine, General Manager Arc’Teryx, Monica DeVreese, CEO at rabbit, and Mark Garonzik, General Manager at ACG.
All the panels were in the blazing heat, so I chose to skip it. But I mainly did because I couldn’t get over the title of the panel “trail running’s top leaders”. ACG has been in the sport for 5 minutes. Arc’Teryx clearly is an outdoor brand, but also barely had a hand in shaping the sport over the last few years. Several of the folks on the panel don’t have any results on UltraSignup themselves. But sure, let’s call the “top leaders of trail running” to discuss our sport.
I was reminded of this panel when scanning LinkedIn this morning – yeah, I can’t help myself. There Ian MacGregor continued the conversation with the following prompt:
We’ve watched a lack of critical thinking decimate the bike industry over the last few years. A lot of great people and brands have been hurt.
Trail running is on an extraordinary run right now. Participation is up. Investment is flowing in. Brands are scaling fast.
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What is the trail running industry celebrating right now that we might look back on in a few years and realize was actually a warning sign?
So okay, that is indeed a good question worth pondering. A few of the answers in the comments mention the importance of maintaining the trails. In a previous post I mention the need to expand the offerings at TrailCon to entice regular folks to actually show up. Let’s add a “trail work day” to TrailCon, brought to you by ACG. Others speak to the dangers of the recent price increases by brands flirting with the “triathlon consumer” who surely can afford the $300 running shoe. Not sure if brands like ACG and Arc’Teryx are gonna listen. Two comments I’d add:
One of the panels I went to at TrailCon was titled ‘Balancing Art and Journalism in Creative Storytelling’. It was a good panel overall and I don’t want to call out the panelists, Nick Danielson, Somer Kreisman, Sean Haworth and Aisha McAdams (all photographers) or the moderator Hilary Yang in any ways here, but want to take this as a moment to ask the bigger question for our sport: “Where are the actual journalists?”
What I mean here and the panel somewhat skirted around the issue but never fully addressed it, is that trail running doesn’t have reporters, journalists, and investigators. I saw and chatted with the folks from Outside, Like the Wind, Trailhead Media – the podcasters were busy in their Airbnb’s interviewing athletes. If every shoot is an assignment, if every articles is pre-sold and cleared with the brand partners, and if every published story is an advertorial, then we don’t have journalists we only have an extended contract marketing department. We have hype men and cheerleaders. Maybe I’m naive and sports journalism doesn’t require a bullet proof wall between the fourth estate and the ad department but the much loved on and worried over “culture of trail running” would greatly benefit we’d have some folks actually asking some challenging questions from the big players – the businesses making the big money in our sport – and not just sitting there like puppy dogs waiting for the newest shoe release, or shirt with holes in it.
It can’t be that the only ‘truth tellers’ in our sport are the meme accounts on Instagram, come on.
This was a comment made by a well-known race director and industry professional whose name I will keep private here. At a chat we had toward the end of TrailCon they replied to the ongoing challenges in our industry to have shoe brands – which are arguably the companies with the deepest pockets – to play nice together and share the communal space we call trail running. At events, be it races or conferences, brands always demand exclusivity and preferred treatment and while this might sound good in their corporate eco chambers in reality it’s impossible – and counter productive for the community – to pull off.
Yes, our sport needs the money from these brands, and yes, in exchange for these promotional dollars these brands want something in return, – this is all fair and good. But sometimes in conversations with them it does feel like they should behave a bit more like grown-ups and not like bickering teenagers fighting for supremacy in the hallways of their high school.
Tudor wasn’t there with a full booth, hahaha, that would’ve been amazing. But after their announcement from earlier this month I found it fascinating to see someone walking around with branded Tudor hat taking in the scene. Wanting to make sure this wasn’t just a Tudor fan (that would’ve been embarrassing) I spoke with her for a few minutes. She’s indeed from Tudor and was there to explore the trail running scene. For the two days I saw her alongside Fabrice Perrin and the rest of the UTMB crew. She mentioned that Tudor is working several upcoming announcements, including brand activations and meet and greets with their ambassadors. She also said that while there’s not a special edition trail running watch in the works we might see a limited edition watch band to bring their brand story fully to trail.
Given that she was in town alongside the UTMB crew – which could’ve been a happy coincidence – I would wager that Tudor is planning a marketing push in the lead up to the UTMB Finals in Chamonix. How far this might go I don’t know, maybe they’ll have a booth at the UTMB expo, but this feels a bit too pedestrian. What would be more suitable for Tudor is to take over a storefront along the main drag in downtown Chamonix. I also would not be surprised if Tudor is evaluating a bigger partnership with UTMB. Not sure how Suunto feels about this and there’s some messaging to massage, but I can see this coming as early as this year.
Also, no, I did not ask for a review unit.
I’ve just spend 2+ days at TrailCon in Tahoe. I arrived late on Monday, missing a couple of the industry talks, but I got to spend two full days wandering the village, checking out booths and meeting with friends and making new ones.
The sun was out, the village was inviting, the mountains surrounding the valley were gorgeous. Olympic Valley above Lake Tahoe is an incredible place that I always love coming back to. And for trail running to celebrate itself it’s a much better location than any sterile conference center. But it’s also fairly remote and I heard from several vendors that they wished more people would’ve been there – growing pains, I suppose. It’s only the second year of the full TrailCon experience. For the future I wonder if TrailCon should add additional programming to entice the average trail running (the consumer), not just the industry professional to stay for the full week between Broken Arrow and Western States. I know this might sound corny to some folks but morning yoga sessions, trail running clinics, bear watching excursions (for the Euros!) and other activities might help with that.
Over the next few days I’ll be sharing some observations here on Electric Cable Car as I gather my thoughts and notes. Stay tuned.
Here are the runners and community members honored at this year’s TrailCon Awards presented by ACG:
PS: Hope I got this all right, I was in attendance and only halfway through thought about writing it all down. If I missed/forgotten anything, please do let me know.
Just like last year fuel company Neversecond prints and distributes an actual physical newspaper around Olympic Valley:
Race week starts with the Trail Times.
Made in collaboration with @runfreetrail, @shapirothehero, @the_subhub_pod, @dan_yell_a, @emkaysulli and @yaboyscottjurek, this free newspaper has everything you need for Broken Arrow Skyrace and Western States week—race previews, feature stories, pop-up info, schedules, and more.
Grab a copy around the Village starting June 18.
The kicker: included is a massive infographic (without artistic attribution by the way – AI slob maybe even) that labels Olympic Valley as Squaw Valley. What a massive faux pas and huge embarrassment. When you’re called out by Ann Trason in the comments of your Instagram announcement about it then you know you fucked up.
TrailFans (no attribution or byline) asks on their blog “Why are trail runners so obsessed with Western States?” and why this might be a worthwhile question, albeit a pretty basic one, what sticks out to me is neither the question or the answer but the AI markdown formatting that was left in the article that was posted. Rookie mistake.
Another question Trailfans asked: “Is Broken Arrow 23k the biggest prize purse in trail running?” To which one could briefly use any search engine to search for “UTMB prize purse” and learn that in fact the Broken Arrow 23K is indeed not the biggest prize purse in trail running. The winner of the Broken Arrow 23K gets an astonishing amount of cash, but when looking at the distribution to tenth place, one quickly realizes that giving $100 isn’t actually that much.
Martin Biela built a tool that tracks week-over-week movement in the UTMB Index Top 100. From his introductory blog post:
I’ve been having fun with data ever since I watched Moneyball in 2011. And I think Germany has built the coolest fantasy manager out there for football — Kickbase. Once you’ve spent a season comparing market values, point multipliers and starting-eleven probabilities, you don’t watch the Bundesliga the same way again.
I’ve was invited to play Kickbase last Bundesliga season and I sucked at it. So, I might not be the target audience for this amount of data, but here’s what Martin says ‘The Ascent’, which lives on uphillnotes.com is and does:
The Ascent is a live view of the UTMB Index Top 100. Two date pulldowns, a Top 10 table, movers, country and continent splits. You pick two weeks and see at a glance who climbed, who fell, who’s new in the Top 100, who dropped out.
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Index runs on the most contemporary calculation in the sport: expected score instead of plain averages, a stability score, heavier weighting of performances on similar course profiles, a clear recency bias. If I’m going to read movement across weeks, I want to read it on the best available data — and that’s the new Index.
Another massively ambitious tech tool that’s coming for trail. But man, I wish the AI user interfaces would be a bit more diverse and not look all the same – I suppose these designs AI churns out are the WordPress themes our generation of builders fought against. But I don’t want to be a complainer, I’ve been asking for more data, with the hope for our media to tell better stories that are based not just on gut – and personal friendship – but on the accessibility and visualization of data points that define our sport. At a glance it seems these tools currently are just reinforcing what we already tool, but I shall be patient and understand that take time to get the data injected to build up the historical context. For example at this point – today – the tool lists global runners and German runners, no other country is broken down. And we can see that Martin Nilsson was the biggest Index number climber, but we can’t click on his name to see what race he ran, or what made the points jump. It’ll be interesting to see how this will evolve and I am looking forward for someone to take ‘The Ascent’ tool and find that gem of a storyline we’ve been missing.
A friendly – and almost annual – reminder that there are three massive trail running events that are happening in the coming weekends in the Alps. While America’s eyes, and the trail media’s, and mine this year are on Broken Arrow and Western States, Europe is embracing the mountains trails melted out by the early summer sun:
These three events are just a couple hundred miles apart from each other, one in Germany on the Northern side of the Alps, one in Italy on the Southern side, and one in France, on the southeastern side. All three in breathtaking locations – Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Chamonix are all previous host locations of the Winter Olympics. Lavaredo, which I ran last year and is an absolutely incredible event with races in the most beautiful location = the Dolomites but this event will always be in competition for global trail media attention. Garmisch’s Zugspitz is finding itself in the same place now. Chamonix does need no introduction. All three events would be talked about and covered, if they’d happen on a weekend with no competition for attention. All three events are the biggest in their respective countries and regions and proof that while trail running is global sports media is largely regional and limited.
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