As we’re awaiting the start of the Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB, which I will cover here on Electric Cable Car on my live ticker page, I thought I take a moment to share the total numbers of runners who’ve started each race over the last few years. (As far back as UTMB Live lists)

So, while Canyons lost the Major status after the 2024 race the numbers didn’t drop as dramatically as one might think. It’ll be interesting to see how these numbers will compare to this year. I’ll report after the event.

1. For all years the 100K has been a WSER Golden Ticket race.
2. In 2023 and 2024 Canyons was a UTMB Major and awarded double the number of stones. This changed in 2025 when Kodiak Ultra Marathons in Big Bear, CA became the Americas Major.
3. ECC summary of results for 2025 can be found here, for 2024 here, and my post in 2023.

And I’m sharing a post from Lavaredo Ultra Trail’s Instagram account for the occasion:

The mountains are not a backdrop. They are living spaces, fragile ecosystems, and the very reason why events like this can exist at all.

Earth is our only home. Our time here may be temporary, but the impact we leave behind is not. The way we treat nature today will shape the way we live tomorrow.

Today is a reminder to move through nature with greater awareness, deeper respect, and lighter impact.

Today we celebrate the land that challenges us and carries us forward. 

“The mountains are not a backdrop – they are living spaces…” what a beautiful sentence and sentiment, the whole thing. Love it.

Lavaredo 120K was the last big race I ran and my ultimate dream goal race. It’s been almost a year. I ran a trail marathon outside Issaquah, Washington back in November and shortly after broke my toe and took a very very long break. It might be time to get back into the saddle and think of some new goals. Or just make my goal to go back to Lavaredo again. What a stunning place to race!

iRunFar just published an interesting article by Zander Chase highlighting some data around the 200 mile phenomenon.

The 200-Mile Phenomenon: A Data-Based Look at Their Growth and Demographics

Browsing some of the numbers and charts I was reminded of a recent post by Aravaipa on the Cocodona’s Instagram channel:

We’re still 400 volunteers short of full capacity, and we need YOU to help bring this race to life.

Three weeks to the event, still 400! volunteers short. As an RD myself this terrifies me. (But I also cannot put me in the same category as Aravapia in size and scope, I will fully admit this.)

But these two post got me thinking of how many volunteers it takes to run these large scale events and so I did some numbering.

• Western States: 369 runners, 1,600 volunteers, not counting pacers and crew for runners.
• UTMB: (2025 numbers) 11,362 runners across the various races, 2500 volunteers, not counting crew for runners.
• Cocodona: (2026 numbers) 1,373 runners across the various races, 400 volunteers still short, not counting pacers and crew for runners.

I glanced over the volunteer signup form for Cocodona and it looks like (generously) 2/3 of the spots are filled. So we could assume they’d need about 1,200 for the event in total. That would put them at a ratio of approximately a volunteer per runner?

Comparing that to Western States, which runs such a unique operations – as a nonprofit with massive history – that it can afford a massive volunteer to racer ratio of over 4! Which is nuts. If that would be the standard for trail races hardly a single event could operate.

UTMB for the Finals week in Chamonix has at a ratio of .2 volunteers per runner, which seems very efficient and sustainable.

Not sure what the conclusion is I am coming to here – if any. Every sport utilizes volunteers and not everything can be visualized in a spreadsheet. In many ways volunteers are the lifeblood of every events that bring people together. And even if the organization is a full on profit-driven corporation their business model will always rely on dedicated people who love giving their time and expertise to help others fulfill their dreams. There’s something slightly weird about asking people to give their time and expertise to a business venture one draws a profit from – I struggle with this. But people do love to get involved, be part of something, and they explicitly want something easy and not immediately get hired and get full tied down. So volunteering does provide an important outlet for folks who love to give back and love to be part of something. Jesus, I am talking myself into circles, for this I apologize. So, what can I say. Go out there and be part of something. Get involved. Volunteer. Do something you love, and give back!

A couple of side notes:

• I am curious what the number of paid staff is that is added for each of these big events. Clearly UTMB in Chamonix must have a much larger number of paid staff and contractors. Bus drivers, medical and search and rescue, etc I assume are paid positions in the Alps.
• One aspect not considered in these numbers is that of pacers and crew. While not required by any of these events they do add to the equation in some ways. For example Cocodona does allow active pacers to utilize the aid station food and drinks. Do race organizations feel better knowing that many of their runners are running through the night with their pacer who (hopefully) is there to ensure the runner stays safe? I would assume so.

The personalized race planning app market is getting crowded.

Race Pace is:

Your Trail Pacing and Fueling plans built around your fitness for your race goals.

This is already the third app I came across offering a similar solution to the challenge of how to prepare for your big ultra distance race. Back in 2022 I mentioned ‘ultraPacer‘, then about a year ago I found ‘Time on Trails‘. All of these apps are utilizing GPX data paired with your watch training data to predict a race plan allowing you to plan for your big race. Before AI it was fairly easy to separate the ‘home made ideas’ from the project that seem like a serious undertaking, but nowadays every marketing website feels flashy and engaging, it’s hard to get a quick feel for the product. And also, uploading my watch data to some ‘new-to-me’ and unproven website feels like a lot to ask. Are any of these apps useful and should you try them out? Not sure. I don’t feel like they can replace a relationship with a coach you can bounce your thoughts and ideas off of. But coaches are also in a complete price category, so to compare this is probably unfair. But how can you trust the data the tool spits out for you? Maybe if you race enough you can try it out on a race that isn’t your ‘A-race’ first, seeing how it does and then maybe you can learn to trust it? Feels like a lot of work?

Is this something that Strava might built into their platform at some point?

Lots of question, but one thing is certain, this too can be filed into the category of “the tech is coming for trail“. What a fun time this is right now in our sport.

Gearing up for Canyons Week I’m taking a trip down memory lane. Here’s my chat on Singletrack with Jeff Urbanski who ran the 100M in 2023, and I share a bit about my 50K effort from the same year.

Coverage on Electric Cable Car will begin on Friday, April 24th. Don’t miss it.

Via the WSER Facebook page, of all places:

Race day may be 2 months away but we are readying WSER App 2.0 (iPhone) and are looking for some beta testers as we run a few race simulations to look for any issues in advance.

The new app will feature historical data and photos but much more pertinent will have the live broadcast, runner tracking, and notifications. An Android app will be released at a later date.

The tech disruption – or rather enhancement – is coming for our trail scene, I’ve been saying for a while now. It’ll be fascinating to see how this will be adopted, and how all the various feeds will be curated and pulled together in one application.

Sylvain Bolt for Swiss 24 Heures (translated from French):

The Sierre court ruled in favour of Julien Lyon, a Geneva coach who had been banned from any future involvement in the Anniviers race due to a doping case involving one of his athletes.

The Sierre Tribunal recognized that Julien Lyon bears no personal responsibility in the Sierre-Zinal 2025 doping case.

First off, I will say that I did not read the full article due to the newspapers paywall. I am searching for more information on this and will update this article when I get more details. But nonetheless, this is massive development in one of the biggest doping cases in our sport’s recent history.

The race with the ‘s’ in Canyons. The ‘other Western States’. The event that was previously a UTMB Major and the last Golden Ticket race in the lead up to Western States. This event has seen the greats in our sport racing, chasing, and running on the historic Western States trail. Known for poison ivy incidents, lots of course changes over the years, and one of the first events to sell to UTMB back in 2022. The first UTMB race I ran in 2023 to get my first stones, which got me to OCC in 2024.

This year at Electric Cable Car I’ll cover the event, and all the races – remotely, in real time – bringing you all the action from all the channels and sources in one digestible live-ticker. One web page, reload, and you’re informed.

Announced today via IG and email affecting all runners racing UTMB this year and beyond:

Between Notre-Dame de la Gorge and Col du Bonhomme, over a 6-to-7-kilometer stretch (mostly uphill), you must use the red-light mode on your headlamps when crossing the Contamines-Montjoie Nature Reserve. 

Why? 

Some scientific studies show that white light can disturb nocturnal wildlife, whereas red light is less noticeable to many species. 

Equipment: only one of your two required headlamps needs to be equipped with this mode. 

Today would be a good day for UTMB to announce an official headlamp sponsor for their World Series.

Puerto Vallarta by UTMB was supposed to happen earlier in the year, but due to forces beyond the race organizations control the event had to be moved to a later date.

A few years ago when this race was first announced as a UTMB event American runners were quite excited about it, but this year hardly any US runner made it across the border to race, which is kind of a bummer.

Find all UTMB coverage on my dedicated UTMB page here.

For full results visit the UTMB website, below the top runners by race:

81K Hikuri – (100K – 3 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Mandy CURRIE – Canada – 12:01:35
2. Karla PICARD – Mexico – 13:01:19
3. Lucero Abigaith GOMEZ ESPINDOLA – Mexico – 13:04:12

Men:

1. Juan BELMAN ORTIZ – Mexico – 08:45:44
2. Cristhian LAGOS – Columbia – 08:56:25
3. Luis URBINA – Mexico – 09:02:24

53K Nakawe – (50K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Josefina PEREZ – Mexico – 06:35:48
2. María Del Rocío FLORES CARDENAS – Mexico – 06:59:39
3. Patricia OLIVOS AGUILAR – Mexico – 07:06:44

Men:

1. Miguel Ángel PÉREZ ALVARADO – Mexico – 05:21:33
2. Eder BELMONT SÁNCHEZ – Mexico – 05:31:39
3. Gabriel BOIN – France – 05:34:47

37K Haramara (50K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Nayeli DE LA TORRE SEGURA – MEX – 04:36:09
2. Mariana MALDONADO – MEX – 04:52:07
3. Maria Alicia SANCHEZ TORRES – MEX – 05:09:37

Men:

1. Esteban RODRÍGUEZ VÁZQUEZ – MEX – 03:42:06
2. Abraham HERNÁNDEZ – MEX – 03:18:15
3. Juan Carlos CARERA CASAS – MEX – 03:36:41

20K Ereno (20K – 1 Stone) – Full Results

Women:

1. María Magdalena BARBA LAZARO – Mexico – 02:16:33
2. Mary Tere MORA LUNA – Mexico – 02:35:49
3. Catherine CASTRO VILLICAÑA – Mexico – 02:36:42

Men:

1. José OCHOA OCHOA – Mexico – 02:10:10
2. Brayan RODRÍGUEZ FLORES – Mexico – 01:50:03
3. Jeff ROSAS – Mexico – 01:57:32

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• 81K Starters: 171. DNF: 22 + Finishers: 234. Women 24 (16%), Men 125 (84%).
• 53K Starters: 335. DNF: 35 + Finishers: 422. Women 62 (21%), Men 238 (79%).
• 37K Starters: 268. DNF: 14 + Finishers: 543. Women 86 (34%), Men 168 (66%).
• 20K Starters: 401. DNF: 17 + Finishers: 241. Women 189 (49%), Men 195 (51%).
• 5K Starters: 84. DNF: 2 + Finishers: 82. Women 44 (54%), Men 38 (46%).

Puerto Vallarta by UTMB saw a total 1,259 starters and 1,169 finishers. 405 (35%) women and 764 (65%) men reached the finish line and earned collectively 1,939 UTMB Stones.

Next up, on 23-26 April 2026 we’ll head to France for Grand Raid Ventoux and to California for the final WSER Golden Ticket race for 2026 The Canyons Endurance Runs.

There are many ways of how one can pick their next trail race. The new website: discovertrailraces.com focuses on the price of entry as compared to distance of each race. Creator Danny from the ‘about’ page of site:

I love exploring new races and saw that it was a pain in the butt for people to find good, vetted races that also fit with their big race goals. Crappy websites, poor checkout processes, and also rising race prices kind of got me upset.

The key feature of this new (still in beta) tool is a collection of trail running events sorted by ‘cost per kilometer’. This allows any user to quickly scan and find the cheapest events for each region. While I personally would not choose to run an event just purely based on cost I appreciate the focus.

Well, that was quick. Nike shoots another own goal with their divisive and abrasive marketing campaign and takes it down (Hayden West for Canadian Running with the story):

A Boston Marathon Nike campaign, put up outside its flagship store on Newbury St. in Boston on Thursday, has the running world up in arms. The sign, which read, “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated,” was heavily criticized for pace-shaming and not being inclusive to runners of all levels or abilities. On Friday, Nike removed the sign and issued an apology.

So, what happened?

• Nike’s not an official sponsor, so this fits squarely into the ambush marketing campaign category the roll out a billboard in Boston – ahead of the Boston Marathon – with the message: “Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated“.
• Already earlier this week they got into hot water for a similarly messaged billboard a a UK ParkRun. This one said: “You didn’t come all this way for a walk in the park.” Another ambush marketing message completely missing the point of the ParkRun culture.
• Last year at the London Marathon they had a similar billboard with the message: ““Never Again. Until Next Year.” This one reminding folks of a phrase tied to Holocaust remembrance.

So, Nike knows exactly what they are doing with these billboards. And maybe the “mea culpa” take down after the outcry is totally planned into all this. After all “all news is good news”, or so used to be the excuse when a marketing campaign falls flat on its face.

I don’t subscribe to that notion. These billboards, and the mentality behind the message it feels straight out of bullying culture. It’s totally against what running has been standing for over the last few years. The whole ‘run club’ culture has been about embracing the casual run as supposed seeing the sport just performance based. Even Satisfy which had introduced an elitist urban cool against the garish colored running brand status quo never had to resort to this sort of brain dead messaging. There’s trying to be different and then there’s just being completely out of touch. Nike, once heralded as the definition of cool and at the heart of culture has completely lost the plot here. Appalling.

Nike is a big corporation and so I am not going to throw this campaign at the feet of the same folks who are working on the ACG rollout, but IF this Nike is now entering our sport than our best moments during the golden hour are a smack in the face of these “creative minds” with their six figure jobs.

Just received via email press announcement:

For 2026 we maintain our 25 guaranteed free bibs for para athletes and are excited to announce that in partnership with Fractel – our official headwear partner responsible for EVERY Trailfest hat ever crafted – we will offer over $6,000 in prize money to para athletes who podium in the 26k – 5 women, 5 men.

This is a really wonderful and smart play. More of this please.

Mile & Stone shared the LinkedIn post by Ben Zhou, China Marketing Director for NNormal with the announcement:

Today we’re thrilled to open NNormal ’s 1st store in China, right here at Taikoo Li, Chengdu!

The space celebrates our brand story and values, highlights Kilian Jornet ’s legendary achievements, and showcases Kilian Jornet Foundation ’s mission. And of course, you’ll find our full collection of outdoor gear.

Over the last year we were wondering how NNormal is actually doing beyond outfitting Kilian. Their move into China is an interesting one to follow.

Aaron Lutze and Dylan Bowman talked about China as a market for outdoor brands and how these brand partnerships are positioned over there on a couple episodes of Second Nature which are worth listening to.

AllBirds maker of shitty lifestyle shoes that looked like they were designed by AI does the inevitable Silicon Valley thing and pivots to AI. Oliver Haill has the story for Proactive:

The company said the deal will fund plans to “pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure” and become a “fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider”.

So, back in 2021 (right after COVID when the world had lost its taste for awhile) they IPO’d and were shortly after valued at $4.1 billion. Then a couple of weeks ago sold their assets and intellectual property for $39 million. Now comes the pivot along with new investment and the inevitable stock surge. This feels like a money laundering scheme, hahahaha… I have no idea how any of this works but I recommend you looking up their stock symbol. Be sure to zoom out to five years and check what today’s news did to their stock in the grand scheme of things.

L’Équipe has Kilian Jornet and Michel Poletti sitting down for a chat (shared via IG reel):

What do you think should be the next big priority for the sport? We’re curious to hear your take.

The issues of elite access and consideration as well as women participation have been tackled and addressed. The concern about sustainability and environmentalism is, and will be a forever moving target that will be hard to claim ‘success’ at. The doping issue is a similar moving target that can only get addressed by pouring it more and more money.

So, what is next for UTMB?

On the business side things are humming along nicely for UTMB – they’ve achieved profitability in just a few short years. This leaves the door open for UTMB ask this question, and what a fascinating one it is.

Sean Haworth on ACG’s “activation” at this weekend’s Gorge races shared on Instagram the sentiment in a story that will disappear within 24hrs so I can’t link to it directly. The highlights form his post:

Nike proving again that they’re the queen of trying to buy cool. This is everything personally never wanted in trail running.

Reminds me of the Lululemon FURTHER campaign.
…
The art is beautiful. The design is so, so good. They did it better than it’s ever been done in trail, in my opinion.

And still, I find it all lacking substance. Lacking soul.

Lacking what I and many others love about the mountains, trail races, running, and about this community.

Woof. Is that it? Is that what’s been irking me about this massive rollout? I agree that “they did it better than it’s ever been done in trail”. And yet, something felt off and I can’t quite put my finger on it yet. What I 100% want to steer away from just sounding like I’m gatekeeping here. I don’t feel like ACG is “ruining my perspective of trail running”, that’s not it.

Maybe it’s just that they used too much orange… like Lululemon did a few years ago already.

Brian Morrison finally published the tell-all book he’s been teasing for a long time:

For nearly one hundred miles through the brutal heat of California’s Sierra Nevada, Morrison ran stride for stride with the sport’s greatest champion, chasing what seemed impossible: victory at the world’s most iconic ultramarathon.

Then, within sight of the finish line, everything fell apart.

In one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Western States Endurance Run, Morrison collapsed on the track just 250 meters from victory. What followed was confusion, controversy, and heartbreak that would ripple through the ultrarunning world for years.

I’ve heard many variations and bits and pieces of this story in recent years. Can’t wait to read the definite account ‘from the horses mouth’.

Not sure why I can’t find the book on Bookshop.org, but you can get it on Amazon.

Freetrail shares the news on Instagram:

One of the world’s most decorated trail runners, Zach Miller turns his competitive sights towards Western States for the first time in his storied career.

Still needing qualification, Zach’s name recently appeared on the Canyons 100k start list…

Zach is not just one of the most decorated trail runners but also one of the most beloved by fans. Recently plagued by injury we haven’t seen him at at lot of start lists, so this is a welcome ‘welcome back’.

As a sidenote: Zach was one of the characters in the UTMB/PTRA fallout where top athletes like Kilian and Zach were back-dooring an email chain trying to convince other elites to boycott UTMB in favor of running an independent race. This spectacularly backfired and he’s been one of the last elite runners we haven’t seen back at a UTMB event since all this went down back in 2024. Zach is racing Canyons 100k in hopes to get a Golden Ticket to Western States. So not entirely to get back to Chamonix right away, but my money is on him getting back to the Alps in due time.

Alex Cyr in an op-ed for Marathon Handbook:

Runners had to decide which part of this new model sounded most dreadful: lugging a flask for 26 miles and braving potential mid-race lineups just to hydrate; or going full-Sahara and risking dehydration to avoid the awkwardness of carrying water; or accepting that all of it — however virtuous it may appear on Instagram — had next to no impact on the race’s footprint anyway. Yes, the Paris Marathon jeopardized the performance and safety of its runners for negligible, if not symbolic, sustainability gains.

Oh the dreadful horror of having to lug a flask for 26 miles.

Yes, it’s a logistical challenge to try to provide efficient aid stations for thousands of runners compared to the few that trickle in at an trail race, stretched out by the terrain of the course, that I give Alex. But his main argument is that the CO2 saving of going cupless is an environmental rounding error and not worth the effort. Which is just a lazy argument letting everyone off the hook in trying to reshape the way we operate, cause “our individual efforts anyway don’t make a difference”. But it’s exactly this thinking that leads us to not caring about our own actions and those of others. Let’s care more. Let’s try new things. Let’s believe that our small efforts can lead to bigger change.