More on the WAM cancelation by Pique Magazine, a local news outlet from Whistler:

“We’ve had minimal communication,” Langford said. “For an event that’s been around six times and donated tens of thousands to trails and [in] volunteer time, it’s frustrating …”

So it seems Vail Resorts didn’t want them anymore, especially in the light of:

Everesting and other events got grandfathered in and are good to go. We have this event that’s happened every year and knew it was coming back. 

Frustrating, to say the least.

Sam Anderson for iRunFar:

Mission-oriented companies Janji and Oiselle will merge as a “collaborative partnership,” they announced Wednesday morning, February 22.

I had just been wondering where Oiselle disappeared to. They were one of the first ‘indy brands’ I took notice, probably because they are a Seattle-based brand. They seemed hot one day, but then the pandemic hit and unlike many other indy brands didn’t seem to benefit from the trend of everyone buying cute workout and lounge clothes while sitting at home in Zoom meetings and shopping on Instagram.

Digsbury Ventures, a venture capital fund focusing on “founder-led” U.S.-based outdoor companies, is the merger’s facilitator.

This reads to me like someone wants their investment back.

Singletrack – Episode 268:

This week I am chatting with Nick Triolo, senior editor for Outside Run & Trail Runner Magazine. Nick has been part of our little trail world for many many years, has run some of the most cherished races and shared many stories other people’s journeys on trails and through mountains. Our conversation ranges from the state of outdoor journalism to tackling some of the more challenging and fascinating issues involving our sport.
More at Singletrack.fm.

LINKS

• ‘Let’s Get Promiscuous With Our Running‘
• Nick Triolo’s website
• Nick’s writing at Trail Runner Magazine
• Nick Triolo on Instagram
• The Trail Running Film Festival Global Tour

You know that Oprah meme, with the cars…? You get a global running circuit, and you get one, and you get one.

Everyone seems to be jumping on the ‘circuit’ bandwagon.

Here are TOR’s requirements to join their global tour:

• Events with at least one race of 100km or more
• Race evaluation by iTra – International Trail Running Association (www.itra.run)
• Top locations in terms of landscape, history and tradition
• Proven experience in organising trail running competitions
• Event committed to being eco-responsible

And more from their white paper:

The TORX® eXperience is a network of competitions united by the TORX® experience and values.

…

Becoming part of the TORX® eXperience means more opportunities for partnerships with sponsors, institutions and investors in general…

A sign that our sport is still very much in an upward trajectory and has room to grow. Also, good to see that UTMB/Ironman is not running away with this global expansion and others are following and offering alternatives. Healthy competition is always good and will keep organizers on their toes.

I mean… yeah, the last few month seemed like one own goal after another.

Singletrack – Episode 267:

Coach Tera Pruitt joins us this week to chat about equity in the running world, the importance of strength training and about setting goals to get after. And, of course we chat about her amazing plans for the Trail Running Film Festival coming to The Orange Peel in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina.

LINKS

• Tera Pruett – running and endurance coaching
• Tera Pruett on Instagram
• The Trail Running Film Festival in Asheville, NC

This is vital and important breaking news: The start of season 3 (the final season) of Ted Lasso is announced. Very, very excited for it.

Rihanna wore a Salomon collab with designer Maison Margiela during her halftime show performance.

I wonder what the drop is on these shoes? Do you think they have a carbon plate? And what’s the stack height?

UTMB just announced today, a new addition to the UTMB race calendar: the Ultra-Trail Ninghai:

Ultra-Trail Ninghai started in 2013. It is a trail race held in East China’s mountain area. Four hundred years ago, Xu Xiake, a travel writer in ancient China, started his 34-year-long great journey from here and traveled throughout China.

But, for now Ultra-Trail Ninghai will only be open for Chinese runners:

We hope to welcome runners from all around the world in 2024, for the time being for the 2023 edition, due to current health restrictions we cannot welcome runners from outside of China.

And the TransLantau race is now a real, not virtual/hybrid race anymore, and a new date is set for 10-12 of November.

An amazing journey on the largest of Hong Kong’s islands; the mountainous Lantau island lies at the mouth of Pearl River.

This brings the total of UTMB World Series events to 35.

• 1 World Series Final in Chamonix.
• 3 World Series Majors in Spain (Val D’Aran in July), Thailand (Doi Inthanon in December) and of course the North American one is Canyons (in Auburn in April).

The Electric Cable Car UTMB events calendar is updated!

What has been feared is now official. Gary Robbins and team aren’t able to come to terms with Whistler and the race formerly known as WAM is no more.

After six successful editions of the race, it has become crystal clear that there is simply no path forward for us to produce races of this magnitude, along the alpine terrain within the confines of Whistler. 

I’m not going to speculate on what forced the end of this incredible race but folks are mentioning the recent purchase of the resort by Vail.

When Coast Mountain Trail Running announced the Whistler Alpine Meadow races a few years ago I had run Squamish already twice and loved their races and signed up for WAM 100K the following year. I couldn’t go due to some work issues, which in hindsight makes me even more sad. I felt that this event, with all the big popular distances present, in this location, with huge international name recognition and plenty of infrastructure to support a big event, and so close to a major metropolitan area and airport, had all the elements to become North America’s ‘UTMB’ event. An event not limited in size by nimby-ism or wilderness permits. An event professional managed by a team with their heart in the right place and the skills to create spectacular courses, combining tough trails with great local partnerships. If these guys couldn’t pull this off, in this location, then there’s clearly more to the story.

What a loss for our trail racing community.

This week I had the pleasure of chatting with Chris Ward on his ‘Like a Bigfoot’ podcast. It was fun to go down memory lane and revisit some of my adventures from the past years and look ahead at the upcoming Trail Running Film Festival tour for 2023.

Listen to this episode in your podcast favorite player.

From their intro:

This living body of work is a free resource that consolidates information for Race Directors interested in prioritizing community building and environmental stewardship.

Lots of good stuff here for race directors and community organizers.

Seemingly far from the “brilliant minds of Silicon Valley” the future of our civilization is on display. Practical, brilliant, beautiful. This is the future I want to live in.

Found this incredible website via a Strava Challenge, of all things:

Potatoes are a real food with surprising performance-related benefits. Whether you lead an active lifestyle or compete with elite athletes, potatoes help fuel you.

Yeah, Potatoes USA is the nation’s potato marketing and research organization, and the made a website promoting potatoes to athletes, and double Yepp, they created a Strava Challenge. Join, complete 620 mins of activity, and earn a potato-themed Sprints visor and a $25 ClassPass giftcard—plus a chance at the $620 Grand Prize Package!

My kind of Strava challenge!