By Mathias Eichler
The adventure podcast about trail running and mountain culture. Subscribe in your favorite podcast player.
The adventure podcast about trail running and mountain culture. Subscribe in your favorite podcast player.
Electric Cable Car is counting down until the end of the year by reliving the action-filled year 2024 in trail running. Join me.
Speaking of yet another series, this one’s been around for awhile and while aiming for races high above the clouds the events are still somewhat flying under the radar (pardon my bad pun).
To give these shorter race distances some visibility, I shall list the races each year as part of my global trail race series calendar.
Andy Jones-Wilkins on his column AJW’s Taproom for iRunFar:
The year 2023 was quite a year in the world of ultramarathoning, and I fully expect 2024 to be yet another eventful year.
His list includes:
I’ll add a couple of my own:
What is ‘old school’ according to Ultra Running Magazine:
I wish these guidelines wouldn’t be quiet as nebulous and a little bit more measurable. This would help the community understand why certain races were chosen over others. One qualifier we find here:
Old School Ultras was created to honor race organizations who cultivate an encouraging, supportive event. What connects our inaugural collection of races is their longevity (20+ years), their culture, character, strong community, as well as being a single distance ultra event.
So, according to this above paragraph UTMB would qualify, right? UPDATE: (I guess the single distance event element would disqualify UTMB, and most European races, most modern races I suppose.)
I hope this list, or calendar, doesn’t turn into a series… too many series… series everywhere.
Singletrack – Episode 292:
For the last episode of 2023 I sat down with friend of the show Alex Bond to chat about this year in trail running. We covering the latest outdoor industry report and chat about the distinguishing aspects of what makes trail running so unique compared to other sports. We consider the economic impact of trail races in host towns and wonder about the value of live streaming and who might actually benefit from this investment in infrastructure and gear. Of course we touch on UTMB’s much talked about expansion and enduring, or not attraction and wonder if these races are still the status quo. And finally we highlighted the biggest achievements at this year’s biggest races and in the world of FKTs.
By TeamRunRun coach Keith Laverty (who came in first and set a new course record, I might add!):
Difficulty – Is it a tough course?
On paper, this doesn’t appear to look terribly difficult. However, all of the hills in the 2nd half are deceivingly hard, especially since many of these are steeper staircases or steps to climb up. With being a relatively short-ish distance, you’ll feel those hills plenty!Organized and well run – Did it feel like a well-oiled machine or were they flying by the seat of their pants?
Rock Candy Running and Mathias Eichler always do a great job with clear communication in their race event details, e-mail newsletter and everything on their website. Very well-organized, well-marked, well-loved event!How many stars do you give this race and do you recommend that others run it
I think this event will become a staple, winter community event. Friendly folks and a fun way to end the year of racing!
That’s how we like to do it at Rock Candy. Thanks Keith for joining us, and setting the bar high for the next few years.
From the Wikipedia article:
Since 1994, climbing of mountains in Bhutan higher than 6,000 m (20,000 ft) has been prohibited out of respect for local spiritual beliefs. Since 2003, mountaineering has been forbidden completely.
This must drive mountaineers crazy. I’m not suggesting that the community is disrespectful to the local community and it’s rules and regulation, but knowing that there’s this beautiful, unclimbed objective, still a white spot on the map must conjure up all sort of adventure dreams.
Via the ever so excellent Kottke.org.
Speaking of global trail race series, Spartan Trail seems to not have announced anything for 2024? Will it happen?
Their Instagram account makes it look like it’s a go, even though their website has no updates yet:
Who’s ready for new adventures in 2024? This year has been amazing but we’re already looking forward to what’s to come in the new year.
Set yourself up for a year full of new experiences and big accomplishments. Sign up for your favorite trail race today before prices rise on the 31st!
That price increase announcement is for their Golden Gate Trail Classic event, and it looks all the US races have 2024 dates announced, just no official announcement on their “World Championship”.
For folks who like to travel to exotic places for their races:
Welcome to the Antarctic Polar Race, home of the first ever Antarctica Athletics Championships in 2024. Continental titles across a variety of distances and disciplines will be on offer. Participants can run a 1-mile race, 10k, half-marathon, marathon and ultramarathons of 100km and 100 miles.
Just a cool EUR 17,900 for this. Yes, there is a lot included… like air travel from Cape Town to Novo runway, Antarctica. Maybe someone should send this link to all the US runners looking for UTMB alternatives this year? Jim, Zach anyone else?
Via a somewhat cryptic post on Facebook with not much more info available so far:
Discover the new TORX® eXperience RANKING, the ranking of the TORX® circuit.
The RANKING TORX® eXperience is born! The final ranking of the TORX® circuit races will reach its peak with the TOR330 – Tor des Géants® 2024 which will start on Sunday the 8 of September 2024.
So, if I gather this correctly 2024 will be the year where every racing organization is trying to clone, emulate the UTMB World Series and offer a similar scoring, marketing, media system. And yes, many of them had something already in place, but this all feels like it’s tightening up and becoming a bit more professional and structured. Not a bad thing, but a little hard to keep track of it all. Here are the global series I am tracking:
Did I miss an important (and global) one?
Most are structured around two main goals: either ranking racers on a global table and/or creating an access system to a de-facto finale. Looking at the locations in all the series in total 80+% of events are in Europe.
Nancy Hobbs for ATRA shares the press release from World Mountain Running Association:
Featuring a roster spanning eight countries, encompassing 10 events and a total of 13 races, this season promises a thrilling array of locations, beloved classics, and reunions with long-established courses, offering a spectacular racing calendar spanning a stretch of 5 months from June through October.
The full list was posted on Instagram (I modified the post to fit the blog format):
Jun 21 Broken Arrow Uphill – USA
Jun 23 Broken Arrow Skyrace – USA
Jul 07 Grossglockner Mountain Run – Austria
Jul 13 Montemura Vertical Run – Portugal
Jul 20 La Montée du Nid d’Aigle -France
Jul 28 Giir di Mont – Italy
Aug 10 Sierre-Zinal – Switzerland
Aug 31 Vertical Nasego – Italy
Sep 01 Trofeo Nasego – Italy
Sep 22 Sky Gran Canaria Long – Spain
Oct 05 Šmarna Gora Race – Slovania
Oct 12 Laguna KM Verticale – Italy
Oct 13 Val Bregaglia Trail – Italy
The full series is called 2024 Valsir Mountain Running World Cup. As I previous mentioned Valsir is sort of an interesting sponsor for trail running and I’m curious what the PTRA’s stance is on that one.
As the new World Trail Majors global series slowly gains steam more announcements are being made focused on attracting elites to their nine races around the world:
The World Trail Majors series will be held for the first time in 2024 and it is time to announce the prizes for the top finishers in overall categories.
World Trail Majors aims to attract the biggest and best elite runners, and to do so it intends to reward their efforts with substantial cash prizes as well as the possibility of free registration and covered travel expenses. The sum, in cash prizes alone, amounts to €47,000.
And a bit more detail:
To qualify for cash prizes, only the two best results of the season will be considered, regardless of the number of races the runner participates in.
One thing I haven’t been able to figure out is if this is “new money” and if it exceeds the previous (if existing) prize purses the individual races had offered runners. For example, Ultra-Trail Cape Town offered their 100 Mile winners 60,000 South African Rand or apron. $3,250. Could a winner of UTCT double dip and win this, and the WTM prize purse?
Singletrack – Episode 291:
East Coast runner Kuwanna Dyer-Pietras joins Singletrack to chat about running for Tailwind, dreaming of Western States, and getting the call from Hoka to be one of their designated runners for the 2024 Western States. We chat about prepping for her first 100 mile race on gnarly East Coast trails and baking cookies with the family for the holidays.
And a huge ‘thank you’ to all our partners who made Saturnalia 2024 happen: Heritage Bank, Tailwind Nutrition, Kevin Hayward State Farm, Club Oly Road Running, REI Olympia and Nathan Sports.
Cirque Series’s founder Julian Carr made the announcement on Instagram today:
Thrilled to announce, been lobbying for five years, the @usatf US Mountain Running 2024 Championship is @cirqueseries @snowbird race. We look forward to providing world class course & experience. We understand the responsibility of hosting a National Championship event.
For folks not familiar with the Cirque Series there’s a good Freetrail podcast episode with Julian Carr from a few month ago.
TOR X started off in 2010 as the “race for giants”. Offering a REALLY massive race just one valley over to Chamonix and distinguishing themselves from ‘the one race’ every tourism agency looks up to by going bigger and harder. Now over the years they’re slowly adjusting and have become ‘more pedestrian’. Just in numbers though, the new TOR100 Cervino – Monte Bianco still offers with 100K distance a massive amount of vert: 8000m to be precise.
The events will happen September 11-13th, 2024 and begin in Le Breuil Cervinia and finish in Courmayeur. Runners will have 40hrs and the field capped at 250 runners. Not much more information is available at this point, but we’ll keep an eye out for this one as it has the potential make up to attract some folks looking for UTMB alternatives.
Does anyone have a calendar of events for the town of Courmayeur for the summer months? It must just be one event after another, crazy town.
I just found out about Mile & Stone, a publication (or rather Mailchimp newsletter for now) by Tip & Shaft (a similar publication with the focus on sailing) and now they are announcing their first B2B conference: Mile & Stone/Connect Held in Annecy, France of course, on February 8, 2024. The one day networking event focuses on the growth of the sport with eyes set on the possibility of trail running becoming an Olympic Sport. Not at all surprising that this happens in France. The Summer Olympics will be held in Paris this coming year and far away from the casual trailheads of American trail races, sitting in the shadow of Salomon and UTMB the business-minded people are setting their sights on growth.
As an aside, over here in the English speaking world the word ‘stone’ to describe the UTMB lottery entries always sounded a bit odd, but either Mile & Stone straight up took inspiration from UTMB or the word ‘stone’ sounds better in French.
Hong Kong Free Press:
Organisers of a 2021 ultramarathon in northwest China during which 21 runners died in extreme weather conditions have been sentenced to years in prison for their roles, state media reported.
Outside reports:
It was immediately clear that the risk management and preparation at the event had been insufficient.
This terrible tragedy shook the trail running world when it happened. Now two years later the organizers are sentenced to jail for it. As a race organizer myself this makes me sit up straight and makes me cross my t’s and dot my i’s just a bit more.
The newly launched Mile & Stone newsletter takes a deep dive into the shoes that are worn to run the three main UTMB events.
Every year, trail shoe manufacturers visit the major events in France (Templiers, Dacia UTMB Mont-Blanc) to gather statistical information and get an idea of their importance in the market. Mile & Stone has consulted the results of studies carried out over the last three years by several players on the Dacia UTMB Mont Blanc and brings you the results.
It’s worth reading the whole article, and well, worth signing up for the newsletter as well, but what sticks out to me is that aside from Hoka and Salomon leading the pack (not a surprising finding, given that both brands are French) several brands are doing much worse than I anticipated: Adidas, Nike, On, The North Face all have a strong presence on the podiums or an seemingly endless marketing budget, but are barely worn among the wide field of runners. So, why we all sort of agree that elites runners are influencers, their influencing might not move the needle as much as anticipated.
Got no real numbers to share, but a little birdie told me today that globally lottery registrations for the 2024 UTMB events in Chamonix are all up. And that includes North Americas! Seems like that proposed UTMB boycott is not really happening, or at least not in a way that it would register on the spreadsheets of UTMB/Ironman.
I haven’t done one of those in a while and thought I might as well toot my own horn. This Rock Candy Running race is happening this weekend in my hometown Olympia Washington.
It’s a small, festive, holiday-inspired 10K on trails through our City’s Squaxin Park. Last year we had just 50 finishers, this year we have 83 people signed up. Of those, 49 are women or 59% of the overall runners. And for the first time we have a nonbinary runner, my own kid, at the starting line. Swoon!
Super proud of this. I love creating real community. One that’s welcoming, inclusive and diverse. More of this, please.
In a previous post I was wondering where the new website for the World Mountain Running Championships in Canfranc is. Well, the website for the World Masters Mountain Running Championships, which will be held in the same location but this year on September 13th to 15th is launching on the 19th of this month.
The WMRA has more information on the various events offered, including course maps and elevation profiles. The championship is hosted by local race organization CanFrancCanfranc.
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