Italy’s flagship trail race for many years and now an UTMB event, Lavaredo Ultra Trail is held in one of the most breathtaking places in the Alps. This event is so high on my bucket list that it’s almost more important to race than UTMB itself. A few years ago I had an entry but couldn’t make the travel work and I had to let go. This year I had my name in the lottery but didn’t get drawn. Lucky for me the Lavardo lottery is such that if you didn’t get drawn one year you get an automatic entry the following year. Kinda exciting – we shall see if I’ll be able to make the trip work this time.

Lavaredo as a race has huge potential to stand alongside of UTMB as one of the premiere races in the world – the number of runners are almost rivaling UTMB itself – and in many ways it does live up to that already, but one of the biggest challenges Lavardo has had right from the onset is that it’s happening on the same weekend as Western States. No race with big ambitions would dare to put themselves on the same weekend as UTMB, but Lavaredo disappears under the outsized media coverage of Western States. Yes, WS deserves all the hype, but looking at the field of elites toeing the line at Lavaredo it’s very much comparable to that at Western States. It just has the American runners missing as they are all in Olympic Valley, California. Of course there’s a probably a fairly reasonable explanation of why the founders of Lavaredo chose that weekend and in the end it is what it is but when it comes to American media coverage they will always have to deal with this competition.

In Europe though the race serves as a perfect tune up event leading up to UTMB and many of the elites planning on toeing the line in Chamonix later this summer are stretching their legs on the 120K around the Tre Cime di Lavaredo above Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Cortina by the way hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and will do so in 2026 in partnership with Milano. The James Bond film ‘For Your Eyes Only’ was filmed in part in Cortina.

Lavaredo’s flagship event, the 120K race has a start time of 11pm. Evening start times are not unheard of for races in the Alps, but this time is extra special and kind of weird. I believe the idea is to get the bulk of the runners to the famous Tre Cime di Lavaredo at around sunrise. Which is a spectacular site to behold and kind of makes the challenge start worth it.

Lavaredo isn’t live-streamed and aside from the usual live tracking on the UTMB site and the updates on social media doesn’t have a big global media presence which is a bummer given the stacked field in the 120K and the importance for many athletes as a tune up race for UTMB itself. If you want to know what European competition will toe the line at UTMB later in the summer, better follow that race.

La Sportiva has its home near Cortina and has been the title sponsor of Lavardo for the last few years. This creates the fun and fascinating situation where Hoka as a title sponsor of the UTMB World Series does not have a presence at this particular event and instead you see the La Sportiva banners everywhere. There’s another reason of why I want to run this race more than any other. This partnership also brings all the La Sportiva athletes to town. Anton Krupicka is usually there (I couldn’t confirm this as Anton’s Instagram is … deleted? Or at least it didn’t load for me as of this writing. Maria Dalzot is racing the 120K. John Kelly is also in Cortina fulfilling his sponsor duties and sort of being forced to jump over his own shadow:

So why am I here? Traveling a great distance (something I’m trying to minimize), and at a by UTMB / Ironman event (something I’ve voiced my concerns about for years). First, to be clear, I’m not racing here.

…

I’m a firm believer that it’s extremely difficult to influence a conversation without being a part of it. Yelling from the outside usually achieves the opposite of the desired effect. We’re all on the same team, even if we sometimes have different ideas.

…

I love events like Lavaredo, and UTMB for that matter. They’re exciting, mean so much to so many, and motivate people to achieve amazing things.

I leave off the part where he alludes to the idea that UTMB is a monopoly, which it is not.

Alright with that, here’s the link to the live-tracking. The 120k race is on its way. The 80K is about to kick off and the 50K, 20K, 10K have already concluded.

Kaiserkrone Trail is an event put on by the local tourism region to promote itself and is part of the Skyrunner World Series. I added this event to this weekend’s list of incredible races, because it’s in a really beautiful region of the Alps, the Wilder Kaiser region, but also because it’s such a classic example of how trail races are thought of in the Alps. This race doesn’t even have its own website. They are part of the Skyrunner World Series and offer several distances for “the whole family”. They provide live tracking, but aside from that its aim is to bring heads into beds of the local region. And it’s successful at that. Roughly 2,000 people will be at the start of the various races over the weekend. There are no big name sponsors directly attached to the event, other than Merrell being the sponsor of the Skyrunner World Series.

Jason Bahamundi founder of Run Tri Bike on LinkedIn announcing the news:

Earlier this year I had an idea for an unwired podcast network.

…

I chatted with podcasters about this idea. I spoke with advertisers about this as well. Both of these parties agreed that having a podcast network under the Run Tri Bike umbrella, which is a growing and trusted community, would help.

And on the website for the network:

The Everyday Athlete Podcast Network is made up of 7 shows which means that there is something for every one just like our motto:

There is a spot at the starting line for everybody and every body.

This effort (I believe!) is the first in the trail world that’s trying to bring a variety of shows under one combined umbrella. Freetrail has a couple shows listed on their website, but from what I can tell these shows are still very much independently produced, advertised and marketed. What Jason is trying to do with the ‘Everyday Athlete Podcast Network’ goes a step further: There’s a singular combined feed for all shows and most importantly from a business perspective there is an opportunity for brands to reach the audience of all shows.

The 10th edition of the Garmin Mountain Festival is happening this weekend June 28-30 in Vall de Boi, Spain is part of the XTERRA Trail Run World Series and is on the ECC TrailGlobal Race Series Calendar. Located in the Pyrenees mountains this event offers 5 races and 2,500 participants. The event website very much bills the event as a ‘tourism play’ like many of the European trail events. This also means that there’s no live-tracking or streaming of the event, as tourism focused events really are created for bringing people to a place and a larger media play isn’t really a priority.

What’s fascinating to me is the title sponsor of Garmin. The multinational corporation with headquarters in Switzerland and the US is not known to sponsor many of the high profile trail events around the world. But for this festival in the Pyrenees mountains, they are title sponsor. Fascinating.

Via press release:

The Western States Endurance Run and HOKA have announced the continuation of the presenting sponsorship agreement between the world’s oldest 100-mile trail race and one of the fastest-growing performance footwear and apparel brands. The agreement extends the current presenting sponsorship partnership, originally formed in 2019 between the two organizations, through 2029.

Clearly Hoka loves the partnership with America’s flagship trail race and will do (almost anything) to continue this title sponsorship. And clearly this partnership benefits Western States tremendously that they don’t have to even blink and consider an alternative.

But also, clearly, the Golden Ticket races will continue to only be Hoka sponsored events and there’s no chance that any event that’s sponsored by a competitor would be considered for inclusion in the Golden Ticket race calendar as long as Hoka is title sponsor of Western States.

What is not clear to me is if one stipulation of this partnership contract is Western States’s inclusion at the UTMB World Series. Hoka just re-upped their sponsorship ties with UTMB and its World Series a few weeks ago. Clearly Hoka loves this synergy, but are they just loving this happy coincidence or is this manufactured. Me thinks the latter.

UltraSignup’s David Callahan on LinkedIn:

For those that weren’t there, here is a summary. There were 4 panels – Events, Media, Brand & Athlete, and Retail. The panels were stacked with important thought leaders from the space. All conversations were informative and professional (sometimes hard when there are differing opinions) among the panelists.

I can’t wait to hear more what the “hard parts” were.

David continues:

Also, one question asked of me during my panel was how the long-tail of the sport felt about this period of growth. While I don’t speak for the long-tail, I was happy to provide an opinion – and in my view, I think the long-tail feels a sense of being disconnected from information about the growth and what growth means for them.

In this industry, it is hard to have your finger on the pulse of information because of the variety of places where it is disseminated. I think this difficulty in assimilating information makes it hard for people to fully understand how developments in the industry apply to them.

I have thoughts on this, of course:

• There are now lots of different media companies that not just reporting, but often creating stories – where there used to be just a couple blogs and it was easy to just visit their sites and get the full scoop.
• Social media first blew this scenario up, created new opportunities and then imploded in itself – no one has a chronological timeline anymore, no one sees the posts from the people and accounts they actually follow.
• While the “old school media outlets” are struggling and are trying to navigate these choppy waters the “new school media outlets” are currently just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. I don’t see a good cohesive plan from them either other than just trying to capture eyeballs.
• In theory podcasts are a goldmine of incredible information being shared in informal interviews but even with the arrival of transcripts the format is largely a locked silo and it’s impossible to link to a specific segment or share out the point worth sharing.
• Not to toot my own horn, but this is what Electric Cable Car is trying to do. Gather the most important stories, make them easy to follow and digest. Link to the source and give credit to the author.
• If you can’t come to this site every day, there’s a newsletter you can sign up where I share the best stories once every other week.

Katie Azimuth on Instagram:

This initiative with PTRA Women’s Equality group will raise funds through the sale of “Here for the Women’s Race” t-shirts and stickers.

The shirt is currently only available in Olympic Valley, but an online ordering system is being setup.

You can also head to our website to learn more and to donate.

I previously reported on the launch of this fund. It’s great to see this in action and moving. Let’s go!

Slackliner Nathan Paulin took the Olympic Flame to the highest point of France.

Check out his reel too of him walking the actual wire. Insane.

As announced in a email today, Spring has tested and relaunched their most popular product ‘Awesome Sauce‘ after having it pulled from their store due to wide complaints and lab-tested proof that their nutrition facts on their product were completely off.

Today, less then a month after pulling the product Spring relaunches their products:

Since we know that the results are important to you, we wanted to share the specifics of our adjusted products so that you can ensure exactly what you are fueling your body with. We want to assure you that Awesome Sauce, Hill Aid, and Canaberry consistently perform at their target nutritional values, as shown in the results below:

AWESOME SAUCE Certificate of Analysis
HILL AID Certificate of Analysis
Canaberry Certificate of Analysis

So, if these numbers are correct and truly reflect what has always been in the package, then it seems that this really was just due to a lack of quality control. And yes, the word ‘just’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The production of a nutritional product athletes put in their body isn’t something a company should take their eye off. This mistake is something Spring truly has to own and work hard to regain the trust of their customers. But also, if this ‘mistake’ was something that was so easily fixed and the product really is that good after all, then the trolls on the interwebs can go and eat dirt – yet again.

French publication Mile and Stone has a great overview of this historic event in Chamonix in their latest newsletter. Here are some highlights.

On the inspiration and creation of the event:

“In 1976, we saw the birth of Sierre-Zinal on the Swiss side. The Chamonix Sports Club quickly decided to draw inspiration from it to create the Mont-Blanc cross-country race in 1979. It was a different time, of course, when you could pick up your number at the start line, without having to wear any compulsory equipment or have a federal licence”, recalls Frédéric Comte, director of the Chamonix Sports Club since 2006, the club still organising the event 45 years after its creation.

So many great events were created in the 70s and have had a longstanding history.

On the partnership with Salomon and how the event is being perceived in the community:

The following year, everything accelerated with the arrival of the event’s historic partner: Salomon. “With Salomon, I’m used to saying that we’ve grown together. They used our event and we used their expertise as a leading company. They’re really part of the team, and it’s really interesting to work with them. They have a real vision and a rare understanding of the sport”, comments Frédéric Comte. “Today, being a partner of the Mont Blanc Marathon means seeing 60,000 people pass by your stand in the village, because each runner comes with an average of five companions! It’s a different population from the UTMB, more family-oriented, more relaxed. To show off your new trail products, it’s a must”, says Grégory Vollet.

And more on the business side of the event:

With a budget of almost €1.2 million, the Mont Blanc Marathon is one of the top trail events in France. “70% of this budget comes from registrations, the rest from private partners. We get almost no public money. The local authority allows us to run our races – that’s not bad – and it works on maintaining the trails all year round and provides rescue services. We’re lucky in Chamonix to have particularly good support in this area” explains Frédéric Comte.

A bit more insight here into how these type of events are setup in Europe: No permit fees from the local authorities, but also no subsidies. In other parts of Europe local municipalities are heavily subsidizing these type of events with their tourism budgets in the hope to bring tourists into town to fill the beds in the community.

On the media production:

Today, the MMB is one of the flagship events of the Golden Trail World Series, and its longest race too. “In recent years, we’ve taken charge of producing and broadcasting the race (since 2023 on Eurosport) and we’ve brought in our own teams of content producers”, continues Grégory Vollet.

Salomon, the main sponsor brings their own media team to cover the event.

On the focus to reduce the carbon footprint of the event:

“We weigh all our waste and do carbon footprints after each event. From 2025 onwards, each runner will receive his or her own carbon footprint and will be obliged to offset it”, he (Frédéric Comte) continues.

The fact that the article in the newsletter ends with a focus on the environment – in a business newsletter at that – is such a important challenge for all race directors and events managers to make this piece not an afterthought, but build it into their business plans.

A few more interesting pieces of information for the Marathon Mont Blanc:

• The event offers six events of varying distances and additional kids races for different age groups.
• The finish line is right in downtown Chamonix, in the same place as UTMB’s.
• The Golden Trail Series race is the 42km marathon, but there’s also a 90km distance offered and a 2 person team event.
• Salomon is the title sponsor and essentially only “big name” global brand sponsor of the event.
• The live tracking show 11, 202 runners registered (that includes about 1,100 kids registered for the various kids races!).
• 139 runners from the US are at the starting lines.

The Marathon Mont-Blanc is an absolute massive event on the global trail running scene. And while only one race is at the ultra distance, with 1,302 people at the starting line of the 90km this race alone makes it a bigger single ultra race than any race in the US (I believe).

Information on how to follow the event live can be found here and on Eurosport.

What a week(end) ahead! Racers from all over the world are putting on bibs for several of the most important races on the global calendar – all happening on the same weekend.

• The Western States Endurance Run is June 29 – 30 in California, USA.
• Lavaredo Ultra Trail by UTMB is June 26 – 30 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
• Marathon Mont-Blanc (part of Golden Trail Series) is June 27 – 30 in Chamonix, France.
• Kaiserkrone Trail (part of Skyrunner World Series) is June 28-29 in Scheffau, Austria.
• Garmin Mountain Festival (part of XTERRA) is June 28-30 in Vall de Boí in Spain.

If you’re NOT running trails this weekend, what are you even doing with your life?

Since I am not racing this weekend I will spending some time highlighting what makes each of these events special, as well as sharing some difference and comparisons between the massively different events that are all at the heart trail races, celebrating the local trails, the great outdoors, and communities they are hosted in.

Tailwind Nutrition launches their limited edition summer flavor: Blueberry Lemonade.

Just in time to celebrate summer and the most challenging rides and races of the year, we’ve added a refreshing new flavor to our Endurance Fuel lineup. Created in collaboration with The Feed, and reminiscent of summers past, Blueberry Lemonade is the perfect combo of flavors to keep you refreshed, hydrated and fueled all summer long.

I’m all for citrusy flavors and this one sounds delicious. The collaboration with The Feed sounds very interesting too! Will pick some up when I’m in Durango next month and report back.

Today Suunto released the Race S, the smaller sibling to the fantastic Race watch. Coming in at a diameter of 45 mm instead the 49 mm for the Race the watch is just 2 mm larger than their 9 Peak Pro. Aggressively priced at $349 and with a just few paired down features compared to its bigger sibling Suunto is positioning this watch as the new entry level into their lineup. For folks with smaller wrists this could be the watch to consider getting.

Also: the new straps look great too.

This past weekend on June 22-23, 2024 UTMB’s smallest events so far, the Mauritius by UTMB happened on the remote island of Mauritius, off of the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

Below are the top finishers, for full results visit UTMB live:

100M (135K – 4 Stones)

Women:

1. Xueer SHANG – China – 26:41:58
2. Marion BACHELERIE – France – 30:04:23
3. Mayumi KIMURA – Japan – 33:23:50

Men:

1. Elias KADI – France – 16:45:43
2. Gregoire CURMER – France – 18:10:04
3. Tahirinirina Jeannot AVOTRANIAINA – Madagascar – 18:23:11

100k 98K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Eléna LÉONARD – France – 16:36:10
2. Manon DÉSIRAND – France – 20:45:15
3. Léa FILIPPI – France – 20:45:18

Men:

1. Simon DESVAUX DE MARIGNY – Mauritius – 10:42:52
2. Admire MUZOPAMBWA – Zimbabwe – 11:45:22
3. Djamadar SAID OILI – France – 13:19:46

50K (59K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Pauline WINER – France – 06:33:38
2. Daisy MYBURGH – Zambia – 06:55:00
3. Laetitia AUBRY – France – 07:18:40

Men:

1. Yousheng GUAN – China – 04:53:03
2. Andrianirina RIVOSOA HOBILALAINA – Madagascar – 05:10:44
3. Antoine COMPAROT – France – 05:15:10

20K (22K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Julia BRULIN – France – 02:14:52
2. Katherine BROOK – Great Britain – 02:16:46
3. Amy BURTON – Zambia – 02:22:09

Men:

1. Aneeshrao SUDDHOO – Mauritius – 01:52:01
2. Nicolas CHARRETIER – France – 01:54:29
3. Florent GANOFSKY – France – 01:54:35

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• 100M Starters: 96 – DNF: 35 – Finishers: 61. Women: 4 (7%) Men: 57 (93%)
• 100K Starters: 90 – DNF: 21 – Finishers: 69. Women: 8 (12%) Men: 61 (88%)
• 50K Starters: 270 – DNF: 12 – Finishers: 258. Women: 88 (34%) Men: 170 (66%)
• 20K Starters: 247 – DNF: 5 – Finishers: 242. Women: 93 (38%) Men: 149 (62%)

The inaugural Mauritius by UTMB was one of UTMB’s smallest events to date – not surprising, given the very remote location, but it drew a fairly diverse group of runners from many different countries. In total there 703 starters and 630 finishers. 193 (31%) women and 437 (69%) men reached the finish line and folks earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025).

Next up on UTMB World Series Calendar we’ll get ready for one of trail running’s biggest week on the calendar. Western States and Lavaredo Ultra Trail are happening June 26 – 30, 2024.

A little late, and for that I apologize, but things are a bit crazy around here right now. Let’s get into it. On June 14-16, 2024 the Trail Du Saint Jacques 2024 Results or “spirittrail” along the route of the Santiago de Compostela in France happened.

Below are the top finishers, for full results visit UTMB live:

100M (130K – 4 Stones)

Women:

1. Maëlle DERUAZ – France – 17:25:17
2. Manon GRAS – France – 17:55:11
3. Hannah DERKSEN – Netherland – 18:29:51

Men:

1. Sylvain COURT – France – 14:22:42
2. Alexandre BERAUD – France – 14:34:32
3. Geoffroy BONNET – France – 14:49:26

100k (79K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Anais DACHET – France – 08:26:34
2. Anna Louise Astad SØRLIE – Norway – 08:41:20
3. Aurore CANINO HEMON – France – 09:03:41

Men:

1. Guillaume TIPHENE – France – 07:13:56
2. Yoann STUCK – France – 07:41:25
3. Morgan POULIQUEN – France – 07:45:28

50K (51K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Adeline MARTIN – France – 04:44:20
2. Elisa RAVET – France – 05:06:41
3. Caroline DELORD – France – 05:17:42

Men:

1. Remy BRASSAC – France – 04:10:07
2. Aymeric DAMOUR – France – 04:11:13
3. Florian BERNABEU-SEGUY – France – 04:11:48

20K (18K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Alice GORRY – France – 01:28:39
2. Guillaume MARIE – France – 01:28:51
3. Solène BAYLE – France – 01:29:25

Men:

1. Lukas EHRLE – Germany – 01:03:48
2. Sylvain CACHARD – France – 01:04:44
3. Alexandre MEYLEU – France – 01:08:51

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• 100M Starters: 998 – DNF: 304 – Finishers: 694. Women: 43 (6%) Men: 651 (94%)
• 100K Starters: 1,029 – DNF: 87 – Finishers: 943. Women: 80 (9%) Men: 862 (91%)
• 50K Starters: 1,624 – DNF: 46 – Finishers: 1,578 Women: 288 (18%) Men: 1,290 (82%)
• 20K Starters: 993 – DNF: 3 – Finishers: 991 Women: 439 (44%) Men: 551 (56%)

The Trail Du Saint Jacques saw 4,644 starters and 4,206 finishers. 850 (20%) women and 3,354 (80%) men reached the finish line and folks earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025). This “spirit trail” along an old religious pilgrim route doesn’t attract a large number of women… coincidence?

Next up on the UTMB World Series Calendar I’ll post results for the first Mauritius by UTMB. And then we’ll get ready for one of trail running’s biggest week on the calendar. Western States and Lavaredo Ultra Trail are happening this weekend on June 26 – 30, 2024.

Strava bought FATMAP back in 2023:

As we move towards this joint mission, we will retire the FATMAP app, website and Explore Portal on October 1, 2024. As a Strava subscriber, you will continue to have access to all the FATMAP features you currently enjoy during this transition.

That’s how it goes with these services, time and time again.

Jen Sotolongo digs up the history of the belt buckle as a finisher award for ultra races for UltraSignup News:

The history of the belt buckle as a reward for completing a 100-miler stems from the horse world.

I appreciate the history and lore, and even the designs of many of the buckle, but have yet to seen a design where I felt like I HAD to run that race just for the buckle. I’m just not cowboy enough, I guess.

Announced on Instagram and posted on their website:

…The Broken Arrow Skyrace will offer prize money for elite nonbinary athletes at a level consistent with the men’s and women’s divisions. However, because of the smaller field size and a desire to ensure that prize money is limited to athletes competing at the very highest levels, non-binary athletes must meet the performance thresholds to be eligible for prize money…

This seems to strike a good balance. Their new advisory council is doing some great work helping shape the future of our sport.

In a public post on their website Spring acknowledges issues with their products, calling it “product Inconsistencies”:

We realize some have had questions over the past few weeks about recently reported inconsistencies found in some batches of our products. We do apologize for the perceived radio silence, as we have been working tirelessly to identify and rectify all possible concerns since this was fully brought to our attention.

While it’s appreciated that Spring fully comes out acknowledging what has been going on (a part of me was wondering if they would just ignore it all, remove the product from the shelves and magically relaunch in 6 month with Awesome Sauce 2.0) it’s sort of shocking to consider that they had so little oversight into their manufacturing process (as they claim, or blame):

We conducted a comprehensive assessment of our manufacturing processes and identified two contributing factors that have since been updated to counteract greater levels of variation between batches.

I mean, it’s a food product we put into our bodies and they just don’t really know what’s going on? Not a great look.

Great to see rabbit being transparent here and post on their website the requirements, perks and expectations to be considered for their elite team.

In an email sent to race directors UltraSignup announces the upcoming changes to their fee structure and how the race entry + associated fees are being displayed on their website:

Runners will now see a single price for a race or product on UltraSignup, inclusive of fees and taxes. In the customer’s cart, fees and taxes will be broken out into separate line items.

Californian law requires USU to make this change and I don’t mind it as it doesn’t result in any increases. This help document outlines what this will look like for racers signing up for events on UltraSignup.

Expect this to be rolled out on July 1 nationwide for all users.

Today on Freetrail Dylan Bowman interviews race director Craig Thornley and Western States Board Vice President Topher Gaylord and the three share the 2025 Calendar for Golden Ticket Races for Western States.

Here’s the 2025 list of races:

• CCC 100K – 6 tickets
• Javelina Jundred 100M – 4 tickets
• Black Canyon 100K – 6 tickets
• Tarawera 100K – 4 tickets
• Chianti 123km – 4 tickets
• Canyons 100K – 6 tickets

In total there are six races (one less than last year) but the same amount of tickets are being handed out and of course an equal number for women and men. The three do confirm that Hoka as a sponsor is one of the key requirements for race selection. The racing calendar is a bit more condensed and more geographically diverse.

This is breaking news and I will add more information to it as its being released.

The Trail 100 Andorra by UTMB happened this past weekend (June 14-16, 2024) in the tiny European country of Andorra and while most of Europe’s been watching Euro Championship soccer thousands of runners gathered to race some fabled trails on the southern border between France and Spain.

Below are the top finishers, for full results visit UTMB live:

100M (107K – 4 Stones)

Women:

1. Katharina HARTMUTH – Germany – 15:28:50
2. Claudia TREMPS – Spain – 17:10:26
3. Lucie JAMSIN – France – 17:47:28

Men:

1. Zachary GARNER – USA – 13:17:00
2. Ben DHIMAN – USA – 13:25:36
3. Joaquin LOPEZ – Ecuador – 13:34:58

100k (79K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Montse GRACIA – Spain – 11:32:03
2. Nancy PAILLARÈS – France – 11:43:18
3. Sonia ESCURIOLA REULA – Spain – 11:49:44

Men:

1. Robin BONDUELLE – France – 08:10:45
2. Morten ANTONSEN – Norway – 08:12:35
3. Valentin BENARD – France – 08:16:03

50K (50K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Anna TARASOVA – Spain – 06:16:01
2. Judith MARÍN OTERO – Spain – 07:46:12
3. Alison JEHL – France – 08:02:30

Men:

1. Víctor DEL AGUILA PELLICER – Spain – 05:10:17
2. Daniel CASTILLO FERNANDEZ – Spain – 05:13:19
3. Samuel PONCE ALVAREZ – Andorra – 05:23:16

20K (22K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Ariadna FENES – Andorra – 02:33:13
2. Caitlin FIELDER – New Zealand – 02:42:06
3. Judit GUIX CAMPS – Spain – 03:18:05

Men:

1. Louis DUMAS – France – 02:21:36
2. Roger COMELLAS ESPELT – Spain – 02:24:40
3. Joaquin NARVAEZ – Argentina – 02:24:58

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• 100M Starters: 636 – DNF: 176 – Finishers: 460. Women: 33 (7%) Men: 427 (93%)
• 100K Starters: 400 – DNF: 55 – Finishers: 345. Women: 40 (12%) Men: 305 (88%)
• 50K Starters: 588 – DNF: 49 – Finishers: 539. Women: 75 (14%) Men: 464 (86%)
• 20K Starters: 467 – DNF: 12 – Finishers: 455. Women: 136 (30%) Men: 319 (70%)
• 10K Starters: 143 – DNF: 1 – Finishers: 142. Women: 78 (55%) Men: 64 (45%)

Andorra saw 2,234 starters and 1,941 finishers. 362 (19%) women and 1,579 (81%) men reached the finish line and folks earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025).

Next up on the UTMB World Series Calendar we’re heading to the island of Mauritius off the coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean for 4 races on June 22-23, 2024 part of the Mauritius by UTMB events.

The Broken Arrow website still shows Spring Energy listed, but on Instagram they announce NeverSecond as energy gel partner and bars and gels available at aid station and in the vendor village for purchase.

Super fun PDF (linked to Dropbox here) bringing together the whole WSER story. The history, the records, and a fascinating look a how the organization presents this epic and globally significant event.

DC Rainmaker doesn’t like it:

I’ve had the COROS Dura for a bit under a month now, which normally would be enough time to put together an in-depth review – especially the many rides I’ve put on it. But at this stage, the unit simply isn’t ready. COROS won’t have a more stable firmware until tomorrow (June 18th, a day after this announcement), and even then, it sounds like many of the issues I’ve raised will take weeks or longer to sort out.

Again, a bike computer isn’t really the thing to comment on here, but reading these launch notes (not a review!) by DC I wonder what made COROS rush this product to the market?

This update had been in the works for awhile now the news has finally dropped today:

UTMB Boosts Prize Money to Support Professional Athletes in Achieving Sustainable Livelihoods

The summary:

• The Hoka branding is again all over this… if UTMB doesn’t watch out Hoka will just buy the whole series.
• The payout for the Finals almost doubled.
• Payout is the same for women and men!
• They extended the prize money from just offering €€€ for the Finals in Chamonix to include the Majors as well.
• For the Finals the payout goes 10 deep, while for the Majors it’s just 5 deep.
• One change – and element of debate – is that previously the payout for UTMB, CCC, and OCC was the same, now podium finishers of UTMB – the longest distance – receive almost double the amount compared to CCC and OCC.
• The Pro Trail Runner Association (or de facto union of pro trail runners who participate in UTMB events) celebrates this announcement.

All good developments in the right direction.

From the official press announcement:

The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is proposing the creation of “Olympic Esports Games” to the 142nd IOC Session, which will be held during the Olympic Games Paris 2024, when the IOC Members will vote on this proposal. The IOC is already in advanced discussions with a potential host, and an announcement can be expected very soon after the last formalities have been finalised.

Esports are big money and increasingly relevant to larger and large audience, so this all makes sense… still super weird IMO… maybe I’m getting old.

This is a mountain blog, so dive watches aren’t really my thing, but I though the new dive computer and watch released this morning by Suunto is worth mentioning:

• Similar design language as their previous releases, the Vertical and Race.
• Custom interface and tools to accommodate diving activities.
• Three colors: All Black, Steel Black, Sand.
• Price: $899

I grew up watching all kinds of sports. In a household full of boys that’s what one does. Soccer, of course. But also tennis – hello Boris and Steffi – and lots of winter sports during the soccer break around the Holidays. And the Olympic Games, oh how I love the Olympic Games.

I also played sports. Again, lots of soccer – I grew up in Germany after all. But I never played serious, just for fun, and for hours, at the local playgrounds and any grassy field in our neighborhood. Then as a teenager I discovered Indiaca, which you will have never heard of. But to make it quick, it’s like volleyball, but played with a larger shuttle-cock you hit with your bare hands. Well, our team got second place in a German youth league once. Big achievement, still sore about not winning it all. Around the same time I played Indiaca I also discovered ice skating, mountain biking, rock climbing and lots of other sports. I was never really a runner, found it boring and missed team mates. Although I did once come in second in a cross country race as a teenager. No one expected it, neither did it. Again, what’s up with the second place?

Once I had finished school and I left my hometown it was challenging to find friends to do sports with. The increasing commercialization and corruption of big global tournaments turned me off, and I was an early cord-cutter, so I stop caring about sports. Well, I should be fair, every big soccer tournament and Olympics I would follow the main story lines and cheer for Team Germany. There are still days when I feel down and I just have to find that Brazil – Germany game from the World Cup in 2014 on YouTube and rewatch the highlights. That feeling when watching that game live will never leave me.

A few years later I discovered trail running. And I discovered it by watching the early UTMB clips on Youtube. What inspired me, aside from the nostalgia and homesickness of seeing the mountain peaks and huts of the Alps, was that I watched a sport I could participate in. I could run these trails. I could stand at that starting line in Chamonix. Most sports we watch on TV now feel out of reach and have become solely spectator sports. In fact there’s a whole industry around fantasy leagues and sports betting that has developed just so spectators have something else to do than watch the games and get drunk cheering or drowning their sadness.
So trail running was the sport that I wanted to participate in and not just spectate. I mean, live streaming of trail races didn’t even exist yet. And even now watching a runner with a 2 hour lead over their next competitor struggling through the night still doesn’t often make for the most thrilling TV.

So, for me trail running was all about participating in it myself. Through it I discovered mountains again and found my happy place on the trails. When I hear folks like Dylan Bowman say that they are fans of the sport and reference the classic fan culture I don’t quite get it. Yes, the scenes of Courtney at Col de la Forclaz at last year’s UTMB were something truly special, but I still don’t know if I would call myself a spectator, or even a fan. A fan of Courtney for sure, she’s tremendous. But a fan of the sport? Not sure.

Whenever I get asked what drew me to the sport and I mention that I never read ‘Born to Run’ or any of the other defining books of our generation I get weird looks. I never watched Unbreakable! What drew me to the sport was those dang UTMB clips. And for me it isn’t even the stories of personal struggle or athletic achievement that get me hooked. What makes my heart sing is the camaraderie, the community, the shared experience, and above all, the global connection.

This hit me like a ton of bricks over these past couple days as I was following the Euros in Germany on the various social channels. Here are Scottish and German fans singing and dancing together in the streets of Munich. Albanian fans ‘taunt’ Italians by breaking dry spaghetti. Italians join Albanian fans in one of their traditional dances. Right in the middle of the streets of Germany. Together. Friendly. Respectful.

Europe is at war right now. The economy is severally affected by this. Nazis are rising in the polls and are winning seats in parliaments in every country. There’s a feeling that this global community is severely under strain by forces beyond our control. What used to feel like a colorful celebration of diverse cultures is being attacked by the brown hatred of fear and ignorance.

No sporting event solves political problems or cures small-mindedness over night. But what sporting events offer us is a shared experience in a peaceful gathering. These moments can give us hope. They create a break in our daily worrying and struggle. Yes, I may ask a lot, maybe too much of these events. After all they are still managed by corrupt leaders and corporation use them to sport wash their image while destroying the planet. But dammit, we, as people, living on that fucked up planet need a fucking break. We need a breather. You know when you for yourself decide that you had a long week/month/season and all you want to do is watch some shitty TV and eat a pint of ice cream? Or when you know you shouldn’t spend frivolously but you had a rough day and then you buy yourself a new book? When you give yourself a break, a little treat? That’s what these events feel like. We, as people of this earth, as fans, as societies, as communities, we get a little break. These sporting events are our little treat.

And when that hit me friends, I realized something else. I realized that I am a fan after all.

Via her Instagram:

Hey, Friends. I need your help. I’m a fairly new author of an advice column in @ultrarunningmag and I need YOUR questions for my next article.

Well, first of congrats on the new gig, Maggie. But also: If you have any questions, send them her way. PS: Knowing her, I bet there will be some funny answers incoming.

Neil Pooran reporting for the Independent:

Ultra-runner Jasmin Paris has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours.

The 40-year-old, from Gorebridge in Midlothian, has completed some of the toughest and most gruelling races around the world.

She receives the honour for services to fell and long-distance running.

I think the whole monarchy thing is kind of silly, but seeing Jasmin Parks getting this recognition for here incredible feat of finishing Barkley Marathons is very cool.

Xiaofei Xu for CNN:

A runner has died while participating in the Ultra Trail of Haut-Giffre (UTHG) competition on Saturday, organizers said in a statement, amid rough weather conditions in the area.

“It is with great sadness that we announce that UTHG has just learned of a tragic event with the accidental death of a racer,” organizers said. “All our thoughts are with the victim’s family and relatives,” the statement added.

…

The incident involved four runners who fell off a trail due to a slippery track, the local prosecutor told CNN affiliate BFMTV on Saturday.

My heart goes out to the families and everyone involved in this.

Friend of mine Aaron Shimmons was at this race and commented:

.. It was mega wet after a few days of hard rain and then a deluge 10 hours into the race. Never seen mud as bad. Spent 5 hours in a refugee waiting on the all clear to evacuate. I heard there was a lot of hypothermia too.

Europe has seen some crazy weather this spring and as a result several races have had their routes altered or race organization stopped the event early altogether. If this is what climate change looks like for trail races in the mountains, our sport is in for some rude awakening.

Everyone, like everyone is descending on Lake Tahoe in California in the coming days for some of the most important and iconic trail races in the US. It’s going to be busy down there!

• Tahoe 200 – June 13-17
• Broken Arrow Skyrace – June 20-23
• Western States Endurance Runs – June 29-30

Here’s the gender breakdown for each of these events:

• Tahoe 200 starters: 234 – Women: 62 (%), Men: 172 (%) N*
• Broken Arrow (all races combined) starters: 3,077 Women: 1413 (46%), Men 1,665 (54%), Nonbinary: 9 (.%)
• Western States Starters: 377 – Women: 100 (27%), Men: 275 (73%), Nonbinary: 2 (.%)

This brings us to a total of 3,688 racers over the course 2,5 weeks.

And a quick aside, Destination Trail has all their race registration on UltraSignup but seems to not have turned on the ‘nonbinary’ registration option, all their races just list men and women entries.

For folks wanting to follow the action from afar here are all the important links.

• Live tracking for Tahoe 200
• UltraSignup’s Tahoe Week 2024
• Broken Arrow’s Results page
• Hoka’s Western States Even Hub
• Freetrail’s Tailgating schedule
• TrailConference
• 2024 Mountain Running Fest

There’s more going on and I will add additional links to this post as things come up.

Do Not Block Gate – The 2024 Barkley Marathons:

Do Not Block Gate is a beautiful and inspiring book of photographs and stories from the historic 2024 Barkley Marathons. The project is a collaboration between photographer David Miller and publisher Vertebrate Publishing.

This isn’t event the first Barkley book, I don’t think ‘The Finishers The Barkley Marathons‘ is either. And yet, the Barkley, with its insane small participant field attracts more attention, and funding success for a book about a single year, than a book about UTMB, which was offered for the 20th anniversary of the race.

I’m fascinated by this.

Happening this weekend June 13-15, 2024 (quote below auto-translated):

Be there live at the largest trail running event in Germany, the Salomon Zugspitz Ultratrail 2024 powered by Ledlenser. We stream the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Trail, also part of the Golden Trail National Series. Moderated by Trail magazine editor-in-chief Denis Wischniewski and top runner Ida-Sophie Hegemann.

The Zugspitz Ultratrail is considered Germany’s largest “trail races” because the Rennsteiglauf isn’t really considered a classic ‘trail’ event, but rather a “cross country” event. The Zugspitz Ultratrail is hosted by one of Germany’s most classic alpine towns ‘Garmisch Partenkirchen’, home of the Winter Olympics in 1936, at the foot of Germany’s tallest mountain the Zugspitze (Well, Germany shares the summit of the Zugspitze with Austria). The Zugspitz was first held in 2011, and the main race circumnavigates the Zugspitz massif in similar fashion to the way UTMB goes around the Mont Blanc. 4,400 racers will be at the starting line across the six different distances and includes most of the who-is-who of German and Austrian trail running.

The Zugspitz Ultratrail in Germany/Austria is on the same weekend as Trail 100 Andorra (2,800 starters) and Trail du Saint-Jacques (5,700 starters) in France. Combined, these three events will bring 12,900 trail runners to their respective starting line. Oh, and add another 820 who will start at the Skyrunning Event in Madeira, part of the Skyrunner World Series. Absolutely incredible numbers.

Announced on Instagram yesterday:

Hardrock is proud to welcome back GU Energy for 2024. Hardrock and GU share a rich and long history dating back to the 1990s when an early prototype of what would become the GU Roctane Energy Gel fueled their founder’s daughter to victory here. GU gel formulations were specifically designed for the tough conditions at Hardrock and we are excited to feature them at our aid stations again!

And further in the comments when asked directly:

That is correct. Spring Energy is no longer a partner of the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run.

Damn, things go fast.

Last year I browsed the new-to-me website ‘Run247, and found an article written by Patrick Ryan about Western States adding the ‘by UTMB’ handle to the full name of the race. This year, they refreshed the article for the upcoming Western States race for 2024 but they left the wrong title in there.

I know that in many ways, this is an SEO play and adding all the optimized words in all the right places is supposed to help with search engine placement, and yes, RUN247 is a British website and Western States is an American race, but this is really not that hard folks.

Western States is an independently run nonprofit that has partnered with UTMB to have their event included in the World Series. The partnership details aren’t disclosed, but both organizations are heavily sponsored by Hoka which seems to be the glue that holds these two together. The UTMB Group hasn’t acquired and does not own Western States. The ‘by UTMB’ addition is used by UTMB for EVERY OTHER RACE IN THEIR SERIES, but not for Western States. Every other race in their series has a subdomain now on their UTMB.world website, but not Western States. Not all UTMB events on the World Series are owned outright by UTMB. Some are owned by UTMB Europe. Some are owned by Ironman/UTMB and some are partnerships with local events managers in countries these two organizations don’t have a local presence.

Alright, carry on everyone, just had to get this off my chest.

Launched today:

The PTRA Women Equality Working Group has launched the brand new ‘Women in Trailrunning Fund’, dedicated to supporting initiatives that showcase and benefit women in trail and ultrarunning. This fund is designed for creatives and community organizers who wish to highlight the contributions and experiences of women in these sports through their projects. Whether through media, events, or community programs, the fund aims to amplify the presence and recognition of women in trail and ultrarunning, promoting inclusivity and inspiring future generations.

I’m still tracking gender splits for all the big UTMB World Series events and while there are a couple outliers we’re nowhere near proper gender parity at the starting line, especially for longer distances (100K + 100M), so this is very welcome to see and hope will get supported well.

US Skyrunning Team is raising money via a crowdfunding platform:

The US Skyrunning Team will be traveling to Spain in September 2024 for the World Skyrunning Championships. 
Our fundraising goal is to cover as many costs for the athletes on the team as possible. 
A few of these costs include: team kits ($1,500), accommodations/race fees during the championships ($3,000), team meals ($1500), and as much of the athlete travel costs as possible. 

The US will be sending 12 athletes to the Skyrunning World Championships this year. This will be the largest US team ever for the SWC. 

Kinda goes to show how small our sport still is, of US national teams need to raise money in this fashion. I mean, they are only looking to raise $15K, couldn’t (insert big brand name here) just write a check?

DC Rainmaker has the rundown of all the new features for watchOS coming this Fall to Apple Watches including updates for fitness tracking and route mapping.

As I’ve said for the last three years of Apple WatchOS updates, Apple continues to expand more and more into their rivals’ territories. However, as with the past, Apple isn’t necessarily trying to hit every edge case, especially as it relates to performance users. Instead, as is often the case for Apple – they’re trying to stick the landing on a broadly appealing feature set that’s easy to use. In many ways, these updates continue to check those boxes.

None of these features make me run out and replace my Suunto Race with an Apple Watch Ultra, but if you anyway use an Apple Watch, you might as well try out these features and see what works for you.

Doug Mayer from Run the Alps and publisher Helvetiq announce new guide book for trail runners for the Mont-Blanc region:

Trail Running Chamonix Mont Blanc is a trail-running guide to the greater Mont Blanc region in cooperation with the Chamonix-based outdoor adventure company Run the Alps. This collection of 30 easy, moderate, and strenuous runs features carefully chosen routes ranging from 10 to 40 kilometers. Each route comes with options to bail out early or add on additional kilometers, enabling you to tailor the runs to your needs.

Take my money!

Announcement dropped this morning via email, and currently available as “beta release” (If you’ve ordered from Tailwind before, be sure to log into your account to see if you’re eligible to order it):

Introducing Tailwind High Carb Fuel, exclusively for our Rockies tier rewards members! This power-packed drink mix is specially designed for high-intensity efforts, offering a higher carbohydrate content to maximize your energy per sip.

The new product comes in two flavors: ‘Ginger Lime’ and ‘Lemon’. I’ve been testing the product for a few months and like it a lot. Both are tasty, but especially the Ginger one has a nice kick to it.

It’s not cheap and you do need to train your gut to handle that many carbs, so don’t expect this to be a miracle potion, but it’s great to see Tailwind expanding their product line up and offering a wider variety of tailored products to meet the demands of the athletes or trends of the moment.

Announced today during their WWDC developer conference Apple just announced the addition of trail routes to their mapping app for many of the popular hiking locations – think National Parks.

Maps now features topographic maps with detailed trail networks and hikes, including all 63 U.S. national parks. Save maps to your device to access offline with turn-by-turn voice guidance, or create your own hikes.

This is a big ‘finally’ for the app and will be a great addition to the Maps app for most users – and the maps will be available offline, which is super important when hiking in the backcountry. I do hope that this will include better mapping to the trail head as well. These final miles from the main roads to the trailheads have often been subpar, to say the least, or completely wrong or missing.

AllTrails be like: “shit…!” But it still waits to be seen if this is actually is useful for power users or will really just be an entry level addition. Strava I bet is not worried about this… yet.

Announced on Instagram today:

At Hardrock, we firmly believe that runners of all types shouldn’t have to choose between chasing their dreams on the trails and pursuing the option of becoming parents. That is why we have updated our Pregnancy Entry Deferral policy to provide a more generous deferral period for pregnant women and new mothers, and expanded coverage to include other types of new parents such as in situations of surrogacy and adoption.

This is great news, and while this will only affect a small number of runners due the small entry field, folks work for many years to try to get to run Hardrock and family planning decision shouldn’t get in the way of this.

Here’s a link to the full PDF outlining all the nuances.

The Tenerife Bluetrail by UTMB happened this weekend (June 4-6, 2024) on the island of Tenerife, Spain and Europe continues to be on fire with weekend after weekend, races after races in stunning locations drawing thousands of runners. If I’d live over there I’d lose my head trying to make my annual racing schedule. I can’t even.

Check here for my pre-race coverage.

Below are the top finishers, for full results visit UTMB live:

100M (110K – 4 Stones)

Women:

1. Eva Maria SPERGER – Germany – 15:18:55
2. Gitana AKMANAVICIUTE – Lithuania – 17:00:41
3. Claire HESLOP – Canada – 17:39:51

Men:

1. Manuel ANGUITA – Spain – 12:54:22
2. Jordi GAMITO BAUS – Spain – 13:28:26
3. Rubén DIEGUEZ QUIROGA – Spain – 13:42:27

100K (73K – 3 Stones)

Women:

1. Martyna MLYNARCZYK – Poland – 07:29:41
2. Gemma ARENAS ALCAZAR – Spain – 07:48:47
3. Celia BALCELLS SERRA – Spain – 08:01:36

Men:

1. Riccardo MONTANI – Italy – 06:45:18
2. Elliot PHILLIPPON – France – 06:51:45
3. Kevin ROUX – France – 06:56:35

50K (47K – 2 Stones)

Women:

1. Maude MATHYS – Switzerland – 04:25:50
2. Marta PEREZ MAROTO – Spain – 04:45:12
3. Sonia VIZCAINO HUNGRÍA – Spain – 04:45:25

Men:

1. Oswaldo MEDINA – Spain – 03:56:10
2. Marcos RAMOS GONZALEZ – Spain – 03:56:37
3. Andreu SIMON AYMERICH – Spain – 03:56:50

20K (24K – 1 Stone)

Women:

1. Vanessa CABA MACHADO – Spain – 02:30:01
2. Laura GION GONZALEZ – Spain – 02:39:57
3. Miriam GAMBÍN – Spain – 02:45:33

Men:

• Eduard HERNANDEZ – Spain – 02:01:09
• Fran ANGUITA – Spain – 02:01:09
• Arezki HABIBI – Spain – 02:05:19

Below are the numbers broken down by distance and gender:

• 100M Starters: 442 – DNF: 145 – Finishers: 297. W: 29 (10%) M: 268 (90%)
• 100K Starters: 445 – DNF: 37 – Finishers: 408 W: 69 (17%) M: 339 (83%)
• 50K Starters: 686 – DNF: 28 – Finishers: 658 W: 140 (21%) M: 518 (79%)
• 20K Starters: 765 – DNF: 44 – Finishers: 722. W: 223 (31%) M: 498 (69%)
• VK Starters: 109 – DNF: 3 – Finishers: 106. W: 19 (18%), M: 87 (82%)

Of the races I tracked (there were a couple others, a relay and shorter distance events not listed on the UTMB live page) the event saw 2,447 starters and 2,189 finishers. 480 (22%) women and 1,710 (78%) men reached the finish line and folks running Index and Stones eligible races earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2025).

Next up on the UTMB World Series Calendar we’re heading into another double header weekend with two events fairly close to each other in Andorra and in France. On June 14 – 16, 2024 two sold out events, the Andorra 100 Trail and the Trail du Saint-Jacques will happen a mere 300 miles from each other.

Last chance:

People! And friends of great trail running films. This weekend is your last chance to see our 2024 Selection of amazing films during our Online Watch Party and Filmmaker Fundraiser.

Get your ticket – support trail running story telling – enjoy the show.

June marks the anniversary for Electric Cable Car – happy birthday! It’s been two years since I launched this blog. Yes excited to call this a blog again. After years of mourning the erosion of individual websites in favor of social media profiles, it seems that the tide might be turning. Yes, AI will destroy even more of what we’ve experienced for a brief moment in the early days of the internet, but as long as individuals still get to register domains, throw WordPress installs on self-hosted servers and design, code and publish, I will have hope, and continue on. This is my web, and I enjoy it that way.

Back in 2022 when I started this blog here’s what I wrote:

I wanted to create a space to comment on the evolution of mountains sports and specifically trail, ultra, and mountain running. We’ve seen incredible growth in the area over the last few years and I, as keen observer and huge fan, wanted a place to collect what I find and share what I think about it all.

That was two years ago and the trend line for the growth of our sport and favorite pastime is still only going upwards.

Last year, for the first anniversary of Electric Cable Car here are the numbers I shared:

• I published 411 posts and articles. This is post 412.
• In total I wrote 55,374 words, not counting these.

Since then this blog has grown to over 950 posts and around 140,000 typed and published words.

Traffic has grown by 500% over last year. I’m pretty happy with this.

The focus of this site and my writing hasn’t changed:

Lots of people and organizations are tweeting, insta-posting, and sharing news, changes and happenings on their various channels. I am following them all. I won’t be posting a giant firehose of information but will post the pieces I consider most crucial and share them here with a few of my observations trying to link them together and make sense of it all.

Well, the focus of Electric Cable Car remains but the firehose has opened up a bit. There’s a lot going on in our sport. A lot of movement, momentous decisions, and some big stumbles along the way. Listening to a couple podcasts over the last few weeks I was reminded of two things:

• What got me excited about the internet is the ability to carve out my own space and with social media companies continuing to wreck their own platforms this becomes more and more valuable.
• Sometimes to make a difference is taking inspiration from another area outside of your niche and introduce this to the field you’re operating in. Not everyone needs to follow the same path and copy each other and while it might’ve proven successful in the past, it doesn’t guarantee success going forward. An unproven path could indicate impossibility or genius. Which one it’ll be still waits to be seen.

As I am continuing to establish the exact place for this blog in our sport and culture I am excited to expand the stories I follow, the voices I listen to and amplify, and the narratives I get to weave.

Here are a couple things that you can look forward to and some changes you can expect to see:

• ECC started off as a companion to Singletrack, my podcast. I’m working on reversing the order of priorities. There are SO. MANY. PODCASTS out there. There are very few blogs. Singletrack will remain, but the frequency, and focus will change bit.
• That change is already visible in the name change the Instagram handle. There I will post more links to stories I write here.
• I’ll be in Silverton for Hardrock 100 this year. First time for me and I’m stoked. How will I cover the event for Electric Cable Car? Stay tuned! But it won’t be the usual “here are a bunch of interviews with athletes” format. I’m working on a new and unique angle – hope you’ll enjoy what I’m cooking up.
• The Hardrock media coverage will be a test case for what I am trying to do for Chamonix during UTMB week. I’ll be there and I am working on a strategy for this week that’s informed by what experiences I gain covering Hardrock while also acknowledging that I won’t be arriving in the Alps with a team of people and a truck full of gear. Heck, I still gotta run OCC too, right?

Alright, what’s left to say is that I want to thank you for reading and for being part of the journey. There’s more, so much more to come. Let’s get to it.

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc writing for McGill University’s Office for Science and Society
which has the tagline ‘Separating Sense from Nonsense’:

AG1 combines the “just in case” marketing of the multivitamin industry and unproven wellness ingredients into an expensive cocktail for the worried well

This article was tagged with ‘Critical Thinking’ and I couldn’t love this more.

If you like this argument in Youtube form, here’s a great explainer for you which also dives into the underlying business model which explains why so many people are so ecstatic about it. Ka-ching!

LIVE: This weekend (June 6-8, 2024) on our Global Race Series Calendar:

Tenerife Bluetrail is this year for the first time a UTMB World Series event, but is being held for the 13th time already time on the island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Island which is home to several high profile ultra trail events throughout the year.

Among the usual race distances to collect running stones Tenerife Bluetrail is offering a Vertical Night Challenge race and the Reto Tenerife Bluetrail & Joëlettes, an event for disabled athletes offering different distances and no time limits:

Inclusion is once again one of the core values of the Tenerife Bluetrail. This category is back again in the race with a 8km, 5km and 1km course so that everyone has a chance.

Beautiful!

Follow the races live on the UTMB live tracking website.

Find more trail races on ECC’s Global Race Series Calendar.