RE/Run 2025 – August

This article is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review.
This was August 2025 in our world of trail running and mountain culture.

August is supposed to be UTMB month, but it was Kilian’s month. He announced his next big project – which would be all over the media in the early fall, even making it into the NYT and the Guardian, as he completes, seemingly with ease, his ‘States of Elevation’. But the other story, which is now gaining steam in the very late days of 2025 is his post wondering how much aid and support elite runners should have at trail races (Western States in particular) and how to achieve continued fairness during a time that feels like an arms race between coaches and brands aiming to give their elite runners the best possible chance of success.

Nike uses the pre-hype ahead of UTMB to launch/relaunch/announce their All Conditions Racing Department, which is a bunch of sponsored runners wearing shirts with holes. And surprising no one, the UTMB hating crowd of the past years have largely gone quiet as even the last hold outs show up in Chamonix and use the massive platform to promote their projects.

UTMB week was marked by proper mountain weather with rain and snow and everyone, especially the folks who’ve been working on various workaround to the required gear list, were reminded that running in the Alps means running in the mountains and while trail racing is becoming more and more optimized it still at its core is a battle between the runner and the elements.

This post is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/Run 2025 – The Year in Review. I’ll be dropping the September edition in the coming days. To catch up on all of them visit RE/Run.