ITRA Publishes Study on Trail Runners

Headline links straight to PDF.

Some highlights:
(And I grossly simplified the answers here, please check out the full document to learn about the methodology how these answers came to be.)

What motivates you to do trail running:

• ‘Keeping in shape physically’ was the number one selection followed by ‘discovering new places’ and ‘feeling in harmony with nature’. Only in fourth place was ‘preparing for a race’.

Fascinating that the race focus wasn’t ranked higher!

Top shoes brands (globally!):

1. Salomon
2. Hoka
3. Other
4. La Sportiva

La Sportiva in 4th, and no Altra at all? Yes, Altra could be lumped into the Other category, but the survey breaks this down all the way to Sketchers with 0.6%… you’d think more folks would wear Altras than Sketchers?!

Which smartwatch do you have:

• Garmin (almost 50%!)
• Suunto (20%)
• COROS (8%)

COROS has in a short period of time captured 8% of the global market, which is truly impressive.

Annual budget for trail running:

• €200-400

So, like on pair of Speedlands…

Do you have a coach?

Over 68% of runners don’t have a coach!

What type of injury do you have resulting from training?

No plantar fasciitis listed

How many races do you run in a year?

39% said 4-6 races a year with the favorite race distance being marathon to 50km.

There’s some cool nuggets of information in there. ITRA had over 9,500 folks responding to this survey.