By Mathias Eichler
Come race the world!
Beast of Big Creek is North America's only stop on the Skyrunner World Series. Mount Ellinor is waiting for you.
Come race the world!
Beast of Big Creek is North America's only stop on the Skyrunner World Series. Mount Ellinor is waiting for you.
How has it been a full year already? 2025 is coming to close. A lot has happened in our sport, and a lot has stayed the same. What better time to travel back and relive the best of the year, just like I did last year on Electric Cable Car? Join me over the next coming weeks as I’ll look the year Twenty Twenty-five in monthly installments. I highlight the best storylines and weave together a snapshot of the important trends for our sport, our favorite hobby and past time, and culture we call trail and mountain running.
Wanna get a taste and refresher of last year’s Re:Run – jump into the archive for 2024.
This article is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review.
This was January 2025 in our world of trail running and mountain culture.
As the clock turned another page and January kicked off the year 2025 these were the stories set the tone for this shiny new year.
All these stories give that ‘Main character energy’ feeling, something we’ll be hearing a lot about throughout the year.
In other news, trail running brands are showing up at the Paris Fashion show, which too, signifies a trend that started sometime a few years ago with ‘Gorpcore’, then briefly gets compared to skateboarding culture and has now every running brand producing their own magazine. “Community”, “Culture”, “Commerce”.
The beginning of the year tends to also be one for bold predictions and naive resolutions. Two articles I posted I look back at now and want to pad myself on the head whispering “oh you sweet summer child…”. In my post ‘What The TROY (And UROY) Awards Get Wrong’ I pontificate about how to do ‘awards for trail running’ better, and while I don’t think what I complain about was so wrong, it’s now a year later and I am none the wiser. The noise around the various awards from the various media outlets will begin here momentarily, and I already know that I will feel compelled to think about how to improve this, but I can’t, for the life of me, come up with something that’s truly above and beyond better. Trail running media will, for while longer at least, or maybe even forever, float between incomplete and inconclusive numbers – which would allow us to actually measure and compare runners’ performances, and vibes – which will always be too myopic, regionally constraint, or just plain too subjective. It’s probably that way in any other industry/sport/genre, well of course it is, who am I kidding. In the end these awards are there to sell sponsorships and increase brand engagement. Folks know that finding ‘THE BEST’ in anything is inherently subjective, or just a fairly boring numbers game. So, where does this leave us? Well, let’s wait until this coming January and see if and how the exciting awards, be it ‘TROY’ or ‘UROY’, or the ‘Trail Running Awards’ will inspire me, and/or infuriate me to think of ‘yet another way’ on how to do this better.
The other article I published in January of 2025 was my big ‘2025 Predictions For Our Sport’ article. As I am rereading my thoughts there and consider what actually happened I come to the conclusion that I would’ve barely passed the class. But here I am a bit more forgiving of myself. Predictions are after all a crapshoot into the wind. Rereading this post motivates me to double down for another year. Stay tuned for this article coming in early January where I will, yet again, take a stab into the dark and predict what will happen in this coming year of 2026 in our tiny, but oh so fascinating world of trail running and mountain culture.
Lastly, I spoke of the futility of New Year’s resolutions. One I did keep for the entire year (and am quite proud of, if I say so myself): Electric Cable Car published results for EVERY UTMB World Series Event in 2025. Not just the ones the American and European elites showed up at, and not just the ones on the radar of most English-speakers, but every single one. (Well, there are two events still happening next week. So as of this writing, so I could still fail.) Is there another media outlet that published results for every single event in the series? All in all in 2025 the UTMB World Series will have hosted 53 Events plus 1 (Pacific Trails California) fully cancelled. When I started posting these results I was looking for stories among the numbers and results. Now that I have a full year of data I have some stories to share. And with it, lots and lots of numbers. But this too, will have to wait a bit until the last two events are completed, and until I can figure out how to properly use a pivot table.
In February things got dark in America. Shortly after the begin of Trump’s second presidency Musk arrived with a chain saw and a wrecking ball and laid off thousands of National Park and Forest Service workers. DOGE failed spectacularly and even while the worst fears didn’t come to pass it did signal the new reality in America. Uncertainty, fear, confusion, and an upside down flag on El Cap.
Sticking to the topic of politics in the weirdest possible way, this month I posted about Katy Perry wearing a running vest on stage ahead of her trip to “sort of” space. Now months later she’s dating Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and is seen with the Former Prime Minister of Japan together. Anyhoo… politics.. and hydration vests… going places.
In the more dumb news department: Outside (formerly known as “magazine”) labels itself as Outside Interactive, lays off most of their editorial staff and buys up more tech properties.
Back to our sport: 2025 will be the year the elites are weighing their worth, wondering about doping and rethinking their contracts. No surprise here as the previous social media strategies are increasingly failing and tariffs are kicking brands in the nuts.
Luckily we had burrito runs, and that’s what we focused on in the early part of 2025. That and a much talked about ‘state of trail running report‘ which I linked to and has since become one of the most visited posts for Electric Cable Car all year. Although, now that I come to think of it… can anyone actually remember any important factoid out of this report? Or do we all just reference this report in the same breath as “growth” and “business”?
Trail running news in March of 2025 led with a blockbuster partnership announcementby Sabrina Stanley. Calls for non-endemic sponsors had been loud in recent months, but no one saw this one coming: Sabrina signs with OnlyFans. And maybe no one thought through what it would me for a sponsor to enter the sport that didn’t actually get trail. Or rather, wasn’t approved by the current voices in our sport. This announcement had lots of podcast ink being spilled where men wondered how to hide their credit card charges from their partners. But all jokes aside, OnlyFans is getting into sports marketing to clean up their reputation and expand their subscriber count. Although what this story meant for our sport turned out completely different. Fate has its own ideas and Sabrina was diagnosed with cancer later in the year and largely went private as a result.
Conversations in the trail media turned a bit inward (maybe because not too much else was happening) and a larger conversation ensured around the question of “what is content“. This ranged from the use of AI in marketing and brand storytelling, to folks rediscovering printed media and jumping into book and magazine publishing – with varying results in both instances. But people also voiced their opinions around the influence of trail media and calling especially on Europeans to not let their sport be dominated by American (English-speaking) voices. To cap it off, one of my favorite blog posts of the entire year was written by Joaquin Lopez on his UTMB race and on meeting Vincent Bouillard.
And to close things out: Pine to Palm bids farewell and TrailCon expands, which sort of signals a shift in our sport.
Continuing with the focus on the media evolution in the trail and outdoor space April brought stories of Outside’s melt down being featured in The New Yorker and the bros at Second Nature are wondering out loud what to do with the brand and property. While all this is going down, UltraSignup quietly brings previous employees of Outside on board to build out their news team.
In the early spring we also hear about UNA the GPS watch that promises to be modular and allows you to replace various elements in the hopes to be repairable and sustainable. The product was supposed to ship in August, it’s now December and they still only take email addresses for their mailing list. Can you imagine trying to build a hardware product in these times when tariffs and other mad king fever dreams are occupying the global business news headlines?
We finish off our recap for April with a bunch of news from Salomon:
At the end of 2025 with ACG taking over Broken Arrow (from Salomon) as title sponsor and with seemingly no races left in the US on the GTWS calendar, the question arises if Salomon, in a effort to be the prime builder of trail toward the Olympics, is innovating themselves away from the sport.
I’m told to not get too political on here if I want to reach a global audience… not everyone’s affected or interested in what the orange Mad King is doing on a daily basis. But, but, but, hear me out, these tariffs are fucking everyone over more than we want to admit. Zoë Rom takes a stab for iRunFar on what this all means and Norda’s forced to temporarily halt shipments into the US. Not great, and it’s not getting better as the year goes on.
Martin Cox from VO2max Coaching took Koop AI for a spin and has thoughts – thanks for that, I was not going to try it.
In May The Grand Teton FKT finally is on trial, and oh boy did it turn out to be a grand waste of time and money.
May also sees the return of the media phenomenon that is Cocodona, and we get to continue the age old argument if “an European thing”: in this case Tor de Géants or “an American thing”: in this case Cocodona is bigger, better, faster, and more. What a fun way to spend a week in the small world of trail media.
Finally, we’re reminded of what’s really at stake and what we should be paying more attention to. The town of ‘Blatten’ in Switzerland in the Lötschental gets completely buried by a major glacier break induced by the inevitable climate change. And while one genuine feels horrible for the folks living in the valley I saw a note floating around online that points to the voting history of the inhabitants who by a large percentage voted against climate measures in recent elections. What a sad and pointed visual for the world we’re living in right now.
June is and always will be Western States Month. Or at least Northern California Month. With the inclusion and expansion of Broken Arrow and TrailCon the end of the month the trail running world is fully in the gravitational pull of these events in Olympic Valley by Lake Tahoe. I went to Italy though and ran Lavaredo with Courtney and Ben – who both won, while I barely finished. But I still made it back to Cortina in time and am still – over six month later – bathing in the afterglow of this very magical experience. But all these events are at the very tail-end of June so what I covered on ECC for the month of June is about lots of other stuff. Like Freetrail’s Hall of Fame announcement, first signs that Hoka’s stratospheric sales growth might be coming to an end, the Gingerrunner’s High Route winning a (local) Emmy and Canyon Woodward’s pondering about the challenges of trail running’s growth trajectory. Oh, and media is (re)-discovering printwith several brands jumping on creating something tangible (and not just pouring money into Instagram ads) – fun.
UTMB was also in the news. It had to cancel Quindio Trail Colombia after month of back and forth. I discovered a UTMB online help center in beta, which as of this writing still is. And UTMB made a splash with their new Mobility Plan, which folks who are planning on traveling to Chamonix from far away didn’t like. Doug Meyer wrote some good words explaining (to Americans, who are all coming from really far away) what mindset this policy was created from – remember that huge landslide burying a town in a nearby (to Chamonix) valley?
Oh and Electric Cable Car turns 3. (Singletrack earlier in the spring turned 7.)
July brings both delight and sadness to (my) the trail running world. Of course, I am still riding high my race at Lavaredo in the Dolomites, but I arrive back home shortly after to the news that a wildfire near my favorite trails in the Olympic Mountains threaten and eventually cancel Rock Candy Running’s Beast of Big Creek races.
More heartache comes with the announcement that La Sportiva is raising their prices on their Prodigio Pros which in the end is just a result of Trump’s moronic tariffs. (Who’s paying for these again?)
In the aftermath of Western States which highlights the continued progress in our sport a few think pieces are worth revisiting:
Finally, after a public call to release the start list for the UTMB Finals, just a couple of days later UTMB shares the list of elite runners. The media rejoices.
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.
Wheeee, September, what a month. The afterglow of UTMB inspires a million things to happen at the same time. Directly or indirectly.
First off, everyone has thoughts about UTMB and what it all means. What an incredible sport we’re in, that we don’t just partake, but engage with it and think about what it all means. Love!
Matt Walsh, Brian Metzler, Seth Lareau, Mile and Stone, Chris Z, Liam Fireball, and yours truly, of course all have thoughts on the annual carnival in Chamonix. But some of the best writing of the year comes from 2nd at UTMB this year, Ben Dhiman – a proper race report.
This side of the pond things stay crazy. Michelino Sunseri is found guilty for cutting a switchback – we know how this ends. Aravaipa continues their expansion march across the US. And fucking ICE arrest firefighters at the Bear Gulch fire.
And if all of this wouldn’t be enough, we have a huge doping case rocking the trail running world.
A bit of levity with a bunch of brand marketing fails before we head into the World Trail and Mountain Running Championships:
I leave you with the other amazing blog post of the year: Dakota Jones sharing his experience trying to keep up with Kilian somewhere high in the mountains of Colorado.
October followed a busy September with a wrap up of WMTRC and some general questions of what this event means for the larger calendar of trail racing, how it affects the rest of the events and what role it plays in highlighting new athletes in different disciplines.
A few smaller things worth nothing:
As the weather turns cold and the industry’s eyes turn toward the holidays the first voices are being shared thatclearly mention the realities of Trump’s moronic tariffs and the impact on the outdoor industry. This will be something we will be hearing a lot more about in 2026. Not sure yet if there will be a “gloves off moment”. What’s more likely is a “pathetic cry for help” – that’ll be my take. But either way, after earlier in the year the motivational LinkedIn posters were still all about considering the possible opportunities, as the year progresses folks more and more realized that this all kind of fucked up.
And speaking of “fucked up”, in a weird upside moment the Grand Teton FKT lawsuit gets resolved by Trump ACTUALLY PARDONING Michelino Sunseri. I have no words for this development, just a whole podcast full of them with lawyer, filmmaker and friend of Michelino, Alex Rienzie.
And after a fairly quiet year for UTMB their acquisition of the beloved Zugspitz Ultra Trail event in Garmisch Partenkirchen the German trail media went all out yelling “monopoly”. How do you explain in German what a monopoly is?
The media noise coming from Germany about this aforementioned move by UTMB invites Dylan Bowman and Tim Tollefsen to record an episode of Freetrail in which they lament the media’s focus on “only the big races” without really considering that they’ve (maybe more so than anyone else in the trail media space) are responsible for exactly this phenomenon, or problem as they call it.
After missing it last year (2024), I went back to TRE, with lots of hopes, and a sore toe (broke it doing yard work – a story for another day). Did I enjoy going? Yes, was a good party for the industry. Is there lots to see? Yes. Do lots of people have lots of opinions and views on it. Also yes. Is the event at an awkward time, right during the holidays, also yes.
UTMB gears up for their Finals registration (pushed out a bit into the new year) and launches a redesigned dashboard that feels polished, but also gives “airline mile reward program” vibes – which is a dangerous look for trail running only big corporation.
ACG and Broken Arrow steal the moment with their massive partnership announcement, which have fans of Nike frothing at the mouth with the possibility of what could become if Nike that them entering the trail space for real this time.
And finally (in personal news) the year ends of with two massive earthquakes (good ones!) that I absolutely did not have on my bingo card for 2025:
The Skyrunner World Series announces their calendar of events for 2026 and includes Beast of Big Creek as only North American event.
The organization behind the Trail Running Film Festival is sunsetting leaving the project in my hands (which is sort of already had been these last 3+ years) and in my ownership (which it definitely hadn’t been this past 3+ years). There’s more to say about all this, but this is a recap of 2025, and the official announcement didn’t drop until 2026. I am just mentioning it here, as this absolutely owned my these past few weeks.
After having hoped to sort of slide toward the end of the year in a somewhat a chill way (what fool I am), maybe do some baking, and definitely drinking lots of mulled wine, I have been spending the last few weeks working on massive structural, behind the scenes business transitions. And let’s be clear, I want this. This is positive. I am here for it. But also what is that emoji with the red face and the tongue out in exhaustion? That! Happy New Year! 2026 is going to be bonkers.
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