The TUM Directory

Speaking of The Ultra Minute. Recently publisher Ken Seals launched a public version of the trail database his AI agent is scraping together to generate his weekly newsletters. Here’s the description of TUM:

The homepage shows how many issues each person, race or organization has appeared in, with filters for type and time period. Open a profile to see a month-by-month coverage chart and links to the original issues.

It’s a really handy tool and maybe the most prominent example of how AI is changing the trail running media landscape. There’s not a single week where I don’t receive an email or DM with an invitation to check out a new AI powered tool. I’m fascinated by this, truly. AI now offers new startup ideas to be built and launched by an individual or a small team with very little overhead – this feels, in some ways – like the early days of the web. So, why do I bring it up that TUM is AI powered? Because in some cases the AI prompts leak through, for example when viewing the listing for Zach Hauer, co-founder of Open Fuel, who was on Singletrack back in June. Here’s how TUM denotes that:

Hauer discussed Open Fuel and outdoor-brand marketing on Eichler’s episode348. Preserve the exact original link and keep this show distinct from Finn Melanson’s Singletrack.

Fantastic.