‘Trailmix’ on UTMB’s 2024

Matt Walsh in his Substack ‘Trailmix’:

It was looking like UTMB was losing touch with the athletes that made the race the icon it is in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts style. Then, on 13th March, the line-ups for all UTMB races were announced with some of the deepest fields the event has ever seen.

Was it all a tempest in a social media tea cup?

I would actually turn this thinking around and wonder if this was the year where the athletes learned what social media is, what it can be, and what it often turns into: A zero sum game, counter productive to discourse. Just look at what happened this past week with Tommy Caldwell, and what he learned from his experience:

My experiment to use instagram as a place for discussion might have ended up changing my relationship with the platform altogether.

I mean, sorry but ‘DUH! Tommy has over 800K followers. If he posts something there’s bound to be someone taking offensive to it, or someone misunderstanding, or someone wanting to grind an axe. Social media is great for brands, and individuals can become brands on there but MUST separate their personal life and feeling from how they portrait themselves on these platforms.

Given the fact that many of the outspoken voices against UTMB from earlier in the year are back in Chamonix anyways, it seems to me that trail runners too are learning these lessons the hard way.