By Mathias Eichler
Yo Saturnalia!
Get ready for a fun and festive holiday 10K trail race at Squaxin Park in Olympia, WA on December 13.
Yo Saturnalia!
Get ready for a fun and festive holiday 10K trail race at Squaxin Park in Olympia, WA on December 13.
Electric Cable Car is counting down until the end of the year by reliving the action-packed year 2025 in trail running. Join me.
Episode 335 with Morgan Powell:
Very special guest Morgan Powell joins Singletrack to help me unveil the poster art for the Trail Running Film Festival’s Global Tour 2026. We chat about the inspiration behind the artwork and get to know Morgen, the artist and athlete behind it all.
Via press release, published minutes ago by myself, but instead of sharing my own words, I am sharing poster artist Morgan Powell’s:
For the 2026 poster, I wanted to focus on some of the bits and pieces that come together to create a trail runner. The main focus is a runner literally made of nature. Trail runners are often thought of as going out into nature, but I think the real magic happens when it feels like you are actually a part of it.
This is the third year in a row that TRFF has commissioned a unique piece of art from an artist working at the intersection of the outdoors and movement. I’m so incredibly stocked to add this piece to our growing collection, and to give our upcoming tour a visual voice as we embark on these next few months of sharing stories with people who love trail running from all over the world.
Broken Arrow RD Brandon Madigan with the email announcement (and on Instagram):
Today, the Broken Arrow Skyrace, one of North America’s largest—and the most competitive—trail running event, is excited to announce a new multi-year partnership with ACG (All Conditions Gear), a Nike brand designed for all athletes who seek the challenge, adventure and connection of thriving in the wild.
After Daybreak/Freetrail announced their partnership with ACG for their Gorge Waterfalls event a couple of weeks ago, this one was rumored to be next, and the people were correct. ACG scooping up the void that Salomon is leaving seems to be the logical move for Nike trying to establish themselves in trail and are here for real this time. I am still a bit hesitant in joining the rest of the media who are calling for ACG to roll into town to take over everything, but clearly these moves show that Nike is more than dabbling this time around.
We’re thrilled to announce that the 2026 Broken Arrow Skyrace will feature the largest prize purse of any trail race in the world, a total of $150,000 spread across three races.
There are several other initiatives that Broken Arrow is announcing or expanding on alongside this partnership with ACG, showing again that Broken Arrow is probably the only event in the US where a big brand partners don’t just get banners alongside the finish line chute.
The UTMB World Series is adding another event to the roster of races in the United States, and the second one on the East Coast:
Rothrock by UTMB stands apart as the heart of the East Coast. Set in the wilds of central Pennsylvania, this race delivers a pure trail experience that is rugged, raw, and wildly beautiful. Rooted in outdoor adventure and community spirit.
The event is scheduled for 15 – 17 May 2026 with registration opening next week. There are two distances to choose from, a 50K and a 25K.
After their Pacific Trails California event, this is the second event that UTMB adds in North America with just two “shorter” distances, signaling a quite fascinating expansion strategy for the US.
Full transparency up front: The real reason as to why I will be in San Antonio, Texas for this year’s ‘The Running Event’ is that I am going on behalf of the Trail Running Film Festival. I’m here to drum up support for and raise awareness about our upcoming global film tour. I skipped it last year, thinking that the ROI hadn’t been worth the expenses for our small nonprofit. This year I am swinging for the fences again, hoping that our increased name recognition will help with me getting some proper face-time with the right folks who care and can help us grow TRFF into a global recognized film tour. We’re getting there and have the ambitions to match, but need brand partners by ours side to believe in this just as much as we are.
This year though I wasn’t able to get a badge on behalf of TRFF but needed to use my media credentials for Electric Cable Car to get my badge. As badge will say ‘media’ I thought I spend a moment thinking about what I am hoping to see at TRE, what I will be looking for are the industry is heading towards the new year.
So here are my bets for TRE 2025 – I am typing this on my flight to my layover in Las Vegas – you’re welcome.
Of course, this is what everyone is looking for and everyone will be talking about. It’ll be interesting for me to compare notes and see if I measure buzz in the same way as others. Will Satisfy shock us again? Will all other startup brands just copy Satisfy from last year? Will there be a new Satisfy? (God, I hate that I mentioned Satisfy three times in a row… so cliche…)
I wasn’t at TRE last year, but the overarching visual trend had been that ‘trail’ is the more photogenic sibling to running. But lately running fought back with gritty urban visuals evoking feelings of skateboarding and rural visuals of cowboys on ranches. Will there be a new trend or a doubling down on the same language? Switchback, the ‘outdoor’ portion of TRE has been growing over the past years, will be fun to see how much space – and attention – it’ll make up this year.
It is always super fascinating to me how brands cash in on their athletes at events like these. Photos of them are on billboards, posters, video walls, and there are countless “happy hours” with athletes actually present at their sponsors’ booth. A few years ago at Outdoor Retailer I got an autographed copy of one of Kilian’s book and shared a smoothie with him at the Salomon booth. Those were the days.
Activations at UTMB in Chamonix are crazy town, with every brand – official sponsors or not – doing something or another, from group run to film screening to athlete meetup to product giveaway. TRE is a B2B event and therefore a bit more lowkey, but the brands, especially the ones that don’t have a flashy product to showcase at their booths, are usually doing something to draw attention to themselves.
Let’s face it. The economy is a shit show and everyone is talking about it… except (especially American) businesses. Sure, you can say at weddings you should’t talk about funerals (is that something people say?), but these economic head winds are real and are affecting consumers, speciality retailers and product manufacturers. It will be a challenging needle to thread trying to get an anyone to be real about this, but I will try.
I know that with longer battery lives watches don’t need to be charged that often, but the latest iteration of charging cables suck terribly. This has been a long hobby horse of mine and I was just recently told that it’s not just a Suunto issue but Garmin has the same problems. Will be fascinating to see if they realized that badly copying the Apple Watch charger isn’t great.
I am a huge fan of brightly, boldly colored shoes. But it takes someone with a good design sense to come up with the color combination that’ll make a shoe not look like a clown car. Startup brands are solving this by going ‘urban’ releasing their shoes in solid blacks, beige, and white. And while the latest trend in running clearly has been inspired by urban streetwear in the shoe color department you can tell that streetwear shoe designers still have the edge. Let’s see which shoe looks coolest.
GPS Watches leveled up over the last few years with great battery life and super visible screens. Shoes have now everything in them short of an electric motor. What’s the product that feels like it could actually improve running and make it more fun (yeah, yeah, and faster of course) and what product is just an overpriced shirt with holes in it?
Every year I’ve been the Diadora booth hires a real barista who brings a real especially machine from a real coffee roaster from the East Coast. It’s delicious coffee the the barista slinging the beans the perfect antidote to the endless barrage of “here’s why our socks are worth $30” and “we’ve developed the bestest superfoam any foot has ever laid toes on”. I hope he’ll be back, I don’t know what I will do if I have to rely on automated push button coffee for the week.
Alright that’s it, time to pickup my badge and head into the madness… see you out there. (And actually, if you are in town for TRE, do send me a note, would love to meet up.)
A new (to me) platform:
Contribute to pools and payouts for top performers in marathons, ultras, and FKTs. Official results trigger payouts—no gambling, no betting, just performance.
Another “tool” shoved in between the relationship of athletes and their sport.
No byline of who’s behind this or who stands for this.
Not a great look.
Announced after the conclusion of this year’s WMTRC:
This renewed Commission strengthens WMRA’s commitment to athlete representation, transparency, and inclusive governance as the sport continues to evolve at global level.
What’s the goal of with this effort?
The WMRA Athletes Commission exists to:
- Strengthen the sport through athlete-centred governance and continuous dialogue.
- Ensure the WMRA Council benefits from the perspective, experience, and technical insight of current and former international athletes.
- Provide a formal structure for athletes to express their views on matters affecting the discipline.
How is this different from the PTRA?
The WMRA Athletes Commission is fully endorsed and organized by WMRA, thus meant to consult and support WMRA primarily. It feels a bit more akin to an employee council as supposed to a truly independent body operating on their own accord. Any maybe therein lies the rub. It’s yet another volunteer position for folks. But overall I’m not dissing on this being “yet another organization”. The more representation of varying interests – interests which aren’t just the businesses operating in our sport – the better.
Episode 334 with Alex Rienzie:
Almost exactly a year after Alex Rienzie first chatted with me on Singletrack he’s back with an update on the legal case that kept the trail running community on perpetual whiplash for the entire year of 2025. Now with a full pardon in hand, Alex can share what really went down behind the scenes of Michelino Sunseri’s FKT run on the Grand Teton. This is a story that takes us way beyond the mountains and the trails and into court rooms and board rooms and yes, all the way to the White House. What a bonkers story that makes one feel like up is down and down is up.
Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko is Australia’s second and smaller UTMB event, after UTA. One last chance for folks to get some stones before the UTMB lottery opens up in a few weeks.
An athlete worth highlighting is Andrea KOLBEINSDOTTIR from Island who won the women’s 50K race and came in third overall in 04:24:48.
Here are your 2025 podium finishers of the three races, as well as the total number of runners for the event broken down by gender.
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko 2025 saw a total 3,538 starters and 3,139 finishers. 1,103 (35%) women and 2,036 (65%) men reached the finish line and earned themselves their respective stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2026).
This was almost the last event of the UMTB World Series for 2025. Starting today we still have a week of races and other festivities at Chiang Mai Thailand, the Asia Major from on 27 November to 07 December, 2025. And then we’ll start all over again and are heading to Cornwell in the UK for the Arc of Attrition in January of 2026, the first race of the series in the new yew year.
There are dozens of these videos on Youtube about the Matterhorn and I didn’t watch them all, so I don’t know if this is the best one, but I watched this one today, and man it was breathtakingly beautiful. I could almost sense my fear of heights bubble up while sitting on the couch. Beautiful images from an incredible mountain.
Of all the mountains I would want to climb – and don’t think I could, due to my fear of heights – this would be the one. I love the Matterhorn so much.
For his personal newsletter: ‘Late Entry‘ Zach Hauer, co-owner of Open Fuel wonders aloud about our over-consumption problem in the running world:
Pushing the narrative that the upper echelons of carb intake via sugary goo is how the passionate normie becomes elite, fuels waste.
Of course running is part of regular consumer culture and our everyday culture in a capitalistic society is incredibly wasteful – have you been in a Costco lately? But Zach’s article also reminds me of one of my favorite hobby horses: Running, and specifically trail running sits between the two chairs of “performance running” and “outdoor adventure”. These two cultures clash and we’re (especially us in the media, but also many brands) are WAY over-indexing on the performance running aspect of our hobby.
The running world will always push us to embrace any idea that suggests performance improvements are purchasable. Be that plates in shoes, holes in shirts, ice bandanas or whatever nutrition is the fad of the moment.
For decades the outdoor adventure world too has been driven by brands selling us stuff, gear, better and lighter layers. So that “other chair” isn’t much better, but that side of the media at least has better stories to tell. No one writes about what tent was used at Everest Basecamp, or what skis were used to get to the South Pole. When Kilian did his State of Elevation projects it became a story of the landscape he travelled through, the journey, the achievement of this continues movement. The gear he used wasn’t the focal point. I believe we (in the media) all could do a better job of inspiring people to adventure more, to “never stop exploring” rather than to endlessly optimize our next workout with new gear that’s just a quick online purchase away.
The Instagram accounts of the North American UTMB World Series Event are teasing a new event for the region:
A new UTMB World Series event is headed to North America, keep your eyes open for the reveal.
My guess is that this could be either just a marketing message for the recently announced Boréalys Mont-Tremblant event in Québec, Canada, or we will really, actually get another UTMB World Series event announcement before the end of the year.
German trail magazine ‘Alles Laufbar’ releases their version of trail running awards for 2025, the “11 Outstanding Trail Performances 2025” (auto translated via Safari browser tool):
An eventful trail running year is coming to an end. We have compiled the 11 most outstanding achievements of the year for you. It’s not just about race results – from world records in the vertical kilometer to months of FKTs in New Zealand to impressive wins in the best-run races of the year.
This one, in so many ways, is what I had been talking about in my screed from the beginning of the year about what awards for trail running should be. I had just brought this back up in my RE/RUN – January article as well. What sticks out to me is that focus on individual performances rather than the direct competition that’s so hard to measure in our sport. It gives the fans of our sport (that’s us!) a chance to reflect and celebrate, while still challenging us to think and compare and see if we’d have picked differently. I like it.
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.
This post is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review. I’ll be dropping February’s edition in the coming days. To catch up on all of them visit Re/Run.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen? No, not really, or maybe a little. But, I am trying something here and I hope you’ll join me.
Why? You ask. Well, I’m trying something out. And while I still think that Substack is a bad ‘publishing’ platform it might be worthwhile as a ‘distribution’ platform. Maybe, we shall see. I’ll keep you updated and see how things go and trust me to continue to make changes and try various things. After all variety is the spice of life…
Not the full website with its daily updates. God no, that would be awful. Electric Cable Car is still, and will always be here on its own website and domain, a blog, and news site, free of paywalls, subscription buttons and other clutter. But, Electric Cable Car on Substack will be the mirrored newsletter I have been sending out to my email subscribers about twice a month.
So, subscribe to my Substack, or to my regular newsletter. Either way, I’ll be hitting your inboxes (about) twice a month with a summary of the best of my daily updates you can read here on Electric Cable Car.
With heavy rains forcing a cancelation of the other UTMB event that was supposed to be on for this weekend, Pacific Trails California, all eyes were on Argentina’s second UTMB event, Patagonia BARILOCHE by UTMB. One of the last events for the year for runners to get stones for the upcoming lottery for the UTMB Finals Chamonix in 2026.
Here are your 2025 podium finishers of the three races, as well as the total number of runners for the event broken down by gender.
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Women:
Men:
Patagonia BARILOCHE by UTMB saw a total 3,015 starters and 2,766 finishers. 1,161 (42%) women and 1,605 (58%) men reached the finish line and earned a combined 4,385 stones and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2026).
Next up are the last two events of the UTMB World Series for 2025. We’re heading to Australia for Ultra Trail Kosciuszko on 27-29 November 2025 and for the Asia Major to Thailand for Chiang Mai Thailand for a full week of festivities from on 27 November to 07 December, 2025. For a full list of UTMB World Series events visit the ECC UTMB World Series events calendar.
Vivian Hendriksz for Fashion United:
Outdoor brand The North Face has opened its newest flagship store at 511 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. The flagship store spans 21,000 square feet across two floors and sees the brand make its biggest investment in retail to date.
Introducing a new store concept that looks to elevate the traditional shopping experience into a journey of discovery, the format centers on immersive exploration around the outdoor world.
No other “classical” (and American) outdoor brand has made as aggressive of a move into streetwear and fashion as The North Face. Born in Yosemite Valley now increasingly found on “high street”. And to be honest, I don’t mind them straddling both worlds – as long as function and quality of the “real stuff, still made for the outdoors” doesn’t suffer. I don’t care if they sell hoodies to high schoolers.
The only thing I gripe about is that after looking at the official press photos I was a bit disappointed that what was touted as “new store concept that looks to elevate the traditional shopping experience” in reality just looks like any other The North Face store I have stepped foot in over the past 10 years. Maybe in person it feels a bit more exceptional, but from the pics it looks like a normal store with North Face duffels.
Episode 333 with Steve Auch:
Steve joins the show from Bavaria, Germany and we’re taking about the sentiment and response in the German trail running community after the announcement from a couple of weeks ago that Zugspitz Ultra Trail would join the UTMB World Series. Steve shares his personal history with the event and his thoughts and concerns about the future of this beloved annual gathering in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. We also chat about his race City & Trail in Alpenstadt on 16. May 2026. An event that previously was a stop of the German National Series of the Golden Trail Series. But even after losing that partnership the event is still growing, and is still attracting top runners from the region. And finally as it is timely we talk about Steve’s long held dream to run Western States. With 128 tickets in the lottery, is it his turn this year?
In a long personal blog post on LinkedIn Catherine shares her experience visiting Latin America as part of the UTMB World Series. The post is in French, with an English version below, from which I am quoting here:
Some trips make you see the world differently. And then some make you see your own world differently.
These four weeks across Latin America, from Paraty (Brazil) to Quito (Ecuador), through Bariloche (Argentina), Valdivia (Chile), and the Copper Canyon (Chihuahua, Mexico), gave me way more than breathtaking landscapes. They rekindled that deep emotion that makes me come alive and gives real meaning to what we do.
Catherine goes very personal here, and while LinkedIn is sort of a weird place for this to be shared it’s also nice that it’s not a corporate press announcement, but rather a personal message and reflection. She goes in quite detail in sharing what these races, now part of the World Series are doing in their respective communities. And while there can be lots of snark to be thrown at Ironman’s intention in this sport, it’s good to remember that some of the group’s ambitions might come from a place to generally want to connect the world and support people in far away places. We often throw this phrase around “someone is playing four dimensional chess”, but in this case I feel like the Polettis have a global vision for the sport that most observers don’t consider when throwing criticism1 at their business model and their ever growing expansion strategy.
Dylan Bowman via the Freetrail newsletter:
Huge news from Freetrail and Daybreak Racing. We’re very excited to usher in a new chapter of Gorge Waterfalls, which starting in 2026, will be presented by All Conditions Gear (ACG)!
…
As part of this new chapter, we’re also excited to announce that Gorge Waterfalls will offer a $75k prize purse to top finishers across distances – an effort on our part, and commitment from ACG to invest in professional racing at this exciting moment for our sport.
This certainly explains some backstory of what prompted Dylan and Tim to share their ideas and frustrations on the latest episode of Rest Day on Freetrail. Clearly there was something in the works they didn’t talk about.
Also:
For those who know the history of ACG, you’ll know it has a rich legacy. Born inside the walls of Nike, ACG has been one of the most influential outdoor brands of the last 50 years, blending trail-ready performance with street-driven style and design.
Raise your hands if you agree with this statement and can tell me one product or sport they influenced over the past 50 years – Caleb Olson’s crochet grandma sweater (I mean radical airflow technology racing shirt) doesn’t count.
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