And Strava is taking note:

To celebrate the efforts of the league, on Saturday, January 31, 2026, Strava is supporting its global community of Burrito Lovers by sponsoring a free burrito for runners who complete a local ‘burrito segment’ on that day (subject to local Burrito League eligibility requirements and while supplies last)!

No segment in my hometown sadly. I can’t do everything.

I never thought I’d share a link to a Bruce Springsteen song, but here we are:

Their claim was self-defense, 
Just don’t believe your eyes. 
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones 
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.

PS: I don’t know how I would feel about sharing this on ECC – or actually I do know – if I wouldn’t have jumped the first day after the election of Trump 2 and applied for my US citizenship. I had my interview and swearing-in the day after the Inauguration in 2025. I’m a US citizen now, skin in the game. No more idle* bystander.

* was never really idle, but always felt like I was an outsider trying to share stories and perspectives from far away lands (and histories). Now I’m really here and still can’t believe what I signed up for.

ICE OUT!

Grace Cook on her blog ‘Salty’ answers the question on why running brands are all of a sudden all over Paris Fashion Week:

Paris is the penultimate week, so buyers have seen all the fashion month collections to decide which brands to invest in.
…
Almost every running event today is community facing, designed to generate visibility and connection with people who might buy. Paris is not about Instagram buzz. Showrooms are invite-only and by-appointment. Most are held in townhouses accessed via a door code, and often feel impossible to find.

Cole Townsend for Running Supply answer this questions with the following:

• Niche competition: Those same stores are not sending buyers to TRE. If you are only at TRE, you’re competing at running with other running brands. If you’re at PFW, you’re competing at running with fashion brands.
• The right crowd: men’s week has a history of streetwear and GORP. Trail and running can easily fold in. All of the sportsstyle shoes are rooted in running.

All of this is a bit too far away from the mountain trails I usually spend my time on, but it’s still fascinating to see what brands do ‘behind the scenes’ to sell their gear.

The one running club I’d join.

Milano and Cortina in Italy will play host to the 2026 Olympics next month. As it is custom there’s a long torch relay through the host country and this year Courtney Dauwalter had the honor to carry the torch for a bit.

A huge honor to carry the Olympic torch in Italy! Felt the weight of the dreams, the teamwork, the dedication, the patience, the joy, the nerves, and the beauty of trying hard all in this torch as it makes its way towards the opening ceremonies. Thank you for the inspiration! Grazie mille!

Despite everything that’s happening around us, somehow the show must go on.

Just had another thought on this: Courtney is sponsored by Salomon. Salomon is a huge sponsor of the (Winter) Olympics. Salomon is fully behind the push to make trail running an Olympic event. Now this all makes sense.

Amelia Boone on her blogs poses the question of the moment:

So the question that’s been on my mind (and one that has percolated for years, especially since 2020): if you have an active social media platform, especially a large one, what do you do with that during these times?

Silence as complicity.

From all angles we’re told our “work online” is “brand-building”. But let’s not bullshit ourselves, we as individuals aren’t giant mega corporations, we’re humans. Show your human side and if people don’t like it they weren’t meant to be part of your circle anyways.

Anna Gibson on Instagram finds her own way to not be silent:

to be abundantly clear, when I line up in the stars and stripes on the world stage, the America I stand for is one of love and unity, not one of hate and violence.

This will be a challenging few months for athletes wearing the Stars and Stripes.

We’re doing this again! For the second year Arc of Attrition by UTMB kicks off the UTMB World Series for another season.

For full results visit the UTMB website, below the top runners by race:

Arc 100 161KM (100M – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Anne-Sofie POLLESTAD – Norway – 22:28:24
2. Charlotte FISHER – Great Britain – 23:49:08
3. Hannah RICKMAN – Great Britain – 24:47:38

Men:

1. Hugh TIBBS – Great Britain – 19:10:09
2. Simon WITHERS – Great Britain – 19:14:44
3. Samuel SKINNER – Great Britain – 20:14:33

Arc 50 80KM (100K – 3 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Gemma HILLIER MOSES – Great Britain – 08:12:56
2. Aroa SIO – Spain – 09:31:30
3. Katie KAARS SIJPESTEIJN – Great Britain – 09:33:15

Men:

1. Kristian JONES – Great Britain – 07:09:41
2. Keith WIGLEY – Great Britain – 07:27:45
3. Lewis BOWNESS – Great Britain – 07:38:32

Arc 25 40KM (50K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Naomi LANG – Great Britain – 03:09:16
2. Nuria GIL CLAPERA – Spain – 03:16:06
3. Maëlle BEAUVIR – France – 03:25:10

Men:

1. Robbie SIMPSON – Great Britain – 02:45:51
2. Raoul RAUS – Belgium – 02:46:34
3. Ben ROTHERY – Great Britain – 02:46:55

Arc 12 24KM (20K – 1 Stone) – Full Results

Women:

1. Fiona GERMAN – GBR – 02:06:03
2. Katrina ENTWISTLE – GBR – 02:08:04
3. Amelia WILLIAMS – GBR – 02:11:28

Men:

1. Oscar SUBUH-SYMONS – Great Britain – 01:36:27
2. Finn LYDON – Great Britain – 01:40:00
3. Samuel DELLER – Great Britain – 01:43:26

The numbers by distance and gender:

• Arc 100 Starters: 630. DNF: 369 + Finishers: 261. Women 22 (8%), Men 239 (92%).
• Arc 50 Starters: 601. DNF: 166 + Finishers: 435. Women 74 (17%), Men 361 (83%).
• Arc 25 Starters: 848. DNF: 18 + Finishers: 830. Women 217 (26%), Men 613 (74%).
• Arc 12 Starters: 426. DNF: 1 + Finishers: 425. Women 175 (41%), Men 250 (59%).

The 2026 edition of Arc of Attrition by UTMB saw a total 2,505 starters and 2,060 finishers. Starter numbers increased by 56% over last year – partially due to the addition of the Arc 12 race. 488 (24%) women and 1,572 (76%) men reached the finish line and earned collectively 4,434 UTMB Stones. This year’s Arc 100 had another brutal DNF rate of 59%, even higher than last year’s 51%.

Next up we’re heading to Oceania for the Tarawera Ultra-Trail in New Zealand on 14 – 15 February 2026.

Just like last year UTMB shared their calendar of events for the coming year. Last year I speculated wrongly that by announcing the calendar at the beginning of the year it might be set in stone and they won’t expand to new races. But they started off 2025 with 50 events and ended with 64. This year in 2026 the calendar boasts 64 events around the world and UTMB CEO Frédéric Lénart suggested in Mile and Stone earlier this week that they’d be at 64 events for 2026. Let the speculations begin on what that number will be at the end of the year.

PS: The Electric Cable Car UTMB World Series Calendar is updated and simplified to account for the ever-changing nature of their events calendar, and the ongoing changes to the races they are offering at each event. Oh, and to accommodate the ever-increasing busyness of my own schedule.

PPS: One things of note: Ultra Trail Whistler‘s date is now moved from the original September date to mid-August.

For the newly launched ‘Trailhead Media’ Buzz Burrell is trying to solve the puzzle for us:

I’ve made an attempt to aggregate all eight major international awards and rankings into a singular list, which will, hopefully, once and for all, show who the best runners were in 2025.

Should UROY really be considered part of a list of “international awards” since it’s only considering North American athletes?

Via Reddit user ‘SnooObjections3770‘:

I built this UTMB lottery chance calculator for myself and figured I’d share it in case it’s useful to anyone else.

How accurate is this tool? No idea, but if you want to make yourself mad you can play around with it and see how it becomes more and more of a challenge to get to race in Chamonix each August.

The official lottery results are already out, and if you got in – congratulations. It seems this year it was harder to get selected, required more stones, and more luck with it, and this of course surprised no one.

Patagonia on their blog:

Today Patagonia filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the entrepreneur, drag queen, and activist Pattie Gonia. While we wish we didn’t have to do this – and actively engaged with Pattie for several years to avoid this – it has become necessary to protect the brand we have spent the last 50 years building.

That’s how trademark law works and how brands have to protect their IP. This clash was a longtime coming.

Episode 340 with Austin Corbett:

Austin is taking the big leap into self-employment and joins me on Singletrack to chat about his new business Point to Point Photography. As a trained photographer with years of experience making connections in the outdoor industry Austin is ready to step behind the lens and share his vision of running on trails in wild places with the world.

Links

• Austin on Instagram
• Point to Point Photography

In a interview with Mile & Stone UTMB CEO Frédéric Lénart shares a few interesting tidbits:

• 69% of athletes identified as elite participated in at least one of the circuit’s races, again an increase compared to 2024 (+10%), with a very high level of competition at the Hoka UTMB Mont-Blanc.
• Revenue has grown; we will be around 30 million euros, compared to 25 million in 2024. 
• We have just over 100 employees, the company is starting to be well-structured, and we can say that we have moved past the survival issues the group faced during the Covid phase to be profitable today, yes.
•  I think we will be at 63 or 64 events in 2026. In the medium term, the goal is to have 90-95 in 2030. 
• [We’re] remaining committed to not exceeding the 10,000-runner cap [at the UTMB Finals in Chamonix].
• [On the Dacia partnership:] Yes, the partnership reached the end of its four-year term.
• Their departure is a logistical challenge for us; we do not have an identified automotive partner at the moment, but we are working on it.

These comments above (bolding left from the newsletter) are all pertaining to the business side of the operation. Some things stick out to me:

• The point about the elites racing at the Finals is of course a response to the WMTRC but also a sign of pride for UTMB that the spearhead of our sport is taking the product UTMB created and maintains serious.
• Profitability is good for UTMB and for our sport as a whole – no desperate moves should be expected here.
• The number of races really surprises me. We’re already sitting at 64 events for the year 2026. So either Lénart got the numbers wrong or they are planning on NO additional expansion for 2026. (Maybe they anticipate a couple races leaving the series and being replaced by new ones. But if they don’t grow by a few races this year, then their projected number of 90-95 by 2030 feels like a bit of a stretch to me.)
• With Dacia leaving which other ‘mobility partner’ aka car company brand would you like to see jumping in sponsoring the UTMB World Series?

First time for an outdoor athlete to get covered/made fun of on Saturday Night Life? First time for a North Face sweater to make it into a clip on SNL?

Definitely the first time for a previous guest on Singletrack to get the SNL treatment.

Funny too that SNL, based out of urban NYC is getting into this “climbing thing” when it’s a skyscraper in the middle of a metropolitan area, rather than some rock somewhere in the outdoors.

Scott Baldwin on his blog ‘Front Pack Sports‘:

If you’ve spent any time running in Europe, there’s a good chance you already know KIPRUN. If you haven’t, 2026 is likely the year that changes.

At TRE, one of the most interesting conversations we had wasn’t with a legacy giant or a hype-driven newcomer — it was with KIPRUN, Decathlon’s performance running brand. KIPRUN has been around since 2008, operating in more than 70 countries, but the U.S. running scene hasn’t fully felt their impact yet.

If you’re not familiar, Decathlon in Europe is like the Dick’s Sporting Goods in the US, but with all kinds of private label brands, think REI Co-Op.

Brands coming into the market at lower price point will add pressure on existing players, especially in today’s economic climate threatened by tariffs and wars. It will be fascinating how incumbents will respond to this.

Jessy Carveth curates 26 names for Marathon Handbook into a listicle, including a few from the trail running world:

• 13th – Courtney Dauwalter
• 12th – Katie Schide
• 10th – Lazarus Lake

Inexplicably missing from that list: Kilian Jornet.

In a lengthy post titled ‘Trail Running 2026, where are we, where are we going.‘ Kilian Jornet blogs (blogs!) about he sees as trends for 2026 and beyond for our sport and culture.

First of all I want to express that those are just some opinions and thoughts I had when thinking on what’s going on with trailrunning at that time. I therefore have biases, first as an elite athlete I would have tendency to focus more on events that elite found more relevant versus what the big mass of participants might find important or not, I’m also European and part of the European – and at some degree American – trail scenes mostly, and even if I’m informed of what’s going on in other parts, probably I have some bias there. Those are only that, opinions based on what I’m observing in 10 different aspects of the sport.

This, without me having to say it, is of course must-read material for anyone interested in our sport.

I largely agree with him and see similar trends and issue emerge. The one thing I am surprised he doesn’t mention though is the challenge of climate change for our sport. But aside from this one quibble this one is ‘chef’s kiss – no (just one) notes.

Published by Callwey in a English and German edition:

This book showcases the full fascination of running off the beaten track in all its facets: from portraits of influential figures and legendary races to the most beautiful routes around the globe.

Kimi on Instagram about the project:

I’ve been writing since April 2025. It was a rollercoaster ride, let me tell you. A daily up and down of emotions, nervous breakdowns, worries, excitement, and overall: dedication.

Release date is 17 March 2026. Excited for this one. (With a US release date not until 1 September 2026… sad face.)

Wall Street Journal article (here’s the Apple News link) summarizing a research report from the German Kiel Institute:

Americans, not foreigners, are bearing almost the entire cost of U.S. tariffs, according to new research that contradicts a key claim by President Trump and suggests he might have a weaker hand in a reemerging trade war with Europe.
…
By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their prices, while American consumers and importers absorbed 96%.

U.S.A. U.S.A.

Or as John Gruber at Daring Fireball comments:

This is what economists expected, but it’s always important to measure actual results, no matter how obvious the conclusions seem in advance.

But the real reason for me posting this hear is that there are a lot of ‘predictions for 2026’ podcasts and articles floating around and most of them are skirting around one of the biggest issues our world is facing in many decades: “political uncertainties”… to put it mildly.

Must read interview with Kilian Jornet in the New York Times Magazine (there’s a podcast version available too), conducted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

Jornet, 38, is a professional ultramarathoner and mountaineer whose life’s work is literally to run — or ski — up mountains. Even in the world of elite athletes, he is exceptional.
…
His VO2 max (a key indicator of aerobic endurance) is one of the highest ever recorded; his stamina has been studied by researchers; and he has pushed the limits of what is considered physically possible.

It’s great, and noteworthy that “one of us” is featured in the NYT and somewhat understandably that the actual “new information” a super fan can gleam from an article like this is actually minimal. Nonetheless, still incredibly cool that trail running has arrived now at this scale. Or as the NYT puts it “ultra-marathoning”.