Announced today:

Ultra-Trail Mogan by UTMB® will make its debut on the UTMB® World Series circuit on 10–12 April 2026, hosted in Deqing County, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province.

The series just keeps growing, now with its 14th event in Asia and 5th in Mainland China, UTMB is up to 64 events in total. The ECC Events Calendar is updated.

Announced today (while I was sleeping. I woke up to a barrage of messages):

The 2026 season will begin on 22 February with a brand-new addition to the series: Cuatro Refugios, a spectacular high-altitude challenge set in the rugged landscapes of Argentina. The season will then travel across the globe, highlighting 17 of the world’s most technical and iconic skyraces, before concluding on 7 November at the highly anticipated SkyMasters, hosted by Marató dels Dements in Spain.

And for the first time since 2019 with a race in the USA: Beast of Big Creek. Sounds familiar? Yes, I’ve been working on this for a very long time, and we finally made this happen. There will be a lot more information about this in the coming weeks. But for now? Get stoked. We’re racing Mount Ellinor!

This article is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review.
This was March 2026 in our world of trail running and mountain culture.

Trail running news in March of 2025 led with a blockbuster partnership announcement by 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 the events landscape of our sport.

This post is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review. I’ll be dropping the April edition in the coming days. To catch up on all of them visit Re/Run.

Chiang Mai Thailand closed out the 2025 UTMB World Series with a massive bang this past week. The Asia Major saw over 8,0000 started across 10 races and two weekends.

A couple of things that stuck out at this year’s event:

• The Russian athletes, racing as ‘Individual Neutral Athletes’ had a strong contingency at the start and on the podiums.
• Swiss Maude Mathys won two 50Ks on back to back weekends.
• Japan’s Yuri Yoshizumi won the INTHANON 20 and came in 3rd overall.

Below is the full list of the 2025 podium finishers of the varies races, as well as the total number of runners for the event broken down by gender.

CHIANG DAO 160 (100M – 8 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Antonina Iushina – Individual Neutral Athletes – 22:34:21
2. Careth Arnold – USA – 24:33:35
3. Ronghua Deng – China – 26:07:12

Men:

1. Aleksei Beresnev – Individual Neutral Athletes – 21:14:01
2. JIAJU ZHAO – China – 21:40:09
3. Masatoshi Obara – Japan – 21:58:16

ELEPHANT 100 (100K – 6 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Hau Ha Thi – Vietnam – 10:43:28
2. Ekaterina Mityaeva – Individual Neutral Athletes – 11:02:02
3. Yuri Yoshizumi – Japan – 11:30:39

Men:

1. Miguel Arsenio – Portugal – 09:14:20
2. Kao Zhou – China – 09:51:39
3. Dmitry Mityaev – Individual Neutral Athletes – 09:52:24

INTHANON 50 (50K – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Maude Mathys – Switzerland – 03:54:26
2. Naiara Irigoyen – Spain – 04:14:39
3. Baodi Wang – China – 04:36:08

Men:

1. Miguel Arsenio – Portugal – 03:27:59
2. Alain Santamaria Blanco – Spain – 03:29:58
3. Pavel Tarasov – Individual Neutral Athletes – 03:36:56

HMONG 50-DAY (50K – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Maude Mathys – Switzerland – 05:03:33
2. Robyn Lesh – USA – 05:26:55
3. Yan Lei – China – 05:31:21

Men:

1. Guangfu Meng – China – 04:31:58
2. Rui Ueda – Japan – 04:35:46
3. Hayden Hawks – USA – 04:38:18

HMONG 50-NIGHT (50K – 4 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Yaqun Ji – China – 07:25:41
2. Pingliang Wang – China – 07:49:42
3. Yunting Xie – China – 08:22:32

Men:

1. Eric Candelanza – Philipines – 05:53:29
2. Christopher Timms – Great Britain – 06:34:18
3. Yifan Li – China – 06:44:11

INTHANON 20 (20K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Yuri Yoshizumi – Japan – 01:53:41
2. QIONG LUO – China – 02:02:16
3. Natalia Mastrota – Italy – 02:03:49

Men:

1. Hiroki Kai – Japan – 01:43:52
2. Fabio Vaccina – Italy – 01:49:50
3. Hiroyuki Kawachi – Japan – 01:53:57

SUTHEP 20-NIGHT (20K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Natalia Mastrota – Italy – 02:34:27
2. Nisachon Morgan – Thailand – 03:06:13
3. Ilona Cracowski – France – 03:10:54

Men:

1. Chaohai Qi – China – 02:02:28
2. ZHENGQIANG XIONG – China – 02:13:50
3. Theodore Eyster – USA – 02:15:33

SUTHEP 20-DAY (20K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. LING WU – China – 02:26:31
2. Elena Anisimova – Individual Neutral Athletes – 02:09:24
3. Joanna Mockford – Great Britain – 02:34:49

Men:

1. Moritz Auf Der Heide – Germany – 01:52:55
2. Valentin ORANGE – France – 01:57:46
3. Juemin ZHANG – China – 02:00:52

CHEDI 20 (20K – 2 Stones) – Full Results

Women:

1. Natalia Mastrota – Italy – 01:47:21
2. Dayu Wang – China – 01:51:56
3. Jiaying Liao – Taipei – 02:07:57

Men:

1. Parattakorn Suppalapwattana – Thailand – 01:38:31
2. Francis Boutin – Canada – 01:40:48
3. Hamish Magoffin – Australia – 01:41:07

Below are the overall numbers for this year’s Chiang Mai:

• CHIANG DAO 160 Starters: 499. DNF: 122 + Finishers: 377. Women 55 (15%), Men 322 (85%).
• ELEPHANT 100 Starters: 1,098. DNF: 105 + Finishers: 993. Women 209 (21%), Men 784 (79%).
• INTHANON 50 Starters: 1,000. DNF: 168 + Finishers: 832. Women 253 (30%), Men 579 (70%).
• HMONG 50-DAY Starters: 2,151. DNF: 46 + Finishers: 2,105. Women 648 (31%), Men 1,457 (69%).
• HMONG 50-NIGHT Starters: 234. DNF: 12 + Finishers: 222. Women 73 (33%), Men 149 (67%).
• INTHANON 20 Starters: 731. DNF: 10 + Finishers: 721. Women 359 (50%), Men 362 (50%).
• SUTHEP 20-NIGHT Starters: 523. DNF: 12 + Finishers: 511. Women 210 (41%), Men 301 (59%).
• SUTHEP 20-DAY Starters: 1,208. DNF: 25 + Finishers: 1,183. Women 524 (44%), Men 659 (56%).
• CHEDI 20 Starters: 957. DNF: 16 + Finishers: 941. Women 399 (42%), Men 542 (58%).

Chiang Mai Thailand 2025 saw a total 8,401 starters and 7,885 finishers. 3,056 (39%) women and 4,829 (61%) men reached the finish line and earned themselves their final stones for the year and an UTMB index (or directly punched their ticket to the Finals in Chamonix for 2026).

Here we go, this was it. In January we’ll be starting all over again and heading to Cornwell in the UK for the UTMB World Series first race of 2026, the Arc of Attrition.

(I really should have a podcast, so I don’t have to type all this up….)

Let’s begin with a quick refresher on what TRE is: It’s a B2B buyer show. The foremost goal of TRE is to give brands with new gear up their sleeves a platform to show them off to retailers (and the media). The event exists to give brands a temperature check on what’s hot, but mostly to allow them a convenient way to gather all their buyers to write purchase orders which will be fulfilled throughout the coming calendar year. And while the inclusion of the media gives the public a view into what’s happening, and what products will be released, most of the actual dealings happen behind closed doors in separate conference rooms where the big brands hold court and conduct countless meetings closing deals with the players big and small.

Most of the media’s attention is on the two days of trade show pony prancing. The folks roaming the floor are hoping for freebies and after party invites. Big brands want the business, people want a party. That combination is what makes TRE TRE each year.

I went as “media” but wasn’t interested in reporting on the latest foam innovation in super shoes. I go there to represent the Trail Running Film Festival. I don’t, and am not allowed to, “sell my product” on the trade show floor but the relationships, the conversations, the face time and name recognition is what’s important to me personally, “brand Mathias”, and in my role as executive director for TRFF – the world’s largest and most important film tour showcasing trail and running films. Now in year 3 (of 4 – I skipped last year) I feel like I have slowly and finally arrived. People recognize me. I get friendly smiles and nods and even hugs. People know my name – still pronounce it wrong most of the time – and people get what TRFF is all about. This alone is why it’s worth it for me (and TRFF) to spend a couple grand going there.

My Badge Says Electric Cable Car

In my role as media I haven’t really found my groove yet. What am I reporting on? The folks standing at the booths are sales people and brand evangelists with incentives to write orders. TRE is the shoe brands’ Black Friday, maybe? I won’t add to the noise of “tell me about your latest shoe innovation I will take photos and share them on social”. Jebus, there are enough of these stories floating around already.

So, here are some of the highlights of the various conversations I did have:

• Merrel:
  My Q: Anyone here who knows anything about your sponsorship of the Skyrunner World Series?
  Merrel A: Let me check, no sorry, person with knowledge already left. We really have no one who knows anything about it.
  (Sigh…)
• Suunto:
  My Q: How’s the sponsorship of the UTMB World Series been for you?
  Suunto A: Good. Good, but we’re still trying to figure out how to take advantage of it in our marketing.
  (I love Suunto, but man, sponsoring Courtney and UTMB – two of the biggest properties in our sport and no one has any idea on how to capitalize on it properly.)
• LEKI:
  My Q: How have tariffs affected your business in 2025?
  LEKI A: Absolutely horrible. We received a container at the point where the tarrifs where the highest, and had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to receive our product, We didn’t increase our prices as we don’t know how long this all will last. If that container would’ve arrived a few days later tariffs would’ve dropped to a more manageable level. We’re essentially selling inventory that we’re not making any money off of right now. Retailers are buying our products because the competitors’ product isn’t available – due to tariffs. We don’t know how long we will be able to do this.
  (An ominous sign of what’s head for 2026?)
• La Sportiva:
  My Q: What’s happening with the Mutant – probably one of the most iconic trail shoe?
  La Sportiva A: It’ll go away early next year, will be gone for awhile, but will come back completely redesigned.
• My Q: Could you foresee that the Prodigio would be such a success or was it catching lightning in a bottle?
  La Sportiva A: We did put a ton of really smart engineering into this shoe, but no one expected La Sportiva to make a shoe like the Prodigio Pro, and when it hit the market it completely exploded. We’re still won’t be fully caught up on the demand and won’t be until early next year. Sadly demand on PP for women is softer, and we can’t justify a third color way, like we are introducing for the men’s side.
  (That reminds me of last year’s crazy dumping sale of previous models of various Nnormal shoes on Sierra.com – but only women’s sizes were available. Why is that, I wonder?)
• Nike:
  My Q: How serious are you about trail running this time around?
  Nike A: A fair question that’s deserved. We have our work cut out for ourselves in convincing the customers that we are really here for real this time.
  (One shoe was on display, along with various artifacts of their elite runner’s race worn clothes.)
• Adidas:
  My Q to concierge: Would love an overview of your trail running shoes.
  Adidas A: Someone will be with you in just a sec…
  (No one ever showed interest, I walked away.)
• Goodr:
  My comment: Thank you for another incredible after party. Are you feeling the pressure to up the ante each year?
  Goodr A: Yes, we’d love to but our finance department has some concerns.
  (I found a really cool and delicious pizza place on the way to said party.)
• Mount to Coast:
  My comment (to a contractor for M2C I know personally): Your booth, which was perfectly placed right at the front entrance – always looked incredibly busy – the buzziest on the entire showroom floor. But it took me bit to realize that one of the reasons why you looked so incredibly busy was that you had so so many of your own people working at your booth.
  Mount to Coast Response: Wink.
  (Fantastic strategy, I must say. Satisfy’s strategy this year was to have really cool people walk the trade show floor looking like they were on the way to the subway in NYC.)
• Squirrel’s Nut Butter:
  My comment: Sorry about your booth placement, it’s really off the beaten path.
  SNB Response: It’s always a crapshoot. We’re trying to make the most of it.
  (I still took the samples. Always takes the samples.)

Some observations about the brands and their Presentations:

The Tantrums booth was the cleverest and most complete concept. A small footprint with a simple product offering. The entire booth branded like a NYC bodega. Custom posters, stickers, cans of beans. A fake fridge and lottery tickets. Incredible execution for a start up brand. If this well-thought through marketing campaign is any indication of their care and attention to detail than this brand, making running vests – which isn’t an easy thing to manufacture – is one to watch out for and pay attention to. Everyone at TRE was noticing.

The first time I went to TRE (back when it was still in Austin) Nike and Adidas barely had a presence on the trade show floor – which surprised me. Now both companies are back and NIKE had a big bold booth – but not many products to show. They did create a cool segmentation of their “road” and “trail” (ACG) offerings.

The North Face’s booth was my favorite among all the BIG brands on how they brought their brand to the trade show. The materials used and their signature orange color very much screamed: The North Face. It felt outdoorsy and welcoming.

Brooks‘s booth is so big, and I mean so so big, that it feels like they are owning the entire show. Which in some ways is how they present themselves in the sport (of road running). Not in a cocky way though. Their booth was open, welcoming, as if they were holding court.

Satisfy exploded on the scene last year with this mysterious booth that hid their entire product line. They pulled the same stunt this year. It felt “done”. So washed.

How do you stand out as a nutrition/hydration brand? I was disappointed in their displays and presentations. Nothing really grabbed my attention. Maurten had a boring black booth with an empty black counter. Cliff bar had the most pathetic booth I’ve ever seen. It felt like they hired someone who bought $100 worth of product at the grocery store nearby to sit behind a table. Blanks has a really catchy approach to personalized nutrition, but I worry it feels too complicated to really catch on.

Nnormal’s demure color palate makes it really hard to distinguish what shoes are what. They all look the same to me. They had a new shoe on display… anyone know anything about it? I guess I could’ve asked Dakota Jones about it, who I interrupted eating his lunch at the booth, but I opted instead to chat with him about Footprints Running Camps and his wonderful article he wrote about his experience running up and down mountains with Kilian.

Hoka and On where there too. But certainly not as “in your face” as in previous years.

All the international shoe brands (mostly Asian imports) look the same: massively garish color ways, bouncy, bubbly rockers, plates, huge price tags. (Most road running shoes by big brands look like this too, so they are just following the trend here, I suppose.) But, if street fashion currently is embracing cool color ways (hello Adidas Sambas!) why doesn’t this trickle down to running shoes. Even my favorite brand La Sportiva is all over the place in their color combinations. Stick to one or two colors. Not every shoe needs to look like a clown vomited it out.

Having said this Adidas had the coolest looking trail shoe, in my opinion. I am so tired of brands writing their full brand name on their shoe. I don’t understand that trend. Adidas still has the Terrex name on the inside, but on the outside they are leaning heavily into their most excellent and iconic three stripes – as they should. Just don’t ask me about the name said shoe. It’s a mouthful with at least 12 words, I’m sure.

Wrapping it up:

First time for me at the larger venue in San Antonio. Walking around felt quieter then what I remember. But the paths and aisles were never really crowded – maybe it was just the bigger venue? But it reminded me of the year I went to Outdoor Retailer in Denver – I had a great time, because, for a first timer, it was easy to navigate, but it was also the year brands really complained about their ROI of it all. Everything overall felt a bit more subdued and scaled back. Kickoff event, happy hours, freebies. I do really wonder if this is the effect of “the economic situation” we’re experiencing and if this might a bit of a warning sign. (I could be off completely here. I’m totally going on vibes and personal observations.) For example, I don’t think there were any breakthrough product releases that came out of the show. Anyone got any?

Will I go next year?

Of course. As I said, the people is what makes this show, and our sport, so special. And I am here for it.

Matt Walsh with the commentary:

If Nike wanted to start investing in the sport (which it historically hasn’t despite what our current revisionist historians tell you), it could change the entire playing field.

Thank you for that little side stab at the folks proclaiming that ACG and/or NIKE were in any way influential in the outdoor space over the past few decades. In sport yes, in the outdoor space, no.

Despite the influx of sponsorship money and high-profile activations, Nike’s path to dominating trail running is far less straightforward than it looks. Trail running is not a category that responds cleanly to scale; it’s a sport built on subculture, community, and credibility. The moment a brand moves too fast, the community tends to push back. You saw this with UTMB’s Ironman announcement, a technically strong commercial move that created backlash precisely because it felt imposed, commercial and degrading to the spirit of the sport. Nike risks a similar cultural rejection in a sport that has an allergy to heavy-handed commercialism.

We’ve been over this several times before but the reality is that trail running is still a participatory sport foremost and not a spectator sport – and that’s where ultimately the money is for big brands. If ACG now throws up banners at Broken Arrow and puts up an eye-popping prize purse for the elites it doesn’t make the sport more “watchable”. And for the rest of the field – which still pays with their entries for these events to exist – the improvement of Nike arriving at our sport isn’t felt – or event meant. UTMB struggles with this whenever they take over an already existing event. What is the net benefit to the average runner when the banners of the previous sponsors are being replaced with the blue UTMB ones? Just access to stones?

Buzz Burrel comments on Matt’s post with the comparison to Michael Jordan:

M Jordan will earn more this year – 25 years after he retired! – than all MUT runners combined.

Yes, but not because Jordan was THAT much better of an athlete, or person, but because the sport of professional basketball draws people into arenas to watch. There’s money to be made of people NOT actually participating in the sport themselves. In trail running we’re still a million miles away from this. Broken Arrow has been working on this since its inception: how do you get spectators out on course in remote Olympic Valley. I had a conversation with a Tahoe-native, and huge fan of Broken Arrow and even she had to admit that outside of folks running the race or working in the industry getting people to “spectate” or passively participate is still very very hard. But that’s where the money is made these big brands in almost ANY sport. So, it will be seen if Nike is in it to support the average runner or if they just throw up some banners and call it a day.

PS: My thought is that Nike/ACG is in trail running with an eye on the Olympics. They haven’t had a presence in any ‘outdoor/adventure’ sports and trail running being a cousin to running gives Nike an easy in. So with Salomon having made its stated goal to be the brand pushing trail running into the Olympics, maybe this is more a competitive move against Salomon as supposed to HOKA, which aligned to UTMB might be more interested in keeping the sport out of the Olympics to not distract from the annual spectacle in Chamonix.

Not the way trail running is supposed to hit mainstream: Munich newspaper Merkur reports on the registration woes runners were experiencing when trying to sign up for this year’s Zugspitz Ultra Trail event a mere days after the Ironman Group took over the event (auto-translated via my browser):

Recently, the registration for the seven distances in 2026 took place. But instead of looking forward to the upcoming challenges, many runners were frustrated and angry about the procedure. They reported overloaded servers, missing login confirmations and sudden price jumps.

This is worst case scenario and a complete own goal by UTMB/Ironman. If the “big corporation” already takes over a beloved local event THE ONE THING that should work is the logistics. This is very much still a recurring issue with UTMB World Series events.

Lee Glandorf writing on her blog ‘The Sweat Lookbook‘:

Running isn’t cool.

And no amount of sleekly branded pop-ups or Instagram accounts cultivating running culture can change that.

Go read the whole post and then reconsider your next outfit decisions when getting ready for your next run club meetup.

I shared this link in the previous posts’ quote, but thought it was worth its own entry.

Allison Lynch saw some shit at TRE:

TRE once again reminded me how nerdy and lame running is, and that’s why I love it. Running isn’t cool (read this piece by Lee Glandorf), and that’s why it’s cool. We’re a bunch of misfits who obsess over stack height and splits, have internal rankings of porta potties, don’t eat spicy food because our tummies will hurt, and go to bed at 8pm because we have a long run tomorrow. I love us.

Another great take on what was on display at TRE this week.

This article is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review.
This was February 2026 in our world of trail running and mountain culture.

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”?

This post is part of Electric Cable Car’s RE/RUN 2025 – The Year in Review. I’ll be dropping the March edition in the coming days. To catch up on all of them visit Re/Run.

Announced today:

The World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) is proud to unveil the WMRA Mountain Running World Cup 2026: a truly 10-out-of-10 season, featuring 10 events across 10 countries, with 16 races, spanning three continents, and introducing four completely new events to the circuit.

The US stop is, unsurprisingly, Broken Arrow.

Part of this new season is an increase in prize money:

The WMRA is proud to introduce new category prize money for each of the World Cup disciplines:

• UPHILL
• CLASSIC UP AND DOWNHILL
• LONG DISTANCE

This complements the overall WMRA Mountain Running World Cup 2026 prize money available to the Top 10 men and Top 10 women.

Across all races, total prize money will reach approximately €250,000.

And doping controls:

The WMRA also maintains its long-standing commitment to clean sport: up to 30% of every race’s registration fees is reinvested into anti-doping controls, ensuring that every single race undergoes testing.

With WMTRA expanding their efforts for their World Cup where does this Salomon’s Golden Trail Series, which hasn’t publicly announced their calendar of events for 2026.

To me Maggie Guterl felt like she would be a Tailwind “lifer”, but instead she’s taking matters into her own hands and stepping out on her own:

Just what we needed…Another coach! But this time it’s me! Over the past 17 years of running ultras I have been learning and gathering knowledge. This year I took all that knowledge, studied some legit science, got my UESCA Ultrarunning Coach Certification and joined forces with @teampeakrun and a rad group of ladies.

I always appreciate, and will support a good “self-employment” move. More power to people stepping out on their own and owning their story! And hey, who wouldn’t want to be coached by someone with such fantastic snarky humor. The Peak Run Performance website doesn’t have her listed yet, but here it is, I guess.

Amidst the flurry of TRE announcements and distractions UTMB announces a comprehensive updated, upgraded, and redesigned dashboard for runners. In the past this piece always has served a few functions:

• World Series race registration entry point for events owned and operated by the UTMB Group
• Display and summary of stones, index and eligibility for the Finals
• Section to update communication preferences and personal info

It was clear that an update of this section of the website was highly overdue to support the growing event series.

Just ahead of the lottery for the 2026 UTMB Finals the new design is now rolled out to all runners. And here’s what we got:

• A fullscreen layout displaying one’s personal UTMB index and number of stones, the main elements one comes here for.
• An invitation to sign up for your next race – makes sense.
• Below that a list of past achievements.
• Then we’ll have a new section called MyUTMB+ – more on this in a little bit.
• And below that a selection of various links to news and merch.

The focus on the index and stones makes it really straightforward to check where one is at and to what Finals event one can apply for. This is all on point, so far.

MyUTMB+

Just the name alone: Every product with a + added to it has either failed or people have revolted against it. Five, maybe already ten years into everyone corporation adding a + behind a word or their name and we all know what this usually means: “how can we extract more money out of you”.

Practically this section is new and essentially a ‘rewards system’ for frequent flyers of the UTMB World Series. Every corporation has been doing this for decades, every consumer signs up voluntarily or not, but mostly ends up hating it. Now UTMB has its’ own “+”. Here is what it does offer:

• special discounts to products from partner brands. Alright this is a reasonable thing to include, even though 12% off at Suunto, when they have sales every other month seems … not worthwhile. But it’s a great way for corporations to track their ROI, that’s why this exists.
• Below that special offer section is a big table labeled “My Rewards” and this is where things gets interesting (or really really boring, depending on your mood):

For each race you complete, or engagement with the brand, you earn points, and your points put you into one of three categories: “Explorer”, “Trailblazer”, “Summiter”. The more points you have, the more perks you receive. And the big advantages you get for being a ‘summiter’ (the highest tier) is priority access, private sale opportunities, and special booster treatment for the 2027 Finals registration. Translation: Run lots of UTMB events, get priority in the registration queue. A reward for loyal fans.

I say this again: every corporation feels the need to roll out a system like this, and train their customers like lab rats to accumulate frequent flyer miles, shopping rewards points, and other little treats, that forever feel out of reach, can always get tweaked to just not be worth anything to the consumer, but offer endless tantalizing ways to market and sell a products.

Strategically I believe this “feature” will show us a glimpse of how UMTB is planning on addressing the eventual pinch point where races in their series get too manifold and runners accumulate too many stones so that their lottery chances diminish – like we will witness tomorrow at the annual heartbreak day of the Western States and Hardrock lotteries. By introducing a tiered system the casual flyer might have stones, but will have to wait at the gate and will get a shitty crammed seat at the back of the airplane with no overhead bin space available. The loyal UTMB stone chasers on the other side will sit up front with a glass of champagne in hand. (Can you tell I just spend too much time at overcrowded airports?)

I am so tired. And of course the UTMB critics will laugh at me and tell me “told you so”.

And while I might get back at them and suggest that this is “harmless in the grand scheme of things” (I mean, they could’ve announced a peace prize for our mad king instead) it’s just so tiresome and sad. When corporations gets too big and have too many growth hackers and systems optimizers with MBAs on staff, products like these get shipped. “We’re leaving money on the table” someone in the C-suite yells, and the faithful underlings dedicate resources to extract cash from their customers rather than just do about anything better with their time and resources. Consumers are tired of being treated like cattle and even if they might not revolt, the bored and stale taste in their mouths will make the once exciting product feel mediocre and lame.

Maybe my sentiment here is heightened by three days looking at foams on shoes inside an air conditioned conference center. After a couple of good night sleeps I will feel different about all this and ready to chase indexes, stones, points,… and what else comes next. After all I do want to be “summiter” in a super shoes, who doesn’t.

Or maybe all of this just presents a huge chance for the next innovator?

Folks choose trail running because they want adventure in their lives. Want to be wild, experience freedom, flirt with risk, feel excitement only time in the mountains can bring. My trail run should not feel like standing in line at Starbucks. The more trail running “grows up”, “becomes corporate”, gets their “act cleaned up”, the less it actually reflects the reason why people choose this sport in the first place.

Spoke with RD Krissy Moehl at TRE this week about one of the most historic and perfectly typical PNW races, the Chuckanut 50K. She mentioned that they decided to reduce the number of entries allowed, as last year’s record number of runner, along with really bad weather resulted in trail damage on the ridge – the most famous aspect of the course (it’s since been fixed during several work parties).

• Race date: 21 March 2026
• Location: Bellingham, Washington
• Entry fee: $160
• Keen will step up as sponsor of the event, alongside Patagonia. (This reflects in how these two brands are supporting/sponsoring Krissy herself).

Side note (and one of the reasons I called it a typical PNW event): I couldn’t for the life of me find the entry fee posted anywhere on the official website. I had to create an account, find the race, register myself (almost), to see the entry fee in the shopping cart. UltraSignup continues to get a lot of scorn from folks in our industry, but they made it incredible easy for RDs to put all the necessary information front and center, heck, one doesn’t even need to have their own website to host a trail race. But once RDs opt to go away from USU and with a different registration platform some of the basic user experience and informational elements just end up being forgotten.

Anyway, if I remember correctly 600 spots will be available. Let’s go!

While I am decompressing on the couch, Raziq beat me to the punch and has his TRE write up already published:

A huge part of that is the people, and while I didn’t see any single huge standout piece of innovation at the expo, there is still much to be excited about.

I agree with his statement above wholeheartedly. I go to TRE for the people. And while the products are the reason for TRE’s existence nothing really wowed me – and to be fair, I too am not a product reviewer. I am sure there’s some fantastic foam innovation I have missed. But, back to the people. That’s why these annual gatherings are important and valuable. And thanks to the big brands for footing the bill to make it all happen, I promise I will buy lots of shoes next year to make it worthwhile for you to keep doing this.

Chris Z shares the reality of the math and illuminates the rollercoaster of emotions that is annual WSER lottery day in his newsletter Das Letter Z:

Here are the official preliminary counts for the 2026 lottery: there are 11,335 entrants and 93,140 total tickets in the hat.
…
The breakdown of entrants by how many tickets each person has matters a lot, because a few people with hundreds of tickets shift the odds dramatically for everyone else.

And how cruel numbers can make you feel:

The unfairness, the randomness, the statistical cruelty, they all reinforce the same romantic idea: if your name finally gets called, it means something. The lottery is unreasonable. It’s also beautiful. A machine built on math that keeps the myth alive.

Unreasonable, yet beautiful – could be the motto for our sport, distilled into a couple words.

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.

Links

• Morgan Powell’s design studio: Unthaw.co
• TRFF press release

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.