The Supply Chain of Trail Running Culture
Analog #17 | Western States' limits vs. UTMB's growth thesis, Tara Dower's next line, Nils Arend's last run, and more.
A weekly editor’s notebook from Borderlands.
Trail running, endurance culture, product, media, ambition, identity, and the signals that explain where the sport is going.
Contents
The Supply Chain of Culture
Trail Races | The Culture Pipeline
From the Wide(r) World of Running
From Borderlands
Our Tools and Experiments
Crazy Bobs Baer-Gutsman, started in 1974Presented by Kiprun
The Supply Chain of Culture
We spend a lot of time debating the institutions that display trail running culture while paying far less attention to the institutions that produce trail running culture.
Western States, UTMB, social media, etc ad nauseam displays it.
But none of them create it.
Culture is usually formed much earlier, at the local race where a volunteer hands you soup at midnight, where an experienced runner shows a newcomer how things work, or where someone sacrifices their own race to help another runner finish.
One of my early desert ultras found me without any food when I needed it. A woman stopped and emptied her bag for me. Gave me everything. She didn’t expect anything in return. Someone had done it for her years ago and she does it every chance she gets.
The real risk to trail running isn’t growth. It’s that the sport grows faster than its culture can reproduce itself.
Every community depends on a supply chain. Trail running’s supply chain isn’t shoes, sponsorships, or race entries. It’s values.
And unlike infrastructure, culture can’t simply be scaled. It has to be passed down.
An excerpt from a new podcast called WSER Wants to Protect, UTMB Wants to Grow.
Watch →
Listen →
Trail Races | The Culture Pipeline
Culture is learned at small, local trail races.
Big Bend 50
Badger Trail Races
Palo Dure Trail Run
Crazy Bob’s Bair Gutsman
Pony Express 100
Support local races.
From the Wide(r) World of Running
Shoes | new to us: Circle
Freetrailgaiting
2006 Collapse at WSER
Shoes | new to us: Flowers for Society
I Choose Not to Run
From Borderlands
Podcast | WSER Wants to Protect, UTMB Wants to Grow by Josh Rosenthal
Podcast | Michael Whiteside has no Offswitch by Josh Rosenthal
Essay | Tara Dower Lives Between Two World, WSER Tests Them Both by Bryce Carlson
Photo Essay | Nils Arend’s Last Running of TSP by Christian Brecheis
Almanac | NNormal Cadi, Made for Comfort, Not Kilian
Our Tools and Experiments
Wylder (iOS + Android) - we built a mobile app for run clubs
LoC (beta) - An intelligence layer for ultra-trail races
8 Bit Trail Running - online arcade for trail runners