Trail Running Culture Doesn't Scale
The most important things in trail running can't be scaled.
Every few years trail running has the same argument: What happens to trail running culture as the sport grows?
Former ITRA President Bob Crowley’s answer is both simpler and more optimistic than most. Trail running culture doesn’t live in race organizations, private equity firms, governing bodies, or finish lines. It lives in behaviors passed from runner to runner, generation after generation.
Or as Bob puts it:
“We did not make this culture. We were made by it.”
It’s one of the most thoughtful responses I’ve read to the current conversation around growth, preservation, and the future of trail running.
I read Bob’s op-ed and responded on our latest podcast.
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Trail Running Culture Doesn’t Scale
Bob Crowley on why the culture of trail running exists beyond the institutions currently fighting over it.
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