ATRA Announces Partnership with Trail Run Project

The American Trail Running Association (ATRA) has formed a partnership with Boulder, Colorado-based Adventure Projects, creators of authentic communities for planning, doing, and sharing outdoor activities including the newly launched Trail Run Project.  ATRA’s website visitors can now search for trails using the new Find a Trail feature.

Inspired by the success of the company’s original community, Mountain Project – the definitive resource for the rock climbing community – Trail Run Project seeks to provide the best interactive trail maps and guides on the market. Trail Run Project offers guidebook-quality running trail information with the thoroughness of a printed map, and adds modern features such as navigation to trailheads, offline mapping, detailed descriptions, elevation profiles, photos, a race directory, and even the ability to take a “virtual run.” Trail data and photos are user-generated and carefully vetted by regional experts. Launch partner SmartWool has made Trail Run Project free to the running community.

This new partnership with ATRA includes a shared news feed, cross promotion to the trail running communities through social media, cross promotion of a Trail Run Project/Smartwool-sponsored contest, inclusion of interactive trail widgets, and more.

“We are eager to work with the team at Adventure Projects,” said Nancy Hobbs, ATRA executive director. “Helping spread the word about the good work being done by savvy outdoor enthusiasts, mirrors ATRA’s mission to promote our sport. We’re thrilled to be involved with a portal where trail runners can share their favorite trails and trail running experiences locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally through the Trail Run Project.”

“I am thrilled to partner with ATRA,” said Michael Ahnemann, Adventure Projects president and co-founder. “We love building great technology around the sports we’re passionate about, but that’s only part of it for us – our ultimate goal is to inspire as many people as possible to get out on the trail. I’m proud of the large, passionate community of climbers we’ve reached with Mountain Project, and I hope to do the same for trail runners. Working together with such a strong advocacy organization as ATRA will help us reach the right audience.”

Much of the work on this partnership will be expertly managed by ATRA’s Director of Online Marketing Richard Bolt. Bolt will be working closely with Adventure Projects to integrate the trail map features into several sections of trailrunner.com.

“I’m really excited about integrating Trail Run Project into trailrunner.com’s Find a Trail feature,” said Bolt. “Over the past 12 months of planning and building our new website, members and users told us how much they really wanted a map based trail finder to replace our old trail descriptions. Now with Trail Run Project, we’re able to turn that request into a reality. There are a lot of GPS-based mapping apps and tools out there, but this is the first one we found that really focuses on the needs of trail runners.”

ATRA is a non-profit 501 (c ) 3 corporation based in Colorado. Founded in 1996, ATRA’s mission is to represent and promote trail and mountain running. It is a membership-driven association with annual memberships available at several different levels. Corporations, events, and clubs are invited to join ATRA as sponsors, partners, or members.

ATRA’s many programs include a comprehensive online calendar of trail and mountain running events, a quarterly newsletter – Trail Times, monthly e-blasts with current information about the sport, and an events standards program which debuted in March 2012.

ATRA will again partner with Active at Altitude for the third annual Estes Trail Ascent Trail Running Conference slated to be held October 7-10, 2015, in Estes Park, CO. Additionally, ATRA is the fund raising arm for the U.S. Mountain Running Team.

ATRA is a member of USA Track & Field, Road Runners Club of America, International Skyrunning Federation, International Mountain Bicycling Association, and a founding member of Running USA.

To learn more about ATRA, visit www.trailrunner.com. To post your favorite trail, visit www.trailrunproject.com.