The twelfth annual US Trail Running Conference, is underway in Knoxville, TN, and includes three days of panels, presentations, and networking from October 23 to 25, 2024. The Conference is presented by Marathon Printing and held in partnership with American Trail Running Association.
This year’s nearly 100 attendees include race directors, brands, and runners from across the country, and encompass a wide range of collective experiences, accomplishments and community-building events.
“Everyone in this room has one common denominator: a love of trail running.” — Paulette Odenthal, Race Director Run the Ritter.
The theme for the 2024 US Trail Running Conference, “Community and Culture,” was reflected by many of the speakers and attendees on the opening day. Listed below are highlights from the first day’s panels and presentations.
State of the sport
The opening panel, State of the Sport: Year Recap and Future Predictions, featured data from registration platform, UltraSignup, and commentary from co-owners of the platform Jay Kelley and David Callahan, as well as feedback from Tom Hooper of Six03Endurance and Shalini Bhajjan from Terrain Trail Runners.
“The 200 is the new 100,” said panel moderator, Corrine Trujillo Shalvoy, implying the 100 to 200% spike of the growing 200 mile distance that was shown in the data, but also – and more metaphorically – in terms of runners continuing to seek for new and greater challenges.
The UltraSignup data showed a steady growth rate, peaking in 2019 (with a strong drop off due to the COVID19 pandemic), and now in 2024 finally returning to post-pandemic levels, “It did take a good two and half years to recover,” said Kelley, who also broke down this growth into three categories: ultra, sub ultra and backyard. Insights from Kelley’s “candy store of data” was a 13.7% growth from backyard style races, 50K as the most popular trail event, and an overall 14% growth of the sport in all distances.
Personal anecdotes and analysis was shared about this data, “Recognition that this is an ecosystem and all races need each other to be successful is a key thing to mention,” said Callahan, who encouraged race directors in the room to show support for their counterparts of differing event types and distances, while warning of the kind of growing pains other sports such as triathlon have gone through because of rapid growth and unhealthy support systems amongst the community.
Other topics addressed the time frame participants choose to register, preferred types of swag, and the growing number of women in the sport. On this point the disparity between men and women was shown to be largest in ultramarathons (a steady 60 versus 30 percents in the past five years of men to women). Inspirational female figures such as Tara Dower and her Appalachian Trail FKT (top time male or female), as well as other women’s achievements on the trails amplified the data and suggested a trend toward a growing number of women in the sport.
Race director mentorship
The second panel focused on race director mentorship and included. Steven Aderholt, Cocodona 250, Robert Palmore, Black Men Run Trail and Ultra Running Fanatics, and Mandy Mullen, Windsor Race Series. The discussion was inspired by the conference’s inaugural race director membership program in which experienced “mentor” race directors were paired with less experienced race director “mentees.” Participants had access to a “Race Director Mentorship Program Guide” with specific content and strategies for the mentor, as well as mentee goals in 2024.
Content in the program guide was generated from a recent survey completed by Race Directors and Event Organizers who expressed an interest in participating in this new program. It also contains input from experienced Race Directors who have been both a mentor and mentee in their career.
The guide is organized into five sections:
● Establishing compatibility
● Agreeing on available resources and timing
● Establishing mechanisms to track progress
● What mentors and mentees have learned from a successful mentor
relationship
● The duration of a mentor relationship.
Mastering social media marketing
Following the mentorship presentation, Alex Ross provided marketing insights garnered from his time with RunColfax, the largest running event in the Rocky Mountains with over 25,000 participants. Ross reported that there are 5.07 billion social media users as of April 2024, breaking this number down into the particular user groups of platforms including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. “The key is not focusing on blasting out content to all users on these platforms, but to the particular demographics, types of peoples, and features of peoples and places related to your events,” said Ross.
A key strategy for Ross is to make the most of user content generated by participants of the event. “It can be scary, but being able to use and like user content makes them feel heard (and often feel like stars!). Viewers are able to learn way more about the experience of running our events and it is a way more powerful to share with potential runners. It’s a completely unfiltered kind of connection with our audiences.”
Ross also shared strategies and suggestions to optimize marketing. “Upload higher quality photos (which provides better reach on social media), measure user data, create posting schedules, make the most of celebration days (National Donut Day, International Dog Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.), provide value/building community in posting as opposed to solely promoting race registration or being perceived as overly self-promoting, and make the most of social media resources such as Buffer, Hootsuite, and Hanva.”
The importance of a race committee
Olivia Affuso, “outdoor adventurer” and Run828 foundation race director, Dale Garland of the Hardrock 100 and Matias Saari of Mount Marathon led an engaging discussion about forming race committees.
“When you start talking about the intricacies of events, collaborative thinking allows us to look at these complex decisions from a lot of points of view and not just that of one person,” said Garland. He went on to describe the importance of collaborating with others on his race board (which includes 27 members!) on difficult topics such as environmental and registration concerns.
“Training the next leaders of the organizations is something we prioritize as well,” said Affuso. “We need to think about creating a structure for how to pass the torch of our events.”
Other topics included how committee members can be best utilized, how to invest in race volunteers, resolving committee debates and compensation guidelines for key race roles.
New race format ideas
In this presentation, three innovative race directors shared their concepts for new race format ideas. Kirk Cherep, Trailblazer Running in Indiana, shared his concept of “Trail Golf.” Read more about his concept for trail golf and Trailblazer running here. Kim Field of All Things Fun Sports in WA, shared fun events such as the gnome themed Go Your Gnome Way and how she partners with local conservation groups to support Pacific Northwest sustainability initiatives for Orcas, salmon migrations, and going “cupless.”
Lyle Anderson of Milestone Events in Utah introduced the Zion 100-Mile Challenge, which deviated from the typical 100-mile race format, offering 60 hours (instead of the typical 30 to 36), a recovery lounge, massages, coaching, lodging and catered meals (not just aid station foods). The event encouraged amputees, legally blind runners and many first-time ultrarunners who may have been intimidated by 100-mile races to give the sport a try. “The community and intimate connections people were able to forge with the event were exceptional,” said Anderson.
Where It all started
“We forget what it’s like to run on a trail for the first time,” said event director Terry Chiplin. He proceeded to lead an interactive, meditative presentation encouraging the audience to reflect on their first experiences with trail running,
“We’re often reactive instead of intentionally proactive with our imagination,” said Chiplin. “I hope that reliving this first trail running memory can be the spark that continues to invite your trail running passion into your lives.”
Mental health journey
Chiplin’s presentation was followed by a trail running short film, The Long Path: A Mental Health Journey by Kim Levinsky, a conference attendee who shared her mental health struggles and advocacy efforts through this film. Bigger Than the Trail, a non-profit that provides free mental healthcare to those in need, was also a partner of the film. For those interested in learning more or screening the film, contact [email protected].
Closing out day one at the US Trail Running Conference
The day concluded with an evening of light appetizers, drinks and networking. Stay tuned for more content in the coming days here on trailrunner.com or Facebook and Instagram.
