“When you include us, you include us all.” —quote from the Born to Adapt website
Zach Friedley, professional adaptive athlete, and founder Born to Adapt, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated towards promoting inclusivity of disabled athletes in the trail running community, is realizing dreams he’s championed for years. Since its founding in 2021, Friedley has united disabled and non-disabled communities through his Born to Adapt events, held in partnership with major trail races and running events around the world. Each Born to Adapt event is unique, but consists of races, workshops and speaking engagements to educate communities and industry leaders on how to empower adaptive athletes on trails.
While Born to Adapt has grown consistently each year, it’s taken vast leaps in the past several years. In 2025/2026, the organization has a presence at eight events across the US and internationally (including New Zealand and Italy). The Broken Arrow Skyrace, the Paralympics, and the UTMB-sponsored Desert Rats in Fruita, CO, are several major events at which Born to Adapt has partnered with. In 2026 and beyond, Born to Adapt continues to professionalize as an organization, attract new sponsorships/partners and media, increase its global presence as the leader for adaptive athletes in trail running, and introduce new communities to adaptive sports.
The right mission sells itself
One of the major advancements for Born to Adapt in recent years is the inclusion of Dani Aravich, Paralympian, former The Trail Team athlete, and fellow advocate for adaptive athlete communities. Aravich and Friedley’s combined missions has allowed Born to Adapt to reach new heights. “Dani and I work closely together on things that we want to pursue, creating speaking engagements and events, and making content. She’s been incredible to work with,” said Zach Friedley.
Dani Aravich on the trails.
He continued describing how their partnership has allowed him to explore new roles and expand the reach of Born to Adapt, “I’m no longer doing as much cold outreach. I have a lot of people in my inbox that want to collaborate. We’re looking at hiring people and scaling the organization to have an operational budget. I can’t do this forever and the next steps will be to put the systems in place for this organization to continue long after me.”
In addition to Aravich, Friedley’s team also includes several more experts in both non-disabled and disabled trail running communities. The team includes Matt Bryson, David Kilgore, Dan Jones, Eric Orton, and many more. Friedley speaks of the ease in finding people that share his passion for the mission behind Born to Adapt, “I’ve learned that I don’t really have to convince partners to join, the right mission sells itself. With this mentality, it seems that the right people have joined. There’s not a lot of friction because the people who are a part of Born to Adapt all really believe in it and our mission.”
Pro Tip: Read about the Born to Adapt team (co-directors, advisors and board of directors) here.
Learn more about Aravich in this article, which dives into her athletic career and work as a disability rights specialist and co-founder of Culxtured, a media company dedicated to promoting visibility and changing narratives around adaptive athletes.
UTMB
Year one with UTMB North America
UTMB, one of the world’s leading trail race organizations based in Chamonix, France, has made advancements towards including adaptive athletes in its events through partnering with Born to Adapt (read more about UTMB’s Adaptive Athlete rules and regulations in their Inclusion and Diversity policies here).
In discussions with UTMB North American leaders, Born to Adapt is directing the first Para Trail Summit in Fruita, CO, at the Desert Rats by UTMB trail running festival. The event, which will be held from April 9 to 12, 2026, consists of races for adaptive athletes (non-disabled runners are also allowed to participate), speakers, and panel discussions to raise awareness of the adaptive athlete community on trails.
“It’s just the way I envisioned it all along. It’s all finally coming together,” said Friedley. He expressed his optimism for Born to Adapt’s future, “This is just the beginning. Born to Adapt is at a point of where it’s scaling and no longer just a dream or idea. It’s an actual movement and we’re really excited to see it take shape in 2026 and beyond.”
On the trails in Fruita, CO.
Power of connection
While Friedley still puts much energy into his training and professional adaptive athlete career, he is also mentoring one the adaptive trail running community’s next rising stars, Jahir Ramos, a twenty-one-year-old trail runner from a small Andean mountain village in Ecuador. Ramos has dreams to become a full-time professional trail runner, and is eager to compete in the Paralympics and trail races around the world. Friedley, and the Born to Adapt organization, is helping him make these dreams a reality.
Friedley’s first meeting with Ramos in 2022 was nothing short of life-changing for both Friedley and the young Ecuadorian. “I met Jahir on a trip to climb Cotopaxi mountain in Ecuador.” Similar to Friedley, Ramos was born with a congenital leg difference, and has worn a prosthetic since childhood.
At no time in his life had Friedley run with a fellow blade runner on a mountain, until Ramos. “I’m running by myself in the high Andes of Ecuador and all of a sudden, out of the left side of my eye, there was someone catching me. It was Jahir.”
Jahir Ramos.
Friedley and Ramos connected in his small village after the run. With assistance from a translator, Friedley shared his stories of trail running across the world with Ramos. “We had an incredible connection. He expressed to me very clearly, ‘I want to do what you do. How do I do it?’” said Friedley, who raised funds for Ramos to travel to his Born to Adapt event in Los Olivos, CA.
Since this event, Friedley’s support for Ramos has only continued to grow. The Born to Adapt organization raised funds for Ramos to acquire state-of-the-art running-specific and to become the first South American paraathlete to compete in the highly competitive UTMB OCC 50-kilometer race in Chamonix, France.
Friedley expressed how his relationship with Ramos has further inspired his mission to expand Born to Adapt to new places and communities, “If this movement can reach a kid in the middle of nowhere in Ecuador who has zero resources, but we can get him to the start line of OCC, the biggest 50k in the world, that completely fires me up. The whole process of being a coach, mentor, and even agent to Ramos, has been one of the greatest joys of my running career.”
Friedley’s travels have allowed him to bring positive change to adaptive athlete communities around the world, “My travels have inspired me to want to keep going, and continue to go places and meet disabled communities. We’re not in this alone and this is about empowering people around the world with the power of connection.”
On the trails in New Zealand.
In addition to Friedley’s life-changing trip to Ecuador and connection with Ramos, he’s also excited for the future of Born to Adapt in New Zealand. The 2026 event in Rotorua, NZ attracted a record number of 200 people, followed by an inaugural second event in Christchurch, NZ two weeks after. Friedley is optimistic about the future of Born to Adapt in New Zealand, “Next year, we’re on pace to host the largest disability focused event in the entire country, which is crazy. This all happened from travel and going there with the intent to connect.”
Parathlete headlines
Friedley wears many hats for Born to Adapt, including his increasingly occupying marketing roles. “My job is to convince people that parathletes have the same pull as any other well-respected professional runner. I’m trying to get these athletes into the spotlight.”
With sufficient time, money and energy poured into marketing, Friedley hopes that the world’s best adaptive athletes will begin to receive the recognition they deserve, “The reason we know about all of trail running’s stars, Courtney Dauwalter, Jim Walmsley, etc., is because of marketing. There’s plenty of adaptive athletes who are working just as hard as these great athletes, but you’ve probably never heard of them. It’s time to make a change and get their stories out there too.”
Zach Friedley on the trails.
Friedley‘s marketing efforts aim to build awareness of adaptive athletes through storytelling and strong marketing campaigns, “If we’re able to position these athletes with proper marketing and get brands behind them, it’s not too crazy to say that in the next few years trail running fans might have favorite parathletes they follow in the sport.”
Born to Adapt
Would you like to support Born to Adapt? Check out how you can participate and support the organization through volunteering, sponsoring or donating here.
