Now in its fourth year, Joe McConaughy’s All In Trail Coaching Scholarship program for rising trail runners will offer more opportunities in 2025 than ever before. McConaughy, accomplished FKTer, Cocodona 250 Champion, sub-4 minute miler, running coach, and professional athlete sponsored by Brooks Running seeks to continue sharing his coaching expertise, build community and address the problem of how to guide talented and underrepresented runners into the sport.
Athletes aged 20 to 29 can apply for the program from December 3, 2024, to January 2, 2025, to receive year-long one-on-one coaching, race opportunities, racing/training gear/nutrition products and much more. Additionally, applicants can apply for the All In Trail Collective, an online community designed to support athletes that might not be in a position to work with a coach. The collective offers virtual educational seminars, networking, discounted race entries, and much more.
This year’s coaches for the All In Trail Scholarship program are Jarred Ervin, Jess Schnier, Rachel Lemcke, Yassine Diboun, Ryan Miller, Lindsey McDonald, Danielle Snyder, and Joe McConaughy. Sixteen to twenty athletes will be selected for 2025.
Curious to see how far the All In Trail Coaching Scholarship has come since 2021? Read our interview with McConaughy prior to year one of the program here!
New partnerships
While the first two years of the program sought to build community, the goals of the 2024 and 2025 program have shifted to include more focus on partnerships that offer additional benefits to scholarship recipients at races. McConaughy explains this development, “In the last two years, we’ve tried to step up the benefits for athletes in the program. One of the more fun developments has definitely been working with race organizations to get scholarship athletes free or discounted race entries. Expanding the opportunities for athletes to test themselves has been great.”
The All In Trail Scholarship program has partnered with Rainshadow Running, Mountain Running Races, Aravaipa Running, Trail Animals Running Club and Tejas Trails.
Additionally, the group has partnered with specific brands that offer benefits to athletes including Brooks Running, Näak, Squirrel’s Nut Butter and Injinji.
Expanding reach
McConaughy and the scholarship coaches’ connections in the New England and Pacific Northwest drew the majority of applicants from these regions in the first years of the program. In 2025, the reach has expanded more broadly across the country. McConaughy explains his efforts to bring awareness of the program to a variety of athletes, “We do our best to align with regional groups who help us make an impact and get the word out about the opportunities we’re offering to up and coming trail runners. Our mission is to help younger athletes get exposed to the sport, particularly those who aren’t represented in the trail running community already.”
McConaughy explains the mission further, “We hope to remove barriers and make the path into trail running more straightforward to a broader community of people.” There’s still room to grow, but McConaughy is optimistic that the reach has expanded through the community of previous scholarship recipients, All In Trail Collective members, and coaches with a diverse set of geographical locations and unique backgrounds and experiences.
Long term athlete development
The one-on-one scholarship program may only last a year, but the benefits and connections to its athletes are intended to go much further. Barrett Gray, a scholarship athlete from the first year of the program in 2022 has continued to receive coaching from the All In Trail coaching staff. In 2024, Gray had her best result yet, placing third at the Run Rabbit Run 100 mile race.
McConaughy hopes the program will continue to assist athletes throughout their careers, “A coach can do a lot in a year, but an athlete’s athletic journey is a lot longer than that. A year’s enough time to leave a footprint, but not necessarily guide someone through the entire process. We hope the scholarship will give people the skills and foundation to continue on.”
The reception to the program has been overwhelmingly positive. McConaughy says on this point, “It’s fun to meet previous athletes at events and see how they’ve grown, or to hear back from them how they felt the program positively impacted them in some way, shape or form.”
How to apply
If you are interested in applying for either the scholarship or All In Trail Collective view the requirements at the link here.
Applicants will submit written responses to the following prompts:
Please describe your running and athletic background (3,000 character limit, ~500 words)
Why do you wish to apply? Will this experience contribute to your personal or professional goals, or impact your community? (3,000 character limit, ~500 words)
What running goals do you have for the next year? For the next 5 years? (1,500 character limit, ~250 words)
Previous athlete goals have been as diverse as completing a 100 mile race, qualifying for the USATF 100-kilometer national team, running the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim route, and completing specific projects within their community (read about Navajo runner and 2024 scholarship recipient Timberlin Henderson’s community project runs here).
Coach and athlete pairings for the scholarships are determined by a specific process that involves both input from the coaches and requests from the athletes (first choice, second choice, etc.). Learn more about the list of coaches for the 2025 scholarship here.
Not sure if this scholarship is for you? McConaughy says on this point, “One of the hardest things for us to communicate is that if you’re on the fence about applying, it’s better to apply than to not apply. There’s so much imposter syndrome and we know there are many more amazing athletes out there we’d love to support, so please apply!”
Want to support the scholarship? Follow the All In Trail Coaching Scholarship on their Instragram here. Spread the message to support the next generation of trail running!
