Foggy skies with temperatures in the mid-50s greeted the nearly 250 runners competing in the Birkie Trail Run Festival Half Marathon, which hosted the USATF Half Marathon Trail Championships on Saturday, September 26. To comply with state and local COVID-19 guidelines, the race featured staggered starts with small groups of runners. The USA Track &… Read more »
It’s been six months since the last USA Track & Field Mountain Ultra Trail (MUT) championship took place in Auburn, California at the Pioneer Spirit 50 Mile. Since then, the coronavirus pandemic has lead to five 2020 championships and world championships team selection races being cancelled. As we enter the last quarter of the year… Read more »
Earlier this month, the Kodiak Ultra Marathons, host of the North American Spartan Trail World Championships, was set to take place in Big Bear, California. Unfortunately, despite extensive planning to accommodate for COVID-19 guidelines, the race was cancelled due to severe fire danger. The San Bernardino National Forest officials revoked the race permits for the… Read more »
Written by Hillary Osborne for the Fall 2020 issue of our Trail Times newsletter. Hillary is a NSCA certified personal trainer and strength coach with Lifelong Endurance. She is a Colorado resident and ultrarunner who runs for The Adrenalin Project. Running is the best, right? You can spend hours grooving on that smooth single track…. Read more »
Written by Andrew Simmons for the fall 2020 edition of our Trail Times newsletter. Andrew is the Head Coach for Lifelong Endurance. Working with a coach might seem like a privilege reserved for professional trail runners whose paychecks depend on their next performance, and an “over the top” purchase for runners that fall in the… Read more »
As the non-profit American Trail Running Association approaches a quarter century of service, we are featuring trail runners from around the United States who are participating in our 25th Anniversary Challenge. Through these profiles we’ll introduce you to challenge participants who are walking, hiking, or trail running their way to distance milestones and sharing in… Read more »
Trail race report written by ATRA contributor Laura Clark (pictured below). Laura is an avid mountain, trail and snowshoe runner who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY, where she is a children’s librarian. The Thacher Park Trail Running Festival was held on August 23, 2020 in Voorheesville, NY and offered race distances from 10K to 50K…. Read more »
American Trail Running Association corporate member LEKI interviewed Pau Capell after his FKT attempt last month to break 20 hours on the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc course. Photos Jordi Saragossa. August 27-28 (Chamonix, France) – In arguably the most spectacular European FKT attempt of the season, 28 year old Pau Capell tried to beat the 20… Read more »
The first time I met Brittany Charboneau was in the summer of 2019 at a Peak Performance Running practice for youth athletes in Golden (Colorado). Both Charboneau and I were helping with the practice and we ended up having a conversation about trail running. She didn’t know much about the sport, but picked my brain… Read more »
Vic Thasiah, Executive Director of Runners for Public Lands, will be the keynote speaker at the US Trail Running Conference to be held in a hybrid format October 21-24, 2020, in Fayetteville, Arkansas with both in-person and virtual options. Runners for Public Lands is building an inclusive community around running, and protecting and restoring the… Read more »
Compared to the physical side of training, mental training is often overlooked. However, this training aspect is just as important to improving your performances at competitions and being the best runner you can be. Unfortunately, there can be a negative stigma surrounding mental training. Many runners think they only need to work on mental training… Read more »
Are you ready for part two of the Chaski Challenge? This past June, elite runners from around the world brought down eight treadmill world records in the virtual live broadcast Chaski Challenge “Festival of Records.” The event also featured a free mass-participation virtual race. This week ending September 13th, the Chaski Endurance Collective is launching… Read more »
Press release from long-time American Trail Running Association corporate member Salomon Running. Salomon, the global leader in trail running and winter sports equipment, unveils the Index.01, a ready-to-recycle performance road running shoe. The shoe is the result of three years of research and development at Salomon’s Annecy Design Center in the French Alps, developed to… Read more »
Week one is in the books! Kicking off on September 1, our 25th Anniversary Challenge got underway with participants sharing photos from their runs wearing mismatching socks and race T-shirts at least five years old. These hearty trail runners posted on our 25th Anniversary Challenge Facebook page. Here are some highlights: Denise Flory was getting… Read more »
The 2020 World Mountain Running Championships and World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships originally scheduled for November 13/14 in Lanzarote, Spain have been cancelled by the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA). As a result of this cancellation, US team selection which was supposed to start this month, has been suspended. The USATF Mountain, Ultra, Trail… Read more »
This past weekend, the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) staged its Virtual Global Solidarity Run, an event pitting athletes from national federations against one another as they ran a 6-hour virtual challenge. According to the IAU, “Athletes need to have some motivation to train and compete during these difficult times but need to do so… Read more »
Trail race report written by ATRA contributor Laura Clark. Laura is an avid mountain, trail and snowshoe runner who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY, where she is a children’s librarian. The 2020 Dippikill Froggy Five trail race took place on private property in North Creek, New York with modifications for COVID-19. Photos courtesy of the… Read more »
This is the story of my return to competitive racing after a three-year hiatus. I haven’t had a race where I felt like I was running 100% normal since the 2017 World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships in Premana, Italy — that is until this past weekend at the Pikes Peak Marathon in Manitou Springs,… Read more »
Five experienced trail runners have been named regional “team captains” for our 25th Anniversary Challenge which opened registration on the 25th day of August and kicks off on September 1. Founded in 1996, the American Trail Running Association will be 25 years young in 2021. This three-tiered virtual event kicks off with the first challenge… Read more »
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, it seems like more runners than ever are attempting FKTs (Fastest Known Times), Strava Segments or Challenges. One might even say it’s been the summer of “FKTs,” as we’ve seen many prominent FKT records challenged or broken including the Colorado’s Nolan’s 14, the Colorado Trail, Adirondack (New York) 46 High… Read more »
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