The Copperfield 5K Cold Run, set for October 11, 2025 in Louisville, KY, is adding extra excitement to this year’s event with a color-changing finisher medal designed and produced by X T-shirt.
Medal Tells the Story
The medal, shaped like a house to reflect the Copperfield neighborhood, transforms under sunlight:
Indoors it appears cool and neutral.
In sunlight it shifts to a warm red body with an icy blue “Cold Run” panel.
The color transition mirrors the race’s name and its support for Cold Capping therapy, highlighting both the energy of the runners and the cause behind the event.
“We wanted the medal to feel alive and meaningful,” said Ryan Zhu, founder of X T-shirt. “Its transformation under sunlight connects the race experience with the community’s spirit and the purpose it serves.”
Race Information
The Copperfield 5K Cold Run is a neighborhood race that supports Cold Capping, a treatment that helps chemotherapy patients preserve their hair.
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2025
Location: Copperfield neighborhood, Louisville, KY
X T-shirt creates interactive race apparel and medals, including glow-in-the-dark, color-changing (UV reactive), and sweat-activated (hydrochromic) technologies. Our mission is to transform standard race merchandise into memorable experiences that enhance participation, sponsorship, and community engagement.
Every race is unique. We provide free design services, tailoring shirts and medals to match each event’s theme — from 5K to marathons — ensuring every piece of merchandise feels like part of the story.
Free Samples
We also provide free samples so race directors can see and feel the quality before making decisions. Learn more at MagicRaceShirts.com.
At the end of September, athletes from around the world gathered in Canfranc, Spain, for the 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships. Unlike most trail and ultra races throughout the year, this was a chance for athletes to represent their countries on the world stage. It’s a unique format for racing, and several The North Face athletes had strong showings on the Pyrenean trails.
The biennial championships, comprising four major races across four days, are one of the biggest events on the off-road running calendar and attract many of the top athletes from around the world. The North Face had athletes running in two of those four races, both the Trail World ChampionshipsShort Trail and Long Trail. Both race routes were held on much more technical terrain than traditional trail races, and many athletes likened the courses more to skyrunning — with ridges, exposure, and endless rocks — than the more manicured trails that many events are gravitating toward.
Excelling in these courses required the right combination of technical skills and endurance, and several The North Face team members did exactly that.
Thanks so much to The North Facefor sponsoring iRunFar’s coverage of the 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships!
Zach Miller running with full focus with 10 kilometers to go at the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
The North Face Runners in the 2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail
Short may have been a bit of a misnomer for the 2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail event, a 45-kilometer (28 miles) race featuring more than 3,600 meters (12,000 feet) of elevation gain on the storied CanfrancCanfranc Marathon course. With a 1,400-meter (4,600 feet) climb straight out of the gate, which was followed by a technical descent and three more major climbs, the route rewarded fitness, pacing, and the ability to move smoothly and efficiently over difficult terrain. The North Face’s rising star Ruby Lindquist — who said she loved the course — ran a steady race throughout the day to take home 11th in 5:57:07 as the second American finisher in a competitive women’s race. She was within a minute of 10th place.
“Usually I can tell before races when I’m warming up how my body’s feeling, and if it’s going to be a decent day or not. Unfortunately, sometimes I just feel really laggy, but when I was warming up before this race, I was feeling pretty good,” Lindquist said. “And when I started, the first two hours felt really good.” Lindquist went on to explain, “I couldn’t figure out if it was just the adrenaline or if I actually felt good.” Adrenaline or not, Lindquist took full advantage. “I kind of just rode it the whole race. I was fortunate to have a really good day.”
Lindquist, 26, was a member of The North Face’s Athlete Development Program, which provides funding and education for athletes to accelerate their careers in outdoor sports. She signed a contract with The North Face after the program concluded last year.
“The North Face was the first group who helped me believe that I had a future in this,” Lindquist said. “I think that they really supported me at a time where I was at the very beginning of this career, where I didn’t even know if this could be a thing.”
The North Face’s Ruby Lindquist had a breakout performance at the 2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail, finishing in 11th place. Photo: World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
This run was perhaps the Alaskan runner’s biggest result on the world stage and capped off an impressive year. She won the Big Alta 28k in March before finishing second at Mt. Fuji Kai 70k a month later.
“Leading into [the Trail World Championships], my biggest drive was just that I’ve never competed on a stage that big, and I always had this feeling, if I do compete on a world stage, I could do pretty well,” Lindquist said. “But you just don’t know if you haven’t done it.”
She added, “Representing your country at the world championships is a pretty incredible and special honor.”
One of the unique aspects of the Trail World Championships events is that there’s also a team competition, with the times of the top three athletes from a nation adding together to form a final team time. Lindquist was the second American to finish, and was therefore a scoring member of the silver-medal winning women’s Team USA for the Short Trail.
In the men’s race, The North Face runner Seth Ruhling battled back from a tough start to finish as the fourth American and 32nd overall in 5:27:04. Ruhling ran a course record at the Black Canyon 100k in February before placing sixth at the Western States 100 in his 100-mile debut. The Trail World Championships Short Trail was a far cry from the much flatter and smoother California trails that Ruhling had spent the start of his year excelling on, but in a field of nearly 200 men containing some of the top technical runners in the world, Ruhling’s result shows incredible versatility.
Fellow The North Face runner Johnny Luna Lima, competing for Brazil, finished 70th in 5:46:39, and American Michelino Sunseri finished 81st in 5:53:11.
Seth Ruhling descending during the 2025 Trail World Championships Short Trail. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
The North Face Runners in the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail
While the Trail World Championships Long Trail race was only 81 kilometers (50.3 miles) in length, many of the top men were estimating finish times of nine to 10 hours. That is to say, the terrain on the mountainous loop around Canfranc, with 5,078 meters (16,600 feet) of elevation gain, was relatively slow and remarkably technical. Reaching the same high point as the prior day’s Short Trail and completing the route of the World Mountain Running Championships Uphill race, which took place two days before, there was no shortage of vert, rocks, and challenges.
Zach Miller leads two Team USA teammates on the first climb of the course, 5k into the event. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Zach Miller, one of the biggest names in American trail running and a perennial fan favorite for his candidness and all-out racing style, made it to as high as 10th place more than halfway through the race before finishing 18th in 9:44:01.
“I still haven’t sat down and jotted all my thoughts, but I’ve been telling people I’ve had mixed feelings about my about my performance,” Miller said. “What I don’t have mixed feelings about is that the course itself was really cool. The race that they put together this year was a very proper mountain race.”
Early on in the race, Miller was asking about the positions of his teammates and was visibly excited to hear how well everyone was doing.
“Our team was very good this year. All the guys on it are very good runners,” Miller said. “So I was like, ‘Well, I’d at least like to really try to score for the team.’ I was the third guy for our team, even though I would’ve liked to have been higher up in the field, I did score, so I was happy about that.”
Miller’s top-20 finish came just two months after his fifth-place finish at the Hardrock 100. Miller was part of the Team USA men’s team that also placed second at the Trail World Championships Long Trail in 2023, when Miller placed sixth overall, sandwiched between two other Team USA runners.
“I’ve been in world championships for a number of years now and I think this one was hands-down the most competitive one I’ve been to,” Miller said. “Which also made it very fun, because even though I was hoping to be higher up in the in the finish rankings, those guys out front just ran faster than I was thinking it was going to go, which was very impressive. The competitiveness was really cool, because all day long you were just battling.”
Tracen Knopp, another The North Face athlete competing for the U.S., used an impressive second half of the race to finish 25th in 9:58:03 in his debut at the world championships. Knopp, from Alaska, methodically moved his way up throughout the race, from 42nd just before 30k to 31st by 65k. He continued to pick off more runners in front of him to finish 25th.
“I thought Tracen did quite well,” Miller said. “The world championships are a challenging, competitive format, and a top 25 for him — that was strong work.”
Miller and Knopp’s finishes meant two of the top four runners on the second-place American men’s team were The North Face athletes, impressive performances on a true mountain course that tested every aspect of a runner’s skill, perseverance, and dedication.
Tracen Knopp ran an incredibly consistent race for his debut at Trail World Championships. Photo: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Paddy O’Leary, the charismatic Irish runner for The North Face, had an admittedly tough race in the Long Trail but gutted it out to the finish. He was 109th in 12:13:32. Though his performance in this race wasn’t what he had hoped for, he still had an impressive 2025, with a top-25 finish at Transgrancanaria Marathon and a fourth-place finish at the Big Alta 28k.
In the women’s Long Trail race, The North Face had two athletes competing for their countries. Germany’s Ida-Sophie Hegemann, who thrives in races with lots of elevation gain, finished 28th in 11:57:46. American Klaire Rhodes was 35th in 12:15:39, just two months after she placed fourth at the Eiger Ultra Trail 41k.
[Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by The North Face. Thank you to the brands for their sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar happen and is free for all to enjoy. Learn more about our sponsored articles.]
The North Face’s Paddy O’Leary running for Team Ireland at the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail. Photo: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
Host Scotty Sandow sits down with UltraRunning Magazine columnist Jared Beasley, an author and journalist who never expected to find himself embedded in the sport of ultrarunning and just wrote a new book called The Endurance Artist.
You’ve probably heard the old guidance that long runs should be run at one to two minutes per mile slower than your marathon pace. This guidance came from coaches and elite runners in the 1960s and 1970s—the first running boom in the U.S. And it worked at the time because the average marathon finish time was three and a half hours (over an hour faster than today).
But then the second boom in running occurred in the 1990s and 2000s, with the bulk of marathon finish times between 4:30:00 and 5:30:00. Marathon pace for a five-and-a-half-hour marathoner is 12:36 minutes per mile. Using the old 1-2 minutes slower per mile rule for long runs, the runner would never do any running (only walking), or if they did, it was uncomfortably slow.
The concept of endurance training related to marathon pace continues to cause great confusion. So how is an athlete to determine running pace if the 1-2 minutes slower than your marathon time rule no longer stands? It’s all based on training zones and your relative race pace at various times.
This article explores how these athletes—and their coaches—navigated the critical stretch between those summer “A” races and the World Championships using smart recovery, strategic training and data-informed decisions to peak again when it mattered most.
The new Mafate 5 represents a significant departure from its predecessor, dropping the “Speed” designation and embracing an even more cushioned, comfort-focused philosophy that prioritizes long-distance protection over technical agility.
Diana Fitzpatrick, a longtime Western States Endurance Run (WSER) board member whose tenure as the organization’s president was one of historic achievement for the organization, has been named a recipient of the prestigious “Little Cougar” award, WSER President Topher Gaylord announced.
The Little Cougar is awarded to individuals who have served the Western States Endurance Run organization through the years in extraordinarily significant ways. The Little Cougar is considered the pinnacle of all WSER awards and is not awarded annually. The most recent recipient of the Little Cougar was Ted Knudsen in 2019.
“Diana’s contributions to the Western States Endurance Run are among some of the most significant accomplishments WSER has ever seen,” Gaylord said. “Our organization has always been powered by the belief that no one single individual is greater than the whole, or is solely responsible for our successes. There are, however, individuals that exemplify leadership, teamwork, and organization stewardship who are so extraordinary in all of these areas that they are deserving of individual recognition. This is what Diana Fitzpatrick has meant to WSER. She has exemplified in her years with Western States as a runner, volunteer, pacer, crew member, board member, executive committee member and president the most worthy characteristics of a Little Cougar Award recipient.
“It is no stretch to say that Diana is a person whose involvement has made Western States better in every way.”
Fitzpatrick, who already had served as an aid station and trail work volunteer and had run Western States as a top over-40 runner, joined the Western States board in 2012. She was elected president of the organization in 2019 – becoming the first woman to ever be selected president of WSER – and served as WSER’s president until 2024.
Fitzpatrick’s presidency saw Western States successfully navigate several challenges, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as well as 2022’s devastating Mosquito Fire which destroyed several key areas of the Western States Trail and devastated some Gold Country communities, including Michigan Bluff.
“Throughout those difficult times, Diana was always steadfast in her ability to keep our organization focused on the runner experience, which is so central to everything we do at Western States,” Race Director Craig Thornley said. “She made sure the trail team was given the space and the support to do what it needed to do to bring the trail back in time for our event. As a leader, she never lost sight of how valuable our run, the trail we steward, and the volunteers who are giving their hearts and souls to our run, are in connecting communities of people for the common good.”
Gaylord said Fitzpatrick’s achievements speak to an abiding “100-mile mindset” that views Western States as having important tasks of the moment but also in “multi-year” segments that connects the organizations mission, vision and ideals with the future.
“She has always shown unwavering perseverance, particularly during those times when we face extremely complicated our multi-faceted issues,” Gaylord said.
As president, Fitzpatrick led Western States through a time of historic achievement, including:
Championing the organization’s ongoing Granite Chief Wilderness Reroute Project, and in leading the efforts to raise private donor grant funding to further the project;
Leading the organization through a period of governance realignment that included updates and the modernization of board bylaws, mission, vision, and values documents and overall board structure, as well as legal compliance in all aspects of run and board operations;
Ensuring that the run has continued access to key portions of the Western States Trail, including the area in and around Foresthill, working tirelessly with key stakeholders through ongoing communication and collaboration;
Formulating the composition and goals for key committees that have in turn developed new sponsorship agreements for the run, as well as the production of a Live Broadcast which has quickly become one of the best in the world. Her involvement on the WSER Community and Belonging Committee has led the organization to welcome runners of all backgrounds and abilities, including building a stronger relationship and acknowledgment of the Native American communities whose ancestral connection with the WS Trail goes back thousands of years. Fitzpatrick’s work was also central to the adoption of WSER’s drug testing policy and protocol, pregnancy deferral policy, and transgender athlete policy.
Participating in numerous volunteer opportunities throughout the year, including aid station work, and serving as a swamper and cross cutter at trail work weekends.
“Diana has always walked the talk when it comes to everything she has done with Western States,” Gaylord said. “Her attention to detail, commitment to always showing up, and relentless desire to see projects through to the end have been impressive and have helped transform the organization.”
Fitzpatrick, who is a five-time WSER finisher (all under 24 hours) and remains the only over-60 female runner to ever break 24 hours at Western States, remains on the WSER board and is still actively involved.
“Diana has been a mentor to the next generation on how to cultivate that spirit of giving back,” Gaylord said.
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Dr. Tamara “Tami” Hew-Butler has been named Medical Research Director for the Western States Endurance Run, WSER President Topher Gaylord announced.
Hew-Butler succeeds Dr. Emily Kraus and Dr. Megan Roche, who had served as Co-Medical Research Directors for WSER since 2022.
“Tami brings an impressive array of professional achievement as a clinician and scientist, having been published extensively in some of the world’s most important exercise science journals,” Gaylord said, noting that Hew-Butler was the lead author and organizer of three International Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia Consensus Guidelines and previously was awarded two WSER research grants, as Principal Investigator/PI, which in turn generated 18 scientific publications. “Tami knows our race intimately, having been a leader in several research studies at our run, as well as lending her expertise as part of our medical team in years past.
“Medical research has always been one of our foundational pillars at WSER. We feel that Tami will help elevate the awareness, application and understanding of the medical research that is conducted every year at our run.
“On behalf of our board, I wish to thank Emily and Megan for their tremendous service over the past three years. Both Emily and Megan are unwavering proponents of the value of science-based inquiry for endurance sports. Their work represented a highly productive and memorable chapter in our medical research story.”
“I am beyond grateful and honored to continue WSER’s scientific legacy of cutting-edge medical research aimed at improving the health, safety and performance of ultramarathon runners across the globe,” Hew-Butler said. “I believe that WSER is THE greatest field laboratory in the world, and look forward to working closely with the WSER Board, Medical Team, and running community at-large to expand WSER’s scientific collaborations, funding network, and dissemination of evidenced-based information which best serves the growth and safety of our sport.”
Added WSER Medical Director Andy Pasternak: “What became obvious during our search for a new medical research director was how incredibly well-rounded Tami is. She is an excellent communicator, and has an impressive track record of involvement with WSER medical research projects. She has made it very clear that her goals are to ensure that every WSER medical research project should in some way enhance the experience of runners at WSER as well as the ultrarunning community at large.
“In addition to being a highly organized and strategic thinker, Tami is very much a ‘hands-on,’ type of leader who over the years has contributed in numerous ways to WSER. Our search committee as well as the WSER board were deeply impressed with how Tami was able to communicate that the timeless human qualities that help a person run 100 miles will be at the core of her vision for our medical research effort.”
Hew-Butler, who is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, is a recently retired Associate Professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, as well as a Research Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. She received her Doctor of Podiatric Medicine degree from Temple University, and has been a clinician for more than three decades. She received her Ph.D. in exercise science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
For more than 40 years, medical research activity has played an important role at the Western States Endurance Run. WSER’s late Medical Director Dr. Robert Lind welcomed and encouraged researchers from throughout the country and the world to come to WSER and study its runners. One of the earliest studies that established the connection between the body’s release of endorphins and physical activity was conducted at WSER in 1981 by Dr. Walter Bortz of Stanford University. Since 2006, nearly 100 research publications or abstracts in human performance have been produced by researchers from throughout the world based on studies conducted on WSER runners.
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“If all goes well, the U.S. will come away from this with eight medals.”
That’s what Nancy Hobbs, the U.S. Track and Field Mountain-Ultra-Trail chairperson, told me before the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Canfranc, Spain, on September 25-28.
Hobbs is either exceptional at her job, or she owns a crystal ball. Headlined by Katie Schide and Jim Walmsley dominating the women’s and men’s Long Trail 82K on September 27, Team USA earned eight medals over four days of racing across the scenic and challenging trails in the Pyrenees.
Anna Gibson contributed to the haul with a bronze medal in the women’s Uphill race.
Plus Team USA earned a bronze medal in the men’s team Uphill race and silver medals in the men’s team Long Trail, women’s team Long Trail, and women’s team Classic. Together, those performances were enough to earn the U.S. a bronze medal in the overall federation team award, behind France and Italy.
By my count, this is the largest haul for Team USA at a World Mountain and Trail Running Championships (a mouthful abbreviated to WMTRC). But this year’s event, which included 1,600 athletes from 70 countries, was unquestionably the most competitive WMTRC to date.
“Knowing I can make the bottom step of the podium makes me want to strive for the top, but for where I am in my career, this third place medal feels like a huge accomplishment,” Gibson said. “The level of competition was really high. The race was extremely organized, in my opinion, and in a beautiful location.”
That leaves me wondering, why is the world champs gaining popularity among the best in the sport now?
Greater Than Oneself
Anna Gibson (U.S.) started the week on a high note for Team USA with a bronze medal in the women’s Uphill race. (Photo: WMRA)
“I wanted to compete for Team USA because it’s one of the highest honors you can have as an athlete,” Gibson said. “And also because I love the team aspect of coming together across brands and disciplines to be one united front.”
And indeed, a heartwarming international spirit pervaded the air around Canfranc over the four days of racing. The junior racers in the U20 event, especially, displayed an electricity sparked from their excitement to be there, coupled with nerves from representing their diverse collection of home countries.
Because of the mountain resort’s remote location, a solid 2-3-hour drive from population centers in Spain and France, the trails were mostly lined by cheering teammates during the first days of racing. Then, when more people were able to come for the weekend races, the enthusiasm stepped it up a couple notches.
One of the highlights was the amount of support crowd favorite Sunmaya Budha (Nepal) received during the Long Trail race, where she finished second behind Schide. The crowd in town roared when she emerged off the trail and ran through the inflated pillars marking the finish.
Nepal’s Sunmaya Budha takes second in the women’s Long Trail race in front of an enthusiastic crowd. (Photo: Courtesy WMRA)
But there are unique logistical challenges with coordinating a world championship event in a new place every two years. Because the mountain resort village of Canfranc is too small to house the droves of athletes and staff of the world championships, the teams were lodged a 20-minute drive away, in the more substantial city of Jaca.
While that posed minor inconveniences, the commute, along with messaging that only five athletes per federation were invited, resulted in sparse attendance at the opening ceremonies—often a highlight of this event. (It didn’t help that the U.S. team scheduled a team briefing at the same time.)
A Cobbled-Together System
Philemon Kiriago (Kenya) wins the men’s Classic race. (Photo: WMRA)
“So, the World Mountain Running Association, the International Trail Running Association, International Association of Ultrarunners, and World Athletics walk into a bar”
I know that sounds like the lead-in for a bad joke, and perhaps some find it to be, but the patched-together partnership among these organizing bodies is an interesting and evolving one.
In fact, the mountain running and trail running world championships were held as separate events until 2021, when the event officially consolidated as the WMTRC under a partnership of the World Mountain Running Association, International Trail Running Association, and the International Association of Ultrarunners. The real kicker, though, was the new oversight from World Athletics, the official governing body for track and field, which agreed to join the fray as governing officials push to put trail running in the Olympics in 2032.
That inaugural championship ended up getting delayed until November 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In just three years, the level of competition has taken off. We can see that by looking at the average UTMB index of the top 10 men’s and women’s finishers in the Long Trail, which this year was a burly 50 miles with 16,600 feet of climbing. In the women’s race, the average UTMB index has gone up from 761.7 in 2022 to 768.6 this fall. Similarly, in the men’s race, it’s improved from 875.2 in 2022 to 915.4.
The Rise of the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships
The pre-dawn start of the 2025 WMTRC Long Trail race, which covered 50 miles and 16,600 feet of climbing. (Photo: WMRA)
That leveling-up was reflected in my conversations with athletes on the ground in Canfranc, including veteran Team USA members Max King and Joe Gray, both former world mountain running champions. King found this U.S. squad to be the most stacked he’s ever seen. Same goes for the global level of competition, which included a dominant showing from Kenya in the Uphill and Classic Races with eight medals (including four gold), Uganda (nine medals), France (eight medals), and Italy (eight medals), plus commanding performances from Nina Engelhard (Germany) and Tove Alexandersson (Sweden).
The media attention around the sport, especially the live streaming of events like UTMB, Western States, and the Golden Trail Series, that displays to the world the stunning terrain and dynamic physical performances over rugged and dazzling landscapes, has helped inspire runners to take up the sport, King observed.
Now that WMTRC is also improving its live coverage production and getting more attention from various outlets, it will only help to increase interest. (That being said, WMTRC made a critical error this year in its skewed gender coverage, particularly in short-changing the women’s race during the Long Trail event.)
Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson dominated the women’s Short Trail race, winning by over 30 minutes. (Photo: Courtesy WMRA)
King has also observed a shift among trail running brands. A dozen years ago, when King and I were with the same brand, that brand effectively discouraged attendance at world championships through the bonus structure. Leaders at that brand, like others, saw participating at WMTRC as counterproductive, given that participants would be wearing Nike uniforms, which is and was the required kit for Americans. (Although athletes can choose their footwear.)
Racing at the world champs was also detrimental because it tied up athlete schedules for months. But that perspective appears to have changed. Now, many brands see worlds not as an event where their athletes parade around in Nike garb but, rather, as a forum where they sport Team USA. Likely, many brands have incentivized athletes by moving WMTRC from a tier 3 race to a tier 2 race, or a similar bonus increase, in their athlete contracts.
Indeed, I noticed representatives from several brands walking around the streets of Canfranc last week, although with little fanfare since Adidas Terrex was the presenting sponsor of the event.
Gray, 41, who has earned a spot on Team USA at every world championship event since 2008, similarly views the elevated media attention as helping fuel focus on the sport. He cites the increased participation from “crossover” athletes who move from track and field or road as a contributing source of increasing the competition level and interest in mountain and trail running.
He offered the examples of Simon Gutierrez, Pablo Vigil, and Jay Johnson as pioneers, and Gibson is blazing a similar path. Gray recognizes that now that worlds really does draw the best competition, it has earned the attention it well deserves, and sees brands incentivizing their athletes accordingly.
Toward a “Real” Sport
Nina Engelhard and Joyce Njeru embrace after finishing first and fourth in the women’s Classic race. (Photo: Courtesy WMRA)
Three years into their partnership, the WMRA, ITRA, IAU, and World Athletics get along now, for the most part, according to Hobbs, who has been a key representative at the WMRA for many years.
But the system still has its kinks. Hobbs references the discrepancies in how the various races were scored as an example. The three “mountain” races, the Uphill 6K, the Under 20 8K, and the Classic 14K, were scored using a cross-country scoring system: point places for the top three finishers of each country’s team and adding up the scores, with the lowest score winning.
Alternatively, the Short Trail 45K and the Long Trail 82K team scores were calculated by taking a team’s top three runners’ aggregate times. This is akin to the concept of ordinal numbers versus cardinal numbers. Then, scoring for the overall federation team award practically warranted a supercomputer to determine that France had 4,333 points, Italy 4,315 and the U.S. 4,279 for gold, silver, and bronze, respectively.
(In reality, this designation was determined with a grand scale cross-type scoring system, in which each place in every senior race received a numerical score. First place was awarded 250 points, second place got 249, and so on.)
Jim Walmsley wins the men’s Long Trail race. (Photo: WMRA)
While the prospect of adding trail running to the Olympics originally drew in World Athletics, it is the combination of all of these governing bodies that is hopefully helping align the sport, according to Paul Kirsch, U.S. Mountain Trail team leader. He also credits the growth in trail running and increased competition as drawing more attention from brands like Nike, observing that ACG, its off-road focus, is fully back in the game.
Kirsch says the athletes who run for the U.S. often remark to him how welcome it is to feel enveloped as part of a team, often the first time they felt that way since racing in college, although some of his U20 runners have yet to reach that stage.
For Kirsch, WMTRC provides “a special experience and as it continues to grow, we are seeing a true World Championship, with athletes from Africa and Asia joining countries from Australia, North and South America, and Europe. This just adds to the competitiveness of the races, which was really evident this past week. I’m looking forward to seeing the continued growth at Worlds in Cape Town.”
Kirsch said Confranc “reminded me of what is so special of the gathering of so many nations for friendly competition. There are many difficult situations going on in the world right now—and to bring everyone together in a peaceful way is what I hope for more of.”
Finally, Kirsch proudly reported, “and please quote me on this,” that the best sign that mountain trail running has finally reached its destination and been recognized as the real, competitive sport it has become is that he “no longer sees the snarky comments on Letsrun.com discussions about trail runners not being real runners.”
