World Mountain and Trail Running Championships

For sure.

Yeah, I was pretty stoked when I saw your name announced as team manager because I feel like we really needed someone like you at Worlds last year.

Yeah, hopefully.

Yeah.

It'll be interesting to see how that impacts...

Like attendance, like will we see some of the best runners from outside of the US go to the US to go for that race? It sits in September.

So it's like after UTMB, before Worlds in Cape Town.

So it is somewhat like clashing with those two things.

I'm curious if any of these races, maybe Run Rabbit Run in particular, is a litmus test for whether or not events continue to invest in this part of the sport.

Like, if, if Run Rabbit puts this amount up, and then nothing really changes in the landscape, and for example, next year in '27, Worlds is still incredibly deep, no one siphoned there, UTMB is incredibly deep, no one siphoned there.

Maybe it doesn't change who's already invested in it, but, like, is that sort of like the-- could we see, like, an end for quite a bit of time to that even being a priority in '29 and beyond? That, that's an open question for me.

And what other talent is it pulling to the sport? Like, are you pulling s- runners from UTMB, or are you pulling, you know, top collegiate runners or, you know, folks who are on the cusp at marathon trials to, like, "Actually, I love running in Colorado at altitude already.

I think with, um, like, world championships, the amount of US runners that can go run that for, like, the long course, which I think is where the overlap would be, we're talking five or six runners.

I don't think that's gonna dilute things all that much.

Uh, if I were to look back at, you know, Gorge '24 and Gor- or Gorge '25, Gorge '26 as two examples, we saw that the field in Gorge '25, when it was a qualifier for the US Worlds team, was actually more competitive with no prize money than it was in 2026 when there was $15,000 on the line for first.

So, like, there's certain things, winning UTMB, winning Western States, winning a world championship, that I do think live in our heads from, like, childhood of, like, "I wanna do this," like, "I wanna be a world champion." I don't think you're ever gonna get rid of that narrative.

I mean, and that's the thing.

I, my hope, and I don't know if you feel the same way, is that in off years or just in general, that ETC will eventually become, I know it's a final, but it will be like the de facto world championship for the Mountain Classic in a lot of ways, where maybe Worlds will continue to elevate as well, but ETC will be it, and there'll be prize money, and there'll be a lot of things around it.

Just like OCC more so for the 50, 60K and CCC for the 100K.

I would really like to see it, but I think if they, if it happens, it will be because there will be another mass race.