Community Trail Running

“The conference is more about inviting people to come in and have conversations about taking leadership.” Terry Chiplin has been organizing the US Trail Running Conference for 11 years now. The conference has changed a lot over the years, now with a focused theme each year and the idea is the conference is a platform for all involved to grow the sport. This year that platform is taking place in Mu...

“My goal is to break generational poverty in the downtown communities and help newcomers, BIPOC folks, have access to these opportunities through sports.” Vincent Kuber is the type of person who knows an opportunity when he sees it. When he saw an opportunity to make the running scene in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, more inclusive and more inviting, he ran with it. When he received pushback...

Roslyn Braun and her father Randall own RouteArrows , a company that specializes in route marking. Whether it's road cycling, road running or trail running, RouteArrows has what you need to mark the way. Randall had participated in many events over the years, where some were marked better than others, and finally decided he had to offer a better solution. When Roslyn was old enough to start contri...

“Helping people see that running is just a chance to go have fun. It's a chance to go see what you’re capable of, but there is no obligation to do certain things, especially, just because you’ve done them in the past, It doesn’t mean you need to do it again in the future.” Andrew Miller has been trail running for 15 years and has been the youngest ever to win Western States (2016) along the way. H...

“From the first day I went out I had a blast out on the trails meeting new trail runners and I was hooked.” Sean Symes has gone full circle with Toronto Trail Runners , from chasing leads while discovering new trails to leading groups of wide-eyed trail runners. He’s clearly passionate about the community and the sport and I had a fantastic time learning more about trail running in the city of Tor...

“I know what those runners go through. What they have to do in order to succeed is just mind-boggling. So my favorite part is every year from 9 a.m. Saturday till 9 a.m. Sunday for 24 hours, I'm at the finish line. Everybody who finishes, I congratulate, high five, hug, I give the medals. I have goosebumps right now just thinking about it. It’s amazing.” Jakob Herrman is an experienced trail runne...

“We almost sold out the Rio this year in a relatively short time so I think we can sell it out next year. We just need to know where to focus our energy.” Today we are looking back at the Trail Running Film Festival and putting a bow on the whole thing with Jeannine Avelino . Jeannine was a huge part of putting the event together and I’m incredibly grateful for her help and support! It was great t...

The 2023 Trail Running Film Festival has officially come and gone from Vancouver, BC, and it was an incredible honour to host over 340 trail runners at the historic Rio Theatre . We enjoyed the amazing films together, raised some money for BC AdventureSmart , played some games and won some prizes, and we were so grateful to have Filsan Abdiaman of Project Love Run on hand as our special guest for...

“Every step of the way we are building community and we are delivering. I’ve not heard anybody that’s been disappointed.” Mathias Eichler is back! The man who wears all the hats puts on the Trail Running Film Festival Executive Producer hat as we chat all about the festival, which is happening here in Vancouver, BC, tonight! The Rio Theatre is set to host us with the doors opening at 6 and the sho...

“At the Big Creek campground, just above Lake Cushman, which sits above Hoodsport, which sits above the Hood Canal, which is right on the edge of the Olympic Mountains, on the Southeastern side of the Olympic Penninsula, right by the staircase entrance of the Olympic National Park, about an hour away from Olympia WA, which sits about halfway between Seattle and Portland, in the Pacific Northwest,...

“They’re all the small moments that I realized that I trail ran for. Those small moments, not necessarily for running itself.” Milo Zanecchia wanted to capture all the moments on a run when we aren’t running. We all know how distracted we can get on runs, for all kinds of reasons, but did you ever really think about how it all adds up? Milo’s film “The Reality of Running” features these moments in...

“For me, it started with a sketchbook. I’m dyslexic, so for me, reading and writing have always been a little bit more difficult and so when I wanted to share these wild crazy experiences outside, I didn’t do it through essays or a lot of words or poetry. It was always through sketches." Max Romey learned how to express himself through his artistic side. Now his creations are inspiring the artisti...

“She's so positive. She's wise. And she is so strong. She's so tough. And she inspires me. So yeah. It was an easy decision to pick Nettie to make my first movie.” Jessica Vandenbush chose Aneta (Nettie) Zeppetella to feature in her first film and it was a great decision. The film is super fun and Nettie is a character you will fall in love with. Jessica’s film is beautifully shot and it was great...

“Every single person, start to finish, is treated like they won the race, like they’ve been the most important person there. That’s a part of our DNA. Making sure that every single person that comes across the finish line feels celebrated.” Coast Mountain Trail Running is a finely tuned machine at this point. The group has been putting on events in British Columbia for quite some time, and they’ve...

“ It's one thing to prepare and succeed. It's another thing that's even more fulfilling to help others prepare and succeed”. Dave Melanson is the 5 Peaks Race Director here in British Columbia . He’s been around the series for years and describes taking the role as a natural transition. It certainly sounds that way as his love for the trail community and hosting events is evident. Dave was an awes...

“It’s just incredible to be around the stoke that so many BIPOC folks have for being in the mountains. It’s a privilege to be able to help them overcome some of the barriers and intimidation that people experience.” Safder Raza is a trail runner originally from Pakistan who calls Vancouver, BC, home these days. He got into trail running after seeing a few trail runners while he was orienteering an...

“When I first started researching, I didn't really see many people like me out on the mountains.” Deon Barrett has started True North Project because he wants to inspire. Barrett started TNP in January 2022 when his research showed that 6,098 people have summited Mt. Everest and 10 of those were Black People. The reason this particular project made sense to him was because of its grandeur. Barrett...

After the announcement last week it only made sense to get a quick podcast in about the Trail Running Film Festival coming to Vancouver, BC, on Tuesday April 18 at the Rio Theatre! Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Buy your tickets now! I’m incredibly excited to host and celebrate this wonderful community with a bunch of amazing trail runners. It will be fun to hang out in a differen...

“That's the part I'm enjoying the most right now, is just being able to kind of experiment and tell the stories I want to tell the way I want to tell them.” Jeff Pelletier has been trail running for over a decade and he’s been creating videos about his adventures since 2018. In that time he’s wracked up tens of thousands of followers and made some pretty inspiring content to consume! Whether he’s...

“What we've tried to do is work with events and work with media to try and represent the sport in the way that we would like it to be, which is one that actually represents the population as a whole.” Sonny Peart is a co-founder of Black Trail Runners . Peart recognized that Black people were underrepresented in trail events across the UK and decided to do something about it. The group didn’t have...

“It is the real deal. It is hard, but it's gorgeous. The views are incredible. You get to see some of those beautiful coastal mountain views. We do it on the summer solstice every year. So there's snow, which is always a fun piece to add in there.” The Kusam Klimb is under new race direction, as friend of the podcast and race director Myke Labelle and his crew at Coastline Endurance have taken ove...

“I'm the one who gets our staff to execute. I oversee our staff, our trail crew, our trail director, our marketing team, and everybody, and also help to ensure that our organization is moving forward, that we're not staying stagnant.” Deanne Cote works with the North Shore Mountain Bike Association ’s board of directors to execute their vision, “Trails for all and trails forever”. Trails forever i...

“We ended up getting horribly lost and all four of us came close to dying of exposure that night. My buddies and I made a pledge there and then after we kind of were saved, that we come back the next year and knock off the whole 180 km in one push.” - Ean Jackson Ean Jackson has been wrapped up in the Sunshine Coast Trail for quite some time now. What started as a group challenge has turned into a...

“I'm fortunate to have great staff and we all use the stuff. If we use it and we like it and it works, we can sell it. It's not rocket science, right?” - Dave Cressman Distance Runwear has been operating for over 11 years now. Located in Vancouver, and North Vancouver, BC, as well as online, Dave and Meghan Cressman, started the shop when they recognized an opportunity to differentiate their runni...

Kara Delwo of the Fraser Valley, BC, is passionate about putting on a great event. So when the race director spoke about hosting trail running races it was clear she wants to leave every single runner with fond memories. Her company “Heads or Trails” just opened registration for the Bear Mountain Trail Race (8km, 12km, 21km on May 13, 2023) and the Bear Mountain mountain bike race (11km or 23km on...