After almost a month removed from the seventh edition of the Broken Arrow Skyrace, I’ve finally taken the time to sit down and reflect on my experience at this world class event. It was difficult to put words to paper given how much emotion I had wrapped up in just one weekend, but here we are. Broken Arrow takes place on hallowed ground in the heart of Olympic Valley. It is a pristine alpine valley, surrounded in part by Granite Chief & Washeshu Peaks to the north and Lake Tahoe just a stones throw away to the south. Dylan Bowman described Olympic Valley as the “Wrigley Field” of trail an ..read more

In 2021, my partner and I moved from the overcrowded, materialistic South Florida in search of a more fulfilling life in Colorado Springs. The move was triggered from years of feeling disconnected from the values and lifestyle of South Florida and a hunger for adventure. When I graduated from business school and landed a job in corporate finance, I quickly learned that status quo was not for me. I turned to trail running in search of grass root connections, yet the more I ran, the more I felt the call for a change and a challenge. After a trip to the Pikes Peak region, and my first ultra, we r ..read more

November 5, 2021 Pursuing a Fastest Known Time on the Tuckup Trail Some adventures are more involved than others. The Tuckup happens to fall on the ‘more involved’ end of the spectrum; traversing the entire route tests not just your endurance and navigation skills but also your willingness to suffer. Thankfully Ashly Winchester and I possess plenty of the latter, as well as some degree of the former. What is the Tuckup, you may ask? It is a remote, rugged trail on the Esplanade level of the Grand Canyon — on the very remote and hard-to-access west end of the already quite remote and hard-to-ac ..read more

Running to champion health and wellness in the Latino community Participants at the 2021 Latinas Run Summit Run Your Own Trail supports participation of women on the trails and elevates female voices in the outdoors. Emphasizing individuality of female runners, Run Your Own Trail tells the stories of female athletes who are strong on and off the trail. This year we partnered with Latinas Run to provide two female or female-identifying runners from Latinas Run the opportunity to attend Latinas Run Summit and tell their Run Your Own Trail story. Launched in NYC, Latinos Run is an international o ..read more

I doubt anyone in the UK will get the Lee Corso reference, but up front I wanted to clarify my final thoughts on the never-ending “record” vs. “FKT” debate. To be honest, I don’t really care. If the person hearing the term knows what it means, and the person using it doesn’t mean to offend, then I don’t care. Like when I slip up here and say “no pickles please” instead of “no gherkins” people generally just pause for a second, smile, and then get on with it. To me this one is like the relationship between squares and rectangles. All squares (records) are rectangles (FKTs) but a rectangle isn’t ..read more

By John Kelly I’ve made a bit of a habit of setting out to do things that I’m not sure are possible. Mike Hartley’s 31 year old record on the Pennine Way, England’s first national trail, fell squarely in that category – not just as something that I might not currently be capable of but as something that might not ever be within reach. I ended up besting his time by just 34 minutes, roughly equivalent to the ~30 seconds per hour margin I had when I finished Barkley. Given some of the unexpected “bonus” challenges I encountered along the way, this was without question the most dem ..read more

When people ask me how I can push on during my extremely long Fastest Known Time attempts (Pacific Crest Trail 2016, Appalachian Trail 2018), my reply is always: nature. The eternal joy of spending time running on a singletrack, for hours on end, with curiosity to see what’s around the next bend. Seeing sunrises, sunsets, encounters with wildlife. I realized, by running those long FKT’s, that just this side of ultrarunning, when nature is not there as a main drive to push on, is also very interesting, and perhaps also worth running and suffering for. Hence my consideration of participating in ..read more

What would you do with your life if no one was there to judge your decisions? If there was no concept of what’s the right way to live?   My name is Rea, and I’m a professional athlete living in Denver, Colorado. Most of the time, though, you can find me in my van exploring the mountains. I love my life; nights when I can’t fall asleep because I’m so excited about the adventure awaiting tomorrow outweigh those mornings when I don’t want to get out of bed by a million. But it wasn’t always like that.   Growing up, sports have always meant the most to ..read more

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong [woman] stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the [woman] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends [herself] in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at ..read more

By UD ambassador, Kyle Robidoux The past few months have impacted everyone’s daily lives. Whether it is work, school, child care, or staying active, we all have had to adjust and adapt. Although issues like employment, housing, and one’s health is incredibly important, being active has tremendous impact on our physical and mental well-being. Arguable now more than ever.   Like everyone, I have had to adjust my running routine as COVID-19 ran havoc through Boston. As a runner who is legally blind, I do most of my outdoor running with the support of a sighted guide. Out ..read more