The Voice of the Sport's Past and Future
Why I love UltraRunning Magazine, plus evergreen advice for newbie trail runners
Welcome back. Last weekend, I published this bonus post about the place that shaped me and my earliest memory from there. If you’d like to receive occasional bonus posts, an invitation to the monthly online meetup, and my deep gratitude for supporting my writing, please consider upgrading your subscription to the paid level. You also can earn a complimentary paid subscription by referring others to this newsletter. Thanks for reading!
This week’s post is a quickie, because I’m scrambling to get out the door to Sedona for Red Desert Trail Camps, a five-day getaway to run and write in the desert. I’ve written before about the value of retreats, and about choosing to spend disposable income on experiences rather than material stuff, and this is a gift to myself.
I hope you, too, might consider an athletic or creative retreat. Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s also “the gift that keeps on giving” in terms of positively affecting mindset and health after you return home. During anxiety-producing times, it’s worth viewing self-care and self-growth as a kind of self-defense, not selfish.
The voice of the sport
Today, I’d like to make a pitch for UltraRunning Magazine and excerpt my latest column in it. It’s a print magazine perennially worth reading, and its website has cool tools and features that more people should know about and use.
In a media landscape where print magazines like Trail Runner went all digital and now prioritize catchy social media posts and trendy service articles over thoughtful longer reads—all on a reader-unfriendly platform with ads constantly popping out and breaking the text to distract the eyes—UltraRunning’s print edition and website create a truly pleasurable reading experience with articles written by a collection of experienced coaches and interesting characters.
But will a new generation of readers keep UltraRunning—known as “the voice of the sport” since its founding in 1981—in print? I’m optimistic we’ll still get a print edition in the mail for at least a few years to come, but it’ll take new subscribers to sustain it, so please, subscribe.
The magazine’s future looks brighter since Jamil Coury and his company Steep Life Media (the media arm of his race outfit Aravaipa Running) acquired it last summer and Jamil became publisher. An ultrarunner I’ve long known and admired, Jamil keeps building success upon success.
In this excellent long interview from January with Jamil on the Singletrack Podcast, he talks at 1 hour, 33 minutes into the episode about why he stepped up to become publisher, why he’s committed to the print edition, and why UltraRunning remains important to the sport even as podcasts, videos, and live streaming have come to dominate coverage.
He highlighted some features of the website worth sharing here. One is the race finder, in my mind the best available. Ultrarunning’s calendar can be searched using filters, so for example if you want to find a 50K during the summer months in the Midwest region, just check those filters. The site also has a tab highlighting “old-school” ultras that are special for meeting certain criteria such as having a long history in the sport and giving back to their community.
The other feature that’s a treasure trove is the site’s database under its Results tab, especially the “runner search.” If you want to check out another runner’s or your own results, organized by stats and achievements, this is an excellent place to go to supplement Ultrasignup’s results search. The downside is, it’s not complete because it only contains North American ultra results. (On my results search, for example, it doesn’t show my 100K PR that I set at Tarawera in New Zealand.) Nonetheless, it’s a great snapshot of a runner’s experience.
It also provides coverage that goes way, way back—decades before iRunFar (my other go-to resource for ultrarunning news)—so if you want to research an ultrarunning topic, race, or person, then search their archives. For example, when I searched “Ann Trason,” I pulled up this gem from 1989.
I started reading UltraRunning in the late 1990s when I was ultra-curious but still just a road marathoner. Back then, the magazine was all black and white and featured grainy photos but was the only place to find out about athletes, races, results, and practical ultra advice. I wrote my first article for it in the January 2003 issue, “In This Race, It’s OK to Take a Ride” about the sport of ride and tie, and periodically wrote race reports and features in the years that followed.
In 2017, I was asked to be a columnist, and I’ve written a piece under the heading “Sarah’s Stories” in most issues of the magazine since then. I greatly appreciate editor Amy Clark and all she does to produce each issue!
Timeless tips for rookie trail runners
In my latest UltraRunning column, “If Only I Knew Then What I Know Now,” I shared the type of advice I typically share with newer trail runners facing their first big ultra—tips like, don’t bother with a drop bag unless you truly need something that you can’t get from an aid station, such as overnight clothing and a headlamp, because retrieving and going through the bag is a time suck; and, ladies, wear regular shorts on race day instead of compression shorts or capris because then it’s easier to pee quickly while standing trailside (yes, standing instead of squatting—just pull the shorts’ crotch to the side!).
I won’t share the full column here (you’ll need to subscribe to read it), but it gave me an idea:
Why don’t we get a comments thread going with your top tips for rookies who are training for or racing their first big ultra? Please share one or two nuggets of mountain/ultra/trail wisdom below!
One last reading rec: Since I’m going to Sedona, I pulled up this guide to Sedona trails by ultrarunner Jade Belzberg. If you’re thinking about Sedona as a hiking or running destination, check it out.
One last question: What print magazines, if any, do you still read? In addition to UltraRunning, I read the print editions of Like the Wind, Western Horseman, Telluride Magazine, and I recently subscribed to Mountain Gazette. (I get the digital, not print, version of High Country News, and I find myself not making time regularly to read it. I find a magazine needs to be physical, sitting near me, for me to read it, not another to-be-read link in my inbox.) I encourage you to comment below on your magazine consumption in addition to sharing an ultrarunning tip.
I love getting URM in the mail, truly I look forward to it every month and have been a long time subscriber, print is important, please keep it up! I also love Mountain Gazette as a mountain dweller, one of the finest out there, pricey for 2 issues a year but well worth it.
Evergreen advice: Assuming you are going to train and be prepared, make sure to NOT run too much and overtrain. Unless you are trying to place in the top 10 somewhere, less is often more as I work with so many athletes that overtrain, injure themselves and burnout. Have seasons where you do not train, you're just out there for fun, and have a mother sport that you like, ie. skiing, biking, etc. Sometimes I think my longevity in this sport has been because of a lack of time to overtrain for most of it. Also, and this is catamount, immerse yourself in the culture and history and get involved in your local trail and ultra scene, volunteer, support non profit and local races year after year, give back and cultivate that community where you live. This is so important!
I subscribe to Ultrarunning and also Adventure Journal. I love print media because there are no distractions and it actually ends.
My advice for newbie trail runners is to always remember that even a bad trail run is still a hike, and that’s not too bad.