I had to blink the first time I landed on the product page for the Nike ACG Ultrafly Trail. I'd seen lots of promotional assets ahead of the release (see here and here), where the trainer is caked with mud. But in the end, it's hi-vis orange - and like any other brand-new shoe, being sold without a stain or scratch.
I call myself an artist-athlete, because both are really important in how I live my life, though I do put "artist" first in that configuration on purpose! I've been an artist for as long as I can remember, whereas athletics came a little later, and art is a little more reliable in the sense that even when I'm injured, I can focus on my artwork.
The biggest upgrade to this new model is a full Vibram Megagrip outsole with Traction Lugs. The new rubber underfoot significantly improves traction on slippery surfaces, and the 4-millimeter lugs, although slightly shorter than those on the previous version, provide grip both while climbing and descending. The other notable change to the shoe comes from four extra millimeters of midsole foam underfoot, increasing the stack height to 32 millimeters under the heel and 28 millimeters under the forefoot, creating a 4-millimeter drop.
Whereas Cash goes on to lament a man always looking for an exit, Aimee Kohler and her race organization, The Running Kind, welcome everyone with open arms. With its name inspired by the song title, kindness is the core of the organization, which has inclusivity at its heart and a mission to look after the planet. Kohler says it's about "caring for ourselves, caring for the planet, and caring for each other."
From September 25 to 28, some of the world's top mountain running and trail running athletes gathered in Canfranc, Spain, for the 2025 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships (WMTRC) to represent their countries in four different events. Historically, many top runners have opted to skip the world championships for various reasons, including busy race schedules, sponsorship conflicts, and financial considerations.
she was 17th overall and almost 34 minutes ahead of the second-place woman - she's been a world-class athlete in other sports nearly her entire life. At 33 years old, she's won world championship titles in six different sports, ranging from skyrunning to ski orienteering to snowrunning, and is currently tied for the most successful foot orienteer with 23 world titles, 11 of them won consecutively.
While it's easy to see that trail running and ultrarunning struggle with a lack of diversity, understanding how to address the issue has proven difficult in many sectors of the running space. Recently, the Running Industry Diversity Coalition (RIDC) released a guide, " Opening the Path to Trail Running: A Toolkit for Runners, Retailers, and Communities," designed to provide discrete and actionable steps that the running community can take to improve diversity in the sport. The RIDC is a non-profit that has been working to improve racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in running since 2020.
In a move that unites three global powerhouses of performance, heritage, and design, On, BEAMS, and REI Co-op have unveiled their highly anticipated limited-edition capsule collection. This collaboration bridges Swiss precision engineering, American outdoor legacy, and Japanese fashion sensibility, offering an expansive range of apparel, footwear, and gear designed to perform as well on a rocky trail as it does in the city.
Coming from a mostly skyrunning background, Hillary Gerardi of France arrives at the 2025 Trail World Championships Long Trail excited for the year's technical terrain. In our first interview with her, Hillary talks about growing up in America and finding trail racing once she moved to France, her love of skyrunning, her thoughts on how the course has something for every runner, and what it's like to make a world championships team after more than a decade of racing.
This year, the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships (WMTRC) will be held in the Spanish Pyrenees mountains from Thursday, September 25, through Sunday, September 28. The small Spanish mountain town of Canfranc, nestled deep in a mountain valley, is home to the historic Canfranc International Railway Station, now converted to a hotel, and a strong mountain running tradition. The four days of racing include an Uphill and Up and Down race as part of the World Mountain Running Championships,
The 45-kilometer (28 miles) TWC Short Trail race starts on Friday, September 26, at 8 a.m. CEST. The route is along the longtime CanfrancCanfranc Marathon course and in a single loop with 3,657 meters (12,000 feet) of climbing. Along the way, runners will take in most of the prior day's Uphill course, cross the French border and back again, and endure a wild 122 downhill curves from the Collado de Estiviellas to the finish.
NEAR ST. HELENS, Ore. It's a hot September afternoon as I set off running past farm fields into the woods on Sauvie Island, which lies at the meeting of the Columbia and Willamette rivers. It's a perfect trail for running with 60-year-old knees, the forest floor soft with leaves and pine needles. The gentle path offers views of the vast Columbia River. After a day of work, I love finding places like this, where I can turn off my brain and just move and breathe.
Just over a year ago, on September 2, 2024, Michelino Sunseri, now a 33-year-old professional trail runner, tagged the summit of Wyoming's Grand Teton and returned to the trailhead in 2 hours, 50 minutes, and 8 seconds, faster than the long-standing fastest known time (FKT) held by Andy Anderson since 2012. But while the clock said Sunseri was faster, a controversy kicked in almost immediately, landing him in federal court.
The Nike Wildhorse 10 ($165) is an excellent high-traction, responsive trail shoe for quick speeds on rough, rocky trails. It excels at anything from workouts to technical 100-kilometer races. It's a solid choice for those who enjoy the traction and ground feel of the Nike Kiger 9, but want a bit more rugged versatility than the Nike Pegasus Trail 5.
Hinted at on the ground during the 2025 Western States 100 but now official in the lead-up to this week's UTMB, the Nike Trail Team is now called the 22-member All Conditions Racing Department. More broadly, it signals what appears to be Nike's trail running products merging into the brand's existing All Conditions Gear (ACG) sub-brand. If we recall correctly, while ACG included Nike's true trail offerings back in the 1990s, in more recent years, ACG has appeared to be a fashion-first label in the "gorpcore" world.
"In the new film 'The Nomad,' we learn that Elazzaoui is much more than a fierce but warm competitor. We learn of his Berber heritage, how he comes from a traditionally nomadic family living at the edge of the Sahara Desert in southern Morocco."
