C is for Community. C is for Culture.
Trail is HERE FOR THE WOMEN’S RACE, but what about for other races?
It’s been one heck of a week. Yesterday, I ran the Abbot Kinney mile race twice. First with my eldest, and then with my dog. Exhausting! And that was after finding myself in Olympic Valley in Palisades Tahoe earlier this week for TrailCon – the industry event between Broken Arrow and Western States that is also open to the public.
TrailCon’s curious lack of diversity
I was on a panel talking about independent media in the world of running. It was quite the privilege to be asked to sit alongside the likes of Simon Freeman, Zoe Rom, Ashley Mateo and Thomas Neuberger. These are people who have forged a beautiful path in this world for over a decade. Me? Just three years.
The thing we have in common is that we are all mission-based.
Simon wanted to make a running magazine beautiful enough for you to display on your coffee table
Zoe campaigns for sustainability, public lands and runners’ diets
Ashley wanted to create a magazine centered around women
Thomas demystifies the world of running shoes in a way that didn’t exist before.
A bunch of absolute titans of this industry. They’re determined to make the world a better place by telling in-depth stories in glorious technicolor. With my book, I share a deep love of aesthetics with Simon and Ashley, but this newsletter is all about the topics.
I take on a variety of cultural issues ranging from feminism and how run clubs manifest in society through to South Asians in the world of running – the most personal of issues. I believe that we’re the smallest minority of runners here in the USA, so leading the way in highlighting stories of runners with ties to the Indian Subcontinent feels like a necessity.
There’s long been talk about the lack of diversity in trail, and races like Broken Arrow have been working hard to implement initiatives to remedy the situation, but issues remain.
An interesting observation from Vivek Gowri, the owner of SF Run Co, was that of the 70 or so people speaking on panels, 90% were white, and there wasn’t even a panel talking about diversity. It was an interesting juxtaposition to Broken Arrow’s very loud desire to change things.
I sat in on a conversation about preserving the culture and community of trail running, which was spearheaded by a small group of (very-well-meaning) middle-aged white men. In those situations, I think it helps to begin by asking two questions:
Who makes up the community?
What is the culture you’re trying to preserve?
If we understand that running is a subculture of mainstream society, and that trail and ultra running is a further division of running culture, it’s actually a very compelling scenario in which to enact change among like-minded people.
There were repeated comparisons to skateboarding, and I reject them wholeheartedly based on the simple fact that skateboarders are cool. Skating is an anti-establishment subculture. Skaters challenge societal norms simply by using the built environment (parking lots, stairs, railings) for a secondary, often-destructive recreational activity.
Trail running on the other hand is just running through public lands with thousands of dollars of equipment, occasionally adding another hefty bill (entry, flights, hotel, crew) to run a race. The time and money required dictates that trail runners come from a different socio-economic class than those who take a board to a parking lot to grind curbs.
It makes some sense, then, that trail in the USA seems to be governed by those middle-aged white guys. That’s how this world has been built, after all. The demographic makeup is somewhat different out on the trails, but maybe skateboarding was the same, and had the same set of people making marketing decisions.
Please note that emphasis of those leading the conversation being well-meaning. I really do believe in the leaders of this trail community’s desire to make it the best place possible. Let your eyes scan around at any moment during either race or the TrailCon hinterland, and you’ll spot some bold, all caps HERE FOR THE WOMEN’S RACE merchandise.
50% of the TrailCon panelists were women. Pressure to get to this point has certainly come from HERE FOR THE WOMEN’S RACE over the last couple of years. That’s fantastic, but it’s important to reiterate that 90% are white. What about my race?
Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how overlapping social and political identities (such as race, gender, class, and sexuality) combine to create unique experiences of discrimination and privilege.
In my mind, intersectionality is the greatest proponent of present-day feminism – some see women as the largest minority, after all – and the trail world has some work to do. There are blind spots that can’t be addressed until the social and demographic makeup of the decision-makers achieves some level of diversity.
It’s abundantly clear that racial diversity is an afterthought right now; something to address at the end. If you have time. For people like me, however, it’s difficult to walk around in these monocultural spaces without thinking of ways to fix the environment so it more accurately reflects the world that I see.
There is hope, of course. I can’t wait to see what Vivek does at SFRC, and Tommie Runz was walking around all week wearing his new t-shirt, emblazoned with, ‘BLACK SKIN LOOKS GOOD ON TRAIL.’ Kilian Jornet told me that in terms of diversity, trail running is “in the middle ages.” Yes, I interviewed KJ at TrailCon. Coming soon to Running Sucks.
And when I briefly spoke about this with Meghan Hicks, editor of iRunFar, she sagely commented, “It’s great that we took one step forward. But why can’t we take two steps?”
It’s a great question. Maybe the most important one. Feel free to weigh in with answers.
I dare you to run a mile in my shoes
(Because I’m holding a dog under my arm.)
Cindy isn’t the kind of dog you run with. I tried it once, you see, and she got a quarter of a mile before hyperventilating. For some reason, I thought I’d try it again…
I love the Abbot Kinney One race. This is the third time they’ve closed down one of the most iconic streets in Los Angeles for a morning. I thought I’d take my dog. She finished dead last. 79th out of 79.
Did she have a good time? See for yourself. Yes, I carried her for most of it.
On the flipside, my son ran an 8:01 in his race. It was just the fifth time he’s even completed running a mile distance, so he is rightly very proud of himself.
And he did have a nice time out there. At least one of my kids has got that dawg in them.
Happy 200 to Community Trail Running
It’s a big moment for Adam Lee, one of the first people I made friends with here on Substack back in 2023. Congratulations on your 200th podcast, Adam. Here’s our conversation from Nov 2023.
Here’s to 200 more.
Thanks for reading (and listening)
Raz xx
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well said. grateful to have had some of these conversations with you, and i'm glad you were in that room. there's work to be done.
As a white man who runs trails, I’m ashamed to say I did not think about the lack of diversity in that little subculture until you brought it up. Thanks for helping me to think deeper.