From the Front Row at TrailCon and Western States
We pulled off a new brand house concept, Golden Hour Racing was a hit, production updates on our WSER film, plus some insider notes and chatter from Palisades.
A lot to unpack here. I was busy. Hang on, this one’s a banger.
I was at TrailCon and Western States from Sunday to Sunday last week. My excitement was through the roof evidenced by the 16 hour dance party I held for myself in my Wrangler as I drove out from Boulder loaded down with camera gear, hats, tees and zines.
MoB Garage
First and foremost, I manifested a mashup of Auteur Sportif and MoB into a brand house. Adam Copeland called it the Trappe House but I was calling it MoB Garage. It was low-key by design but also a big leap of faith. I booked a huge house on a hunch and went for it. The goal was a more intimate gathering of people (as opposed to logos) in an offline and personal setting, devoid of panels, crowds, booths and social media. Everything is trending bigger and louder so I zagged to quiet and small. I want Auteur Sportif to embody that more intentional approach. Bring interesting people together and let the magic happen, right? My friends at Skratch brought in the chef from their restaurant in Boulder (bravo Kian!) and he cooked dinner for 30+ people Sunday through Wednesday. Here was the programming:
Sunday
On Sunday we had all just rolled into town so things were simple. Twenty media and friends gathered at the house to kick off the week. We ate Poke bowls. There were lots of laughs and plenty of new connections were made. I met Gracie and Sophia Hinz who created Trail Running Magazine. The UTMB crew came over. I still owe the attendees a list of contact info but am understandably a bit behind.
Monday
Arc’teryx made for an incredible partner because while they and Amer are a big publicly traded company they behave SO genuinely and intentionally. They jumped at the house concept and brought a brilliant idea to the table.
Arc brought in Dr. John Coleman who has a PhD in Wonderment. Yep, wonderment. We pulled together a group of 25+ creative and interested minds as John took us through a workshop to unlocks the knots holding us back, allowing us to dream big and invite more moments that make us say “wow!”. We found out that so many of us have the same holdups and that we’re all more supportive of others’ efforts than our own insecurities allow us to realize. TLDR - Dream big and go for it! I left super inspired.
Tuesday
This was the crux night of the week because we double booked the night. After Kian served up a taco spread we launched into an offline conversation with Aaron Lutze from Second Nature. The decision to be offline was deliberate between Aaron and I because everything doesn’t need to live on social. In fact, we thought this convo would be MORE valuable if it stayed in the room. To start, Steve Holmberg helped serve up some context for the 40+ stakeholders in the room. We had RDs, athletes, run specialty, media, brand managers, VPs, GMs and CEOs from various brands all locked into a single conversation that meandered through all the topics. The hive mind in this room was insane. Heavy hitters for sure. Conversation ranged from race ecosystems and the Ironman/UTMB dynamic to the phenomenon of ACG’s Radical Airflow. It was suggested this was becoming the status signaling apparel piece in trail. I stood in the back with the GM of ACG as the dialogue unfolded with zero prompting. Fascinating. The convo concluded with a think about how much better we can all do around inviting diversity into these rooms. We didn’t solve all of the sport’s problems but I believe these real conversations help to slowly pull us in a positive direction without the toxicity of social nor the apprehension of a stage and mic. This open environment is simply impossible if it involves crowds, cameras, likes or comments. It’s tough to measure but I get excited when I think about the connections, ideas and business that will emerge from contacts made in the room that night.
While this was all happening in the house upstairs the Tantrums Goldsprints were happening in the garage downstairs. A head-to-head treadmill racing bracket eventually crowned a winner in what was dubbed the “kids table” as a counter to the “adults table” unfolding upstairs. Kudos to Wahoo and Tantrums for pulling this together. Treadmills were driven out to Olympic Valley by the Skratch van, assembled all day long and then paired with a Goldsprints competition app that was vibe coded in Claude by Tantrums founder Adam Copeland. It was all completely organic and thrown together with pure human curiosity and energy.
Wednesday
The other partner who lept into the unknown with us was Amazfit. Allison Lynch has been a guest contributor here in the past. Amazfit recently acquired an AI platform that aligns the tracking and prediction of female specific data points with your training. Rather than drop a product tutorial to spout talking points and track KPIs, Allison opted to create a forum to further this conversation and benefit the community vs quarterly sales goals. Emily Krauss, Alyssa Olenick and Keely Henninger were massive contributors. Given the fatigue during the last night of TrailCon, the slumber party vibe was a hit and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies were passed around (Kian doing his thing again).
All-in-all this entire week was incredible and I’m grateful for everyone that made it happen. Deanna Quadrel in particular helped keep the wheels on the bus throughout planning and execution while playing producer for a really great week. She deserves a lot of credit and I can’t thank her enough.
Let’s see where this concept goes but it really struck a chord. I have plenty of ideas on how it can evolve going forward. UTMB anyone? NYC? TRE? Beyond?
Golden Hour Racing
I kept the auto racing theme going with the Auteur Sportif Golden Hour Racing Team capsule of hats and tees. You probably saw them around the village and around Western States. While I sold plenty throughout the week, I really need to figure out a better way to distribute these vs “find me in the village”. I don’t think sitting at a booth 8hrs/day is the answer but I do think these pieces are more powerful if they’re available on-site so they have that “I was there” story to them. Stay tuned.
If you’re interested in these pieces there are still some left, and because I did such a bad job of making myself available last week, I’m offering free shipping until they are gone. It’ll automatically populate in your cart. The image below is linked to the site.
Did you see or snag the IYKYK vintage tees I curated and heat pressed? There were only a handful available. The tees are gone but the jacket is still available . . .
Many of you grabbed the KAIRONIC “unofficial program'“ in the village. I carried the auto racing theme into this piece as well. The hope was for my recs to help curate your week a TrailCon despite the madness of so many activities all occurring at once.
While I was shooting Francesco on Tuesday (read on), I completely missed that day at TrailCon. I was, however, there all day Wednesday. I love this event so much but I think it can be even better. Despite the public being welcomed it is still an echo chamber of brands and industry. We need more “regular” runners. I’d like to see breakout sessions that create smaller conversations vs public Q&A sessions. More intimate back-and-forth dialogue encourages all the questions and connections vs. just a couple isolated Q’s by the brave few willing to raise their hand. We can also continue to strive to bring more diverse voices to the conversation. One goal this year was not to repeat people on panels and I do think that was done well but going forward I want to involve more voices not only from a diversity angle but also geographically and socioeconomically. A friend who is newer to trail views it solely as an affluent sport and, while current data does back that up, I came up in this world when it was anything but affluent and I think it’s important to keep that irreverent dirtbag spirit alive.
WSER was WILD and I’m working on a film!
Bravo to Hoka for the amount of investment they make into storytelling around Western States. First, there was a social team led by Aisha McAdams and Rhoam Creative Studio. They were ripping out absolute heat in the lead up to the race and throughout the chase from Palisades to Auburn.
A women’s focused team led by Carrie Highman and Dream Lens Media are creating a film series on Youtube. The first episode is a must see.
I was fortunate to lead a team of seven people tasked with telling the story of the men’s race. We shot at Hoka training camp in Flagstaff back in May and the filming continued into race week. I spent most of Monday with Vincent Boulliard and then Tuesday with Francesco Puppi. What a dream considering how the race played out. I wish I could bring all of you along on the experience of interviewing and shooting with these athletes followed by a front row seat to their performances at Western States. It’s an absolute honor and privilege to have such an insider view of these incredible performances.
Our producer, Matt Porter, and I had the job of setting our crew up for success not only from an execution standpoint but also in keeping with the storytelling and creative north star we set for the project. Porter has been invaluable in wrangling the logistics required to create these projects. Shooting the race went perfectly and our team was incredible. I have two shoutout to make. One to Dylan Harris who’s been our DP throughout the project. If you don’t already know his films “The Chase” and “The Cutoff”, Dylan is a storytelling savant and an absolute privilege to work with. Also, bravo to Pablo Durana who ran a gimbal for us all day. Pablo somehow ran 28 miles with 6k’ of vert to capture footage across our 6 focus athletes during Western States. Unbelievable. Given how the men’s race turned out we have quite the unicorn of a film on our hands so stay tuned. More to come and I am stoked!
Notes
I was invited to a small PR event from Nnormal prior to WSER. Kilian spoke with a small group of 10-15 of us about the prototype footwear and vest he would wear for the race. Vivek Gowri (SFRC) and I were holding and looking at the shoe when he remarked that it was a bit dirty and we both had the realization that we were holding THE shoe he was wearing during the race. Cool moment. The shoe and vest are both incredible so stay tuned and watch out for Nnormal.
A few weeks back we saw Tudor watches had recently sponsored 4 athletes in the trail running space - a fascinating entry by a major luxury brand. I was able to meet Charlène from Tudor who was on the ground at TrailCon all the way from France. After Tudor, who’s next? Rolex? Is trail running like tennis or sailing now?
Instead of running the gauntlet of pre-race interviews from the various podcast outlets, Jim Walmsley opted to hold a 30-minute press conference. I was there and got a shout from Jim at the beginning as he relived his wrong turn in 2016 where I found him on the side of highway 49. The experience had me wondering if these official press conferences were the future for top athletes as the professionalization of the sport continues. When you think about, doing 6-8 separate pre-race interviews is a pretty wild expectation.
Zach Miller I have your water bottle. You left it at the brand house Wednesday night. Pretty cool water bottle, well done TNF. Great race Zach!
Something is up at Näak. Talk on the floor at TrailCon was that their US operations are no more. Another nutrition brand even seemed to call into question whether they might be able to fulfill their UTMB commitments. Huge yikes and opportunities abound for Precision, Never Second, Skratch, GU, etc.
Full on rumor mill info here, but I heard a grumbling that Nike might be growing impatient with the returns they expect on the investments into ACG. With their sales absolutely tanking in China and down 4% overall, things still aren’t turning around. I’ve heard these grumblings before so take it with a grain of salt.
If you missed Carrie Highman and Hilary Yang’s film ‘Raising the Bar’ on Thursday, please don’t pass on the next opportunity. It was 90 minutes of bliss and mastery. Let’s hope we see this on a streaming platform soon because it’s at that level. It skips past Gordy to tell the history of women at Western States while hitting on a few fan favorites in last year’s race.
Not TrailCon or WSER related but I saw that Harvey Lewis and a group of incredible runners are running from NYC to DC to tribute to the diversity and stories that make this country great. They’re literally running right now. It’s called the Chasing Democracy 250. So cool.
Lastly, I’m recording a Second Nature pod Friday morning with Steve Holmberg and Aaron Lutze. We’ll recap TrailCon and I’ll have a lot to say about WSER. Stay tuned.
So, that was my week. Sheesh. My cup is so full. Next year I really need to add Broken Arrow because I am definitely sleeping on that one. Speaking of sleep, can all of this even be done with a level of sleep capable of sustaining life?
I’m exhausted yet writing this recap from 30k’ on a flight to Eugene for another exciting shoot prior to the Prefontaine Classic. I’ll be working on a team with Katherine Douglas from Running Wylder. More to come there. What a time to be alive. Thank you!
Well done, Matt! I appreciate you thinking outside the box and bringing so many diverse voices/brands together in one space. Stoked to have made the invite list. Until next time. 🫡
What a week! Great meeting you in person. That Nnormal preso was fascinating and I’m excited to see those shoes hit the market eventually 👀