I used to be not too long ago strolling round my neighborhood with my husband, admiring lawns. I didn’t use to do this. It’s the type of factor that creeps up on you in your 30s. In the future, you might be cool. The subsequent day, you get up and begin admiring lawns.
Admiring Nature’s garden. Photograph: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
What I’ve realized is that good lawns don’t occur by chance. They require foresight and diligence. They require lively cultivation. In any other case, weeds overtake them. The identical is true for ultrarunning. What we domesticate grows.
A Rising Sport
Ultrarunning is a rising sport. It was a small group of oddballs who, for no matter motive, needed to run far. Now it’s a giant group of oddballs who, for no matter motive, wish to run far.
With the expansion of ultrarunning has come vital adjustments. Coaching strategies are extra refined. Media consideration has elevated, and there may be more cash within the sport. Occasions are larger, apart from those that stay the identical dimension however now have prolonged waitlists. The number of occasion distances, surfaces, and topography has elevated, and there are extra race alternatives than prior to now. There are additionally extra factions — dissenting teams with competing visions about what the game is or would possibly turn out to be.
Ultrarunning is in an area of unbelievable development. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
With the inflow of cash within the sport, have come manufacturers vying for market share. They bring about totally different aesthetics, branding, and competing messages about what ultrarunning is about. Generally they get into public feuds about it (1).
This competitors amongst manufacturers could be productive, because it means skilled ultrarunners at the moment are compensated at ranges commensurate with their worth (2). Nonetheless, it additionally means our consideration is directed towards trivial distinctions amongst clothes and kit, and away from the guts of the exercise — the working, the factor all of us have in widespread.
Hear, I’m not going to be a “doom and gloom” girl. Ultrarunning is at an thrilling second. Progress is nice, and I believe the game is usually in good arms with its present management and media. However a threat of development and commercialization is that they’ll distract us from what issues.
Perhaps we entered the game looking for respite from consumerism and immerse ourselves in nature, solely to all of a sudden discover ourselves shopping for extra stuff. Or perhaps we needed peace and stress reduction, solely to search out ourselves studying suppose items about feuds between manufacturers we now have by no means heard of. Perhaps we needed to edify our characters by way of endurance, and all of a sudden, we’re centered much less on substantial change and extra on our exteriors, dressing up in fancy working outfits extra expensive than our vehicles. We overlook why we began ultrarunning within the first place.
We shouldn’t overlook why we began ultrarunning within the first place. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
A good friend prompted me to sort out the query of tradition in ultrarunning’s present second of development and alter. It’s a advanced query as a result of there isn’t any neat narrative for the methods by which the game is altering. A few of the adjustments are nice, and among the adjustments threaten to undermine a lot of what we love about ultrarunning.
The Idea of Tradition
“Tradition” is a notoriously ambiguous idea. In broad strokes, it captures a bunch’s conventions and norms, together with practices, traditions, and tastes. The etymology of the time period is likewise advanced, with a number of origins, most notably Latin and French. In some contexts, tradition is said to the “cultus,” or reverence and worship (3). It additionally captures agricultural actions resembling forming, coaching, and tilling the earth (4). To domesticate is to enhance and render fertile to yield fruit (5).
In assessing ultrarunning tradition, the agricultural picture will likely be useful for us. We will contemplate three issues:
We ought to be clear about what we purpose to develop.
Not all development is productive; we must always study to establish weeds.
Cultivation is difficult work that requires foresight and diligence.
What Are We Cultivating?
Once you ask youngsters how far they’ll run, they typically suppose they’ll run perpetually. In our sport, we measure, in exact phrases, how far we are able to run. On this manner, ultrarunning satisfies a pure curiosity about human limits. We take a look at boundaries and discover ways to endure. That is humanizing and superior.
As a result of our central activity in ultrarunning is endurance, we must always give attention to that. We must always purpose to domesticate our capability to persevere, studying to stay in place in pursuit of arduous items. This pursuit is worthy of our vitality and a spotlight for its personal sake, insofar as it’s pleasant. However working far can even refine us in some ways, requiring that we turn out to be affected person, resilient, and diligent to carry out nicely. It’s good in itself and for its penalties.
There are different items, or fruits, that we are able to purpose to develop. Neighborhood has lengthy been a precedence amongst ultrarunners — group runs, shared service, crewing, and mentoring. I’ve written prior to now about how ultrarunning is the hospitality sport. We will proceed to domesticate a welcoming reception for brand spanking new runners.
One other good value cultivating is sustainability work. We spend lots of time exterior on trails and within the woods. Extra so than different sports activities, ultrarunners are sometimes engaged within the work of preservation and look after the forests we run by way of.
Gabe Joyes’ crew on the 2025 Hardrock 100 proving as soon as once more that ultrarunning is a workforce sport. Photograph: Niko Carste
Study to Establish Weeds
Ultrarunning is a rising sport, however not all development is our good. We must always work out what’s productive within the altering panorama and prune away the issues that choke out the nice.
What are the proverbial weeds of ultrarunning? A few of them could also be structural. For instance, perhaps we don’t like races being consolidated underneath main firms. Or perhaps we do. A few of them could also be private or dispositional. Gossip (unrestrained speech about each other), vainglory (caring extra concerning the picture you place ahead than the individual you actually are), elitism (which undermines hospitality), and materialism (a preoccupation with shopping for stuff) all come to thoughts. I additionally talked about that there are extra factions than earlier than.
To some extent, factions and dissension are inevitable as the game grows. That’s how people function. In “Federalist 10,” James Madison wrote that factions are “sown into the character of man” due to differing opinions, tastes, and pursuits (6). Hopefully, we are able to disagree in constructive methods and bear in mind the very giant, wonderful factor all of us have in widespread: working far. If we are able to’t, then unproductive discord is one other weed which may choke out the nice.
Cultivation Is Laborious Work
Good lawns don’t occur by chance. A very good working tradition received’t both. We have to collectively spend money on the factor we care about, with the “repetitive, persistent, and loving care of the farmer (7).”
Which may imply encouraging others, supporting their races, serving on committees, and doing path upkeep. If neighborhood is an asset, then we now have to figuratively get our arms soiled, cultivating friendships.
It’s straightforward to complain about weeds. It’s a lot tougher to actively thwart them and develop one thing good of their place.
There are numerous methods to domesticate neighborhood. Photograph: Ron Heerkens Jr
Closing Ideas
Ultrarunning is at an thrilling second of growth, commercialization, and alter. A lot of this modification is productive. However a threat of business development is that it may well undermine tradition and choke out what’s particular concerning the sport. Like a great garden steward, we must always diligently domesticate the nice and study to acknowledge weeds.
Name for Feedback
What does working tradition imply to you?
What different methods can we domesticate good working tradition?
Notes/References
See Ok. Frost. 2026. Fulfill, At present Operating, and the Battle Over Operating’s Aesthetic. Right here & There. Accessed 6 April 2026 Hyperlink: https://www.hereandthere.membership/p/satisfy-currently-running-and-the-fight-over-running-s-aesthetic
At the very least a few of them are. Ultrarunners stay the proverbial ‘ravenous artists’ of sports activities.
Pieper, J. 1998. Leisure the Foundation of Tradition. Transl. by G. Malsbary. St. Augustine Press.
Oxford College Press. (n.d.). Tradition, n., Etymology. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2200472041
Oxford College Press. (n.d.). Domesticate, v., 1.a. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5406101325.
Madison, J. 1787. The Federalist Papers. No. 10. The Avalon Mission. Net Accessed 7 April 2026.
Malsbary, G. translator observe in Pieper, J. 1998. Leisure the Foundation of Tradition, p. 70.
