It’s one of, if not the, biggest trail running events on the planet: Ultra- Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), and it attracts the biggest names in the dirty game: Kilian Jornet, Jez Bragg, Lizzy Hawker, Seb Chaigneau…the list goes on. 

This year Trail Run Mag is slightly chuffed to have been selected by race organisers as the official Media Partner – Australian and New Zealand for the prestigious event. 

As such, we’ll be there on the ground this year, filing reports, getting amongst the action and wishing we’d trained enough to be out on the mountains. There will be a Trail Run Mag stand at the village HQ, and we’ll feed through updates on how Aussie and Kiwi entrants are faring.

The announcement of Trail Run Mag as the official Media Partner – Australia & New Zealand comes at a time where you’ll notice a few changes at Trail Run Mag as our little dirty magazine grows up somewhat. What started as a passion project more than two and a half years ago now remains a passion project in that our team simply love running trails. But we’ve grown as the trail scene has boomed and we’d like to continue to evolve to bring you inspirational stories and information from the wild stretches of singletrack in Australia, New Zealand and, as the UTMB appointment shows, from abroad, too. 

Being named as a media partner for UTMB is a long way from our humble beginning sparked by two strong lattes in a cafe in Melbourne and our Aussie editor sitting down with one Stuart Gibson (trail runner and winner of the TNF100). Discussions turned to action, action (eventually) turned into our first ever edition, featuring a wholly unexpected running shoe sole peeking from the snow (it was a winter edition). 

As a longtime loungeroom production, we never promised big things, just quality stories painting a picture of the developing trail running community. So we hoped you didn’t mind that we were in essence a simple pdf, downloadable to your desktop. We were (and are!) no Murdochs, so as much as we’d like to have been belting out a printed edition every edition, we stuck to the online version for the most, purely from necessity. Of course there was (and is) the Collectors’ Edition hardcopy and we have plans to roll on a similar concept as an annual coffee table production for you to get your dirty mits on. But online, the world caught up (and overtook) with everyone jumping onto iPad and Tablet subscriptions. And so we, too, will be growing up technology-wise very soon. But more on that and plenty more big news in the coming month. 

In meantime, a big thanks to those out there who have helped make Trail Run Mag a reality. It’s thanks to you that UTMB came calling.

There are too many to name in terms of contributors and supporters, but special thanks to Mal Law, our NZ editor for the past two years; and to the Bird Collective, designers extraordinairre who don’t usually get to hear all the praise their brilliance elicits from readers. And there’s plenty of it. Thanks to our constant stream of contributors – the magazine doesn’t happen without you. And thanks to the readers – we appreciate your readership!

www.ultratrailmb.com