Ultrarunning Tradition – iRunFar

I used to be not too long ago strolling round my neighborhood with my husband, admiring lawns. I didn’t use to try this. It’s the type of factor that creeps up on you in your 30s. Sooner or later, you might be cool. The subsequent day, you get up and begin admiring lawns.

What I’ve discovered is that good lawns don’t occur accidentally. 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 once a small group of oddballs who, for no matter purpose, needed to run far. Now it’s a giant group of oddballs who, for no matter purpose, wish to run far.

With the expansion of ultrarunning has come vital adjustments. Coaching strategies are extra refined. Media consideration has elevated, and there’s extra money within the sport. Occasions are greater, aside from those that stay the identical measurement however now have prolonged waitlists. The number of occasion distances, surfaces, and topography has elevated, and there are extra race alternatives than previously. There are additionally extra factions — dissenting teams with competing visions about what the game is or may turn out to be.

Ultrarunning is in an area of unimaginable progress. Picture: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

With the inflow of cash within the sport, have come manufacturers vying for market share. They carry 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 are actually compensated at ranges commensurate with their worth (2). Nevertheless, it additionally means our consideration is directed towards trivial distinctions amongst clothes and equipment, and away from the guts of the exercise — the operating, the factor all of us have in frequent.

Pay attention, I’m not going to be a “doom and gloom” woman. Ultrarunning is at an thrilling second. Development is nice, and I feel the game is generally in good arms with its present management and media. However a danger of progress and commercialization is that they will distract us from what issues.

Possibly we entered the game looking for respite from consumerism and immerse ourselves in nature, solely to abruptly discover ourselves shopping for extra stuff. Or perhaps we needed peace and stress aid, solely to search out ourselves studying suppose items about feuds between manufacturers now we have by no means heard of. Possibly we needed to edify our characters by way of endurance, and abruptly, we’re centered much less on substantial change and extra on our exteriors, dressing up in fancy operating 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. Picture: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi

A pal prompted me to deal with the query of tradition in ultrarunning’s present second of progress and alter. It’s a advanced query as a result of there is no such thing as a neat narrative for the methods during which the game is altering. A number of the adjustments are nice, and a few of 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 gaggle’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 similar to 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 probably be useful for us. We will contemplate three issues:

• We ought to be clear about what we intention to develop.
• Not all progress is productive; we should always be taught to establish weeds.
• Cultivation is tough work that requires foresight and diligence.

What Are We Cultivating?

If you ask children how far they will run, they typically suppose they will run without end. In our sport, we measure, in exact phrases, how far we are able to run. On this method, ultrarunning satisfies a pure curiosity about human limits. We take a look at boundaries and learn to endure. That is humanizing and superior.

As a result of our central job in ultrarunning is endurance, we should always give attention to that. We should always intention to domesticate our capability to persevere, studying to stay in place in pursuit of arduous items. This pursuit is worthy of our power and a spotlight for its personal sake, insofar as it’s gratifying. However operating far may also refine us in some ways, requiring that we turn out to be affected person, resilient, and diligent to carry out properly. It’s good in itself and for its penalties.

There are different items, or fruits, that we are able to intention to develop. Group has lengthy been a precedence amongst ultrarunners — group runs, shared service, crewing, and mentoring. I’ve written previously about how ultrarunning is the hospitality sport. We will proceed to domesticate a welcoming reception for brand spanking new runners.

One other good price cultivating is sustainability work. We spend loads 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 take care of 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 crew sport. Picture: Niko Carste

Study to Determine Weeds

Ultrarunning is a rising sport, however not all progress is our good. We should 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 beneath main corporations. Or perhaps we do. A few of them could also be private or dispositional. Gossip (unrestrained speech about each other), vainglory (caring extra in regards to the picture you place ahead than the particular person 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 frequent: operating far. If we are able to’t, then unproductive discord is one other weed which may choke out the nice.

Cultivation Is Exhausting Work

Good lawns don’t occur accidentally. A superb operating tradition gained’t both. We have to collectively put money into the factor we care about, with the “repetitive, persistent, and loving care of the farmer (7).”

That may imply encouraging others, supporting their races, serving on committees, and doing path upkeep. If neighborhood is an asset, then now we have to figuratively get our arms soiled, cultivating friendships.

It’s simple 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. Picture: Ron Heerkens Jr

Ultimate Ideas

Ultrarunning is at an thrilling second of enlargement, commercialization, and alter. A lot of this transformation is productive. However a danger of business progress is that it could actually undermine tradition and choke out what’s particular in regards to the sport. Like a superb garden steward, we should always diligently domesticate the nice and be taught to acknowledge weeds.

Name for Feedback

• What does operating tradition imply to you?
• What different methods can we domesticate good operating tradition?

Notes/References

1. See Okay. Frost. 2026. Fulfill, At present Working, and the Combat Over Working’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
2. At the least a few of them are. Ultrarunners stay the proverbial ‘ravenous artists’ of sports activities.
3. Pieper, J. 1998. Leisure the Foundation of Tradition. Transl. by G. Malsbary. St. Augustine Press.
4. Oxford College Press. (n.d.). Tradition, n., Etymology. In Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved April 7, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2200472041
5. 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.
6. Madison, J. 1787. The Federalist Papers. No. 10. The Avalon Undertaking. Net Accessed 7 April 2026.
7. Malsbary, G. translator observe in Pieper, J. 1998. Leisure the Foundation of Tradition, p. 70.