Women’s Trail Running Gear Design and Marketing

Ladies and Gentlewomen, are trail running companies designing gear and apparel with your needs in mind or are they just […]

By on August 12, 2008 | Comments

Femme Den Outdoor Retailer ShowLadies and Gentlewomen, are trail running companies designing gear and apparel with your needs in mind or are they just throwing pink and flowers on their men’s product? Are their advertisements speaking to you? Are they providing you with all the information you want or are they just throwing lots of useless information and technical data past you? Read on for more on women’s trail gear and a chance to win a Skirt Sports MarathonGirl Ultra running skirt!

We were going to launch into a long post inspired by the Femme Den designers at ORSM, but those questions pretty well sum up what we’re thinking about and, seeing as how the editorial staff at iRunFar is chromosomally-challenged, we won’t offer up any opinions of our own. Instead, we’ll offer just a few more questions:

  • Which companies or products are really dialed into what a woman needs or wants? Which companies aren’t?
  • Is there any trail gear that you’d buy in a minute, if only it was properly made for a woman (i.e., a watch band is too big or a torso length is too long)?
  • As a woman, are any of your trail running needs completely unfulfilled by current gear?

Contest/Review Opportunity

MarathonGirl Ultra skirt by Skirt SportsThe folks at Skirt Sports have been kind enough to provide iRunFar with a Skirt Sports MarathonGirl Ultra running skirt in small (those with other sizes read here). (Skirt Sports sizing info) If you’d like to review the Skirt Sports MarathonGirl Ultra for iRunFar, just leave a substantive comment on this post (iRF will be liberal in its interpretation of “substantive comment”) and mention that you’d be interested in reviewing the MarathonGirl Ultra skirt. We’ll add an extra “ticket” for each additional substantive comment you leave. Next Monday morning, we’ll randomly draw a winner from among the interested women.

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[* iRunFar must note that its inspiration for this post came from the ladies of Femme Den, a group of designers from Smart Design some of whom gave a presentation at ORSM. While we missed the presentation, Yvonne and Whitney were kind enough to speak with us. Thanks ladies!]

[Skirt Sports promised iRunFar the MarathonGirl Ultra skirt in a size small. We are attempting to contact Skirt Sports to see if we can choose the size after this contest is complete. If we are successful, we will update the post to reflect that the winner can be of any size and retroactively add tickets for any comments that you make.]

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Bryon Powell

Bryon Powell is the Founding Editor of iRunFar. He’s been writing about trail running, ultrarunning, and running gear for more than 15 years. Aside from iRunFar, he’s authored the books Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and Where the Road Ends: A Guide to Trail Running, been a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, written for publications including Outside, Sierra, and Running Times, and coached ultrarunners of all abilities. Based in Silverton, Colorado, Bryon is an avid trail runner and ultrarunner who competes in events from the Hardrock 100 Mile just out his front door to races long and short around the world, that is, when he’s not fly fishing or tending to his garden.