What Are Your Favorite Trail Running and Ultrarunning Resources?

An overview of trail running and ultramarathon resources and a call for readers to suggest their own favorites.

By on December 21, 2009 | Comments

We’ve got a simple question for you today: What are your favorite trail running and ultrarunning resources? Are you a print person who can’t wait for the mailman to deliver the latest issue of Trail Runner Magazine or UltraRunning magazine? Are you the social sort who relies on personal blogs, the Ultra listserv, or Facebook? Are websites your thing, you internet junkie, you?! Regardless, please leave a comment to share you favorite sources of trail running and ultrarunning info. We’ll get you started with a few of our own!

Magazines
Trail Runner Magazine – Simply the best trail running magazine in the US. It’s page host a wide variety of interesting stories ranging from the growth of ultraunning to pre-race sex. Yes, it’s One Dirty Magazine.

UltraRunning – What Trail Runner Magazine is to trail running, UltraRunning is to ultrarunning… that is THE magazine on the subject. It’s a repository of race reports, but there’s also plenty of other content if results aren’t your thing.

Running Times – Adam Chase has been bringing together great trail running content in RT’s Trails section for more or less a decade. As a bonus, Running Times has the best running training advice of any running mag out there.

Honorable Mention: Trail-magazine IS in German, but you don’t need to read German to enjoy the trail porn worthy images in this e-magazine. We also can’t help but enjoy reading Outside’s Buyers Guides.

Social Media (New and Old)
Ultra Listserv – The ultra list might be older than the internet itself… or at least it seems that way. Regardless, it and its archive are great resources for aspiring and experienced ultrarunners alike. Be aware that the List serves up an enormous volume of email on everything ultrarunning. We’d suggest setting up a separate Gmail account if you subscribe. (If you want to know more about the Ultra List, check out Endurance Planet’s podcast on the subject. [broken link removed])

Facebook – Facebook has become ubiquitous enough that we feel comfortable mentioning it. While there are a ton of trail running and ultrarunning resources on Facebook, our favorites are Salomon Running for its witty discussion points and Trail Runner Magazine, which mixes informative posts with discussion starters.

Blogs – We’re not going to list our favorite personal running blogs. Instead, we mention them generally. They run the gambit from informative to inspirational. Heck, we challenge you to go read a new personal running blog today. Looking for leads, check out our blogroll.

Websites (Now you’re talking out language!)
TrailrunningSoul.com – Trail Running Soul has long been aggregating lots of trail running news stories, gear reviews, and even some video. It’s updated quite frequently and recently there’s been more original content.

Run100s.com – It’s where we go when we’re looking for info on a North American 100 mile race.

RealEndurance.com – Real Endurance has a fairly comprehensive ultrarunning calendar that’s sortable every which was and a pretty hefty trail running blogroll. The only question with Real Endurance is can you find the good stuff among the volume.

Wrap Up
Ok, now that we’ve shared a few of our favorite trail running and ultrarunning resources, we’d love for you to do the same. Throw out a couple of your favorite websites, blogs, magazines, whatever. Not in North America? Even better! Tell us where the great info is overseas!

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.