2011: The Year of the Running Video
January 25, 2012 by Adam Campbell · 31 Comments
I’m still in my suit, my tie is slightly crooked, and the top button is undone. It’s been a long day at work and I’m tired. I was up early, cutting my sleep short for a pre-work trot, and I’ve spent the day rushing to meet a deadline on a project. I feel like this week has been dragging on. I haven’s seen my wife in a few days; she’s off on a business trip. I know that I should be heading out for an evening run, but instead, I find myself glued to the couch. I glance over to the fridge, thinking about the IPA chilling in its recesses. I can hear the rain lashing at the window. A cold beer sounds much more comforting than another cold night run at this moment.
I reach over to the cedar coffee table beside me and grab my shiny grey laptop and end up on Facebook. I scroll through inane posts about how wonderful or miserable my extended group of friends and acquaintances’ lives are. As I scroll through the page, I come across a small box with 158 likes and 62 comments, and I understand that it’s a video. The frozen image is of three runners meandering their way up the side of a snow-capped mountain. I enlarge the box and click play; my senses are suddenly overwhelmed. The scenery is stunning, bringing me back to the runs that I daydream about when I’m stuck in my office; the soundtrack adds to the emotions and the short interviews with the stars, whose blogs I read every now and then, capture the contradictory emotions of joy, pain, awe, camaraderie, and loneliness that I feel when I’m out on the trail for several hours. I sit mesmerized for the next four minutes and thirty six seconds. When it’s done, I can feel my heart rate elevated and my mind racing. I peel myself out of the couch, walk over to my closet, and get changed. I lace up my still wet running shoes and head out the door with a light stride.
The above scenario has happened to me on more than one occasion this past year, which is why, in my mind, 2011 was the year when the trail running video came of age. There have been inspiring video clips before, but the quality, frequency, diversity, and ease of access to the videos–through various social media sites and websites–has had a real impact on the sport.
To be fair, many of these videos are glorified advertorials. They are put out by the major brands in the sport, highlighting their athletes and latest products, but that doesn’t take away from their quality or inspirational effect. Salomon Running has continued to put out great clips, building on their Kilian’s Quest concept. Mountain Hardwear’s the Swiss Machine, with Ueli Steck, has great crossover appeal. Asics put out a nice profile of Emmanuel Gault, who won the CCC at the UTMB. And, Arc’teryx produced one of me running earlier this year. Many races, like the UTMB, have been putting out equally stunning highlight reels of their events, which have made picking a race schedule a much more global thing for me.
Not all of the videos are advertorials. Joel Wolpert, at Running Times, captured nice videos of Geoff Roes and Anton Krupicka. And, although they lack the same production value, even Bryon’s iRunFar video interviews have helped show off the personalities of the athletes. All of these efforts have helped create a global community within the sport and have made it more marketable.
The fact that companies are paying professional videographers to capture events and follow athletes deep into the field to produce well-edited short videos has raised the level of professionalism of many of these clips. They capture the scenery, human emotion, and culture of sport. They also give us insight into the personalities, training, and motivations of the top runners while keeping us all entertained. The length of these clips, from three to seven minutes, makes them easy for my male brain and short attention span to digest. In my opinion, this has increased their mass appeal and has played a part in the increased popularity of trail and mountain ultrarunning.
There’s a long history of great storytelling associated with endurance running and mountain travel and these new mediums provide a great new way to tell the tales from the trails. They engage our senses and inspire us. As I hinted at with my opening paragraphs, these videos have convinced me to go for a run on more than one occasion. This is about as much as you can ask of any running video, so big kudos to those who’ve put them out. The variety and quality of the videos this year have been top notch and it’s a great step forward for the sport.
I really appreciate the efforts of the filmmakers and those involved in their production, so thanks to them for their hard work in capturing the stories and telling them so well. I look forward to more in 2012.
Call for Comment (from Bryon)
- Do you enjoy trail running videos? If so, what do you enjoy about them?
- What were your favorite trail running videos from 2011?
- Which video(s) should we embed in this article?
[Editor's Note: I'm excited to announce that Adam Campbell will be regularly writing for iRunFar going forward. It's an honor to have someone with his enthusiasm, intellect, and knowledge of endurance sports (not to mention his talent) contributing to iRunFar. Welcome, Adam! - Bryon]
Related articles:
- Salomon Hardrock 100 Video Salomon's 2011 Hardrock 100 video....
- 2011 – The Year of the Woman? A look at women's ultrarunning performances in 2011....
- AJW’s 2011 Year-In-Beer Recap AJW takes a look back at the year... in beer for 2011....
Filed under Discussion ·
Adam Campbell runs for Salomon and Arc'teryx ... when he's not practicing law in Canada. A long-time competitive triathlete, he has transitioned well to the trails, taking the Canadian 50-mile national title (in national record time) as well as second place at the CCC in 2011. You can read more of Adam's writing on his blog.
All posts by Adam Campbell
The Runner In Winter, the feature about Anton, strikes such a perfect note. I love every other video discussed, but there is an intimacy and honesty to Wolpert’s profile, and a certain aesthetic sensibility that’s hard to pin down. To me, it’s inspiration as much as entertainment. The beauty is in the run, rather than the scope of the scenery, in the devotion to it and the nourishment derived from it. The other videos make me want to run; The Runner In Winter reminds me why I must.
I remember seeing the video of Uli Steidl racing Geoff Roes at TNF Challenge a few years ago (2009?) and I think that was the first time I saw hard-core up-front trail racing action on film and I thought it was really quite unbelievable (how did they film it?, etc.). Now I’m accustomed to it–almost expecting it–and hopefully soon it’ll be like any other televised sport, with snippets on ESPN, etc. The one thing that should be banned is footage of AJW puking (Leadville a few years ago?)…that has no place in our sport :)
Do you (or anyone else) have a link to that video? The of Uli and Geoff racing?
Try this one, hope it works,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&hl=en-GB&v=TwqnaxQnmIo
So, uh, where can I watch that video of the three guys slogging up the snowy mountain?
Timely article! Good stuff!
The Geoff Roes video is definitely one of my favorites. The cinematography is spectacular. And, the video portrait itself is really insightful. I haven’t seen many other trail running videos. Thanks for posting this so that I can go watch ‘em!
The Salomon videos have been great motivators for me this year (and the TNF UTMB vids!). What I love in particular about their vids, is that…
1. In their UTMB vids they are using footage that would appear to belong to the TNF.
2. They have no problem showing and interviewing runners from other teams.
Those two points give the brand a lot of credit, imo. It seems to reinforce the community aspect of ultras, and shows, I think, that they understand how important the community aspect of ultras are…
I really liked the Wolpert shorts, especially the Roes clip. Geoff has a down to earth demeanor and makes his running so fluid. Anton is always great to watch. As far as other videos, I came across this video and have to say it’s pretty gnarly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCjaKhbHMk&feature=player_embedded
I also like the Ueli Steck’s Eiger north face ascent from Jan 2: http://www.irunfar.com/2012/01/an-interview-with-speed-alpinist-ueli-steck.html
Wow, that first one is great. Its terrain like that – after seeing Jeb Corlis crash and the sad loss of Sarah Burke – which has me considering a small helmet and maybe some forarm body armour for the gnarly descents.
This is an interesting short film on night running and racing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE-8qdHwrtw&feature=plcp&context=C3a9f223UDOEgsToPDskLmIiriRAnpRqOZCByEDu2P
I wanted to share you what we faced in Ultra Trail Mont Blanc in this summer… 120kms of non-stop running and gaining 7.000m of ascent in the one of the world’s toughest ultra-marathon in non-stop 32 hours…
What we did was we had a sponsorship from a (Turkish video on demand company) and had source to take one cameraman and two GOPros to the course. We recorded everything before the race, the registration, got footage from press, gear, tips and tricks, course details and talked and interviewed with UTMB officials, recorded the start of UTMB and TDS and created 10 Episodes. You can access them here. you can watch them in HD due to your bandwith. This is a great documentary with all aspects if you want to learn what happens in UTMB, chamonix and especially in TDS.
http://www.geziyorum.net/utmb-video-documentary/
It is all English subtitled. also we are nominated to be the finalist for this documentary in Turkish Mountain film festivals and there will be an 55 minute version.
Regards,
EMRE TOK
I’m loving all the new videos, thanks for sharing and keep them coming! Emre, it’s great to hear what it’s like on the other side of the lens, I seriously appreciate all your grunt work.
Thank you very much for your appreciation :-)
EMRE
I actually put together a list of what I thought were the best 10 trail running videos of 2011. http://goldentrails.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/top-10-trail-running-videos-2011/
While not a running video, watching Yosemite HD (http://vimeo.com/35396305) is great motivation for mountain running.
Jared Cambell, West Slabs of Olympus, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCjaKhbHMk
I’ve seen that before…unreal!
This one of Tim Waggoner that was just posted yesterday is also great.
http://joghard.blogspot.com/
Great stuff. Sometimes I just need that little push out the door. A new trail, new shoes, caffeine, sunshine, a friend waiting….a running video. Motivation doesn’t lack once I’m out the door.
PS. Adam invest in a boot dryer. Always having warm/dry sneakers/boots is amazing. Also it cuts down on smell and therefore adds some longevity to shoes
@Thematthart See what you started? :-)
http://youtu.be/bi0_sYun4n0
^^ Still the best in my opinion, but I do love the Killian’s Quest/Salomon Running vids.
I agree – this one tops ‘em all! Attaboy, Hart!!
Don’t forget about UROC, with the slightly-delayed videos with commentary that were being posted during the race. I know my non-runner family members were impressed.
I spent way too much money on this one, but I think the production value speaks for itself. Sh*t Ultrarunners Say…
http://youtu.be/nq8lJEJr3xk
Hilarious!
The NW Chicago trail folks have enjoyed this one sir! Thanks.
From Sweden,Tjurruset (“Bullrun”), See many more movies on YouTube,search for tjurruset 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW3l-wyJ7ug
“matt in the wild” videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af28-iJj74k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1IN0rn0Xzw
. . . and this one of Krissy Moehl . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eURjhaqFgwI&feature=player_embedded
Not “technically” in the video-”video” category, and it was from Aug/2010, is tony K’s MT110 minimus commercial..the storytelling/the music background and all just does it to me
also, have to add Killian’s S3 Ep 7.. ULTRA slow motion. Keeps me accompanied and motivated to run on my lunch hours, however cold or hot it is.
Run Free
Great list of videos! I have curated these and a bunch of other great videos into a channel for everyone to kick back and enjoy : http://www.shortform.com/jerememonteau/run/watch