Trail running has become America’s top 5 recreation sport. In 1998 they recorded 7 million people hitting the trails, in 2005 they recorded 41 million trail runners, wow, what a drastic increase. When Meltzer and I stared running n the early 90′s we would hit the trails and barley see anyone running except legends like Dana Miller and our mentor Rick Gates. Karl and I went running last weekend with Mark Scholl, (our medical support from the Salt Lake Regional Hospital for the Wasatchspeedgoat 50k) I have never seen so many trail runners in my life, there were people from there 20′s up to there 60′s running everywhere. I must have counted over 30 trails runners in a 10 mile run, in fact a the trail intersections is was a social hour, I have never seen anything like it. I knew I discovered my favorite sport of all, good to see America getting fit on the trails.
Wasatchspeedgoat
Sign up on-line for the Wasatchspeedgoat “Get High” 50k rugged trail race through Snowbird and Alta Ski Resorts. The race takes place 7/21/07 at the Snowbird Tram deck, get ready to run through the tunnel~race app
And another nice benefit of trail running, is a lot of people are doing it for the love of the activity. On the roads, there are a lot of runners obsessed with time, pace, etc… On the trails, its just go! Get as much out of it or as little as you want.
Where did you find that survey? I’d love to see what the other top sports are..
SpeedGoats – the Fistfight will not be able to run the “Get High” 50k. I’m going to be ‘deployed’ to places unknow for the majority of the summer…sigh…
No worries as I’ll get back on track and hopefully run into you guys at another ultra event later in the year.
Crash, Thanks for the update, sounds like you have a pretty intense life-c-ya on the trails and thanks for linking our app~
Wasatchspeedgoat
Trail running stats in last trailrunner mag issue~JIM~