Thanks for sharing all of this info Caleb! It’s super interesting to get these kinds of peaks behind the curtain on how pros are working through brand partnerships
The substack is filled with Kate Courtney winning Leadville 100 mile bike race her debut at the race, Joaquin Lopez throwing down a wonderful performance at 2024 UTMB, Jeff Mogavero’s great performances at 2024 JJ & 2025 WSER, Ben Dhiman’s course record at Lavaredo and then he coming 2nd in UTMB and many more other success stories. But there is a lot of things which all of these athletes do outside running as you have mentioned.
People see these athletes as they get televised and the notion gets created in the masses that heck yeah this is great as they are able to perform consistently at this high level race after race. The other side of the picture is hundreds of athletes perform below their expectations & fitness in a race, hundreds DNF when they had a prior though they would do great in the upcoming race. All these athletes don’t get televised, so is their story which gets hidden.
Joy has to be in the driver seat. Joy has to be in the drive seat of training as well. Ben Dhiman after coming 2nd in UTMB simply put one gotta love doing this, then only one can succeed. Tom Evans also said his relationship with running went to that he had to perform & win but before this year's UTMB, he reclaimed his relationship with running which got reflected in his win. Ruth Croft has been having a similar approach for more than a decade. Does Courtney not have fun, when almost 99.99% would have quit, she kept chipping away and continued to cherish the community she was surrounded with.
I am no where near to getting sponsored, my mediocre 623 ITRA index score is not giving me any sponsors. But one needs to be hyper self aware of what one needs out of the sport of trail & ultra running to chose a pretty good sponsor which aligns with their values. It is not easy to be that self aware when we are bombarded by n number of content in every walk of life and we are on the consumption side which can influence a lot of our decisions and can lead to a different path in our decision making. As Puppi brother said he wasn't okay with Nike, so he left & joined the Hoka team. He was able to make this decision as he was aware of what he needed and what wasn't in alignment with his ethics & values with the brand Nike.
Super interesting read Caleb! I'm an agent based in Italy and it's always very interesting to read the contract numbers in the US vs Europe!
I very much enjoyed reading about motivations too, it's super important athletes start pursuing this career because they love running and not because they might get some good pro contracts one day.
Unfortunately, today, trail running is pretty fragmented with athletes divided in: Skyrunning world series, Skyrunning world championships, World Mountain and Trail Championship, World Trail Majors, Golden Trail World Series, UTMB World Series (and Finals), Mountain Running World Cup, and I believe I'm missing some other world tour. This division creates so many different "world champion" who can (in the short term) get you a pro contract. However, as spectators of the sport, is hard to recognise who is very valuable vs who is not. It would be awesome to see more athletes seeking to compete against who they believe are the best out there and not to pursue a world title somewhere. This would eventually help get better contracts for those who are performing outstandingly since brands can easily recognise them.
Well written. I'm always impressed when I hear how other athletes negotiated in contract clauses that work best for them (ie. childcare, content creation, film funding, etc...) It really does go to show that the best tools are knowing what you want, your why, your self worth, and that you can always say you need more time/ push back on specific asks.
I really enjoyed your insights, Caleb. One of those “extras” to think about is how a sponsor can help you support any charity or community initiatives that are important to you.
Super insightful as a fan of the sport and, I can imagine, super valuable for any pro or aspiring pro in the sport. Thanks for sharing!
I’m curious what types of resources — you mention a potential future as an agent or mentor — you think are missing that could be broadly valuable today. It seems like this area of the sport is still maturing, rarely talked about publicly (NDAs, etc), and may only get more complex at the sport grows and evolves. It seems like there is so much valuable information and advice available, but no centralized set of resources runners can turn to (though they can certainly reference this article now!).
Some resources I think would be valuable to have out there would be templates for contacting brands, contact info of athlete managers, information on tax structures for athlete’s businesses, and lists of races generally being included in performance bonus structures. I’m sure there’s plenty of other stuff that could be helpful too but those are some that immediately come to mind.
I feel like this article was written for me with where I’m at in my life right now — thanks Caleb!
I need to read it like ten more times because I just ran 4th place at Javelina in 12:48 and I’m not completely all back here lucid on earth yet.
Thanks for sharing all of this info Caleb! It’s super interesting to get these kinds of peaks behind the curtain on how pros are working through brand partnerships
55 yo back of packer and love reading about this stuff! Thanks for sharing!!
Eric’s about to get so many DMs
The substack is filled with Kate Courtney winning Leadville 100 mile bike race her debut at the race, Joaquin Lopez throwing down a wonderful performance at 2024 UTMB, Jeff Mogavero’s great performances at 2024 JJ & 2025 WSER, Ben Dhiman’s course record at Lavaredo and then he coming 2nd in UTMB and many more other success stories. But there is a lot of things which all of these athletes do outside running as you have mentioned.
People see these athletes as they get televised and the notion gets created in the masses that heck yeah this is great as they are able to perform consistently at this high level race after race. The other side of the picture is hundreds of athletes perform below their expectations & fitness in a race, hundreds DNF when they had a prior though they would do great in the upcoming race. All these athletes don’t get televised, so is their story which gets hidden.
Joy has to be in the driver seat. Joy has to be in the drive seat of training as well. Ben Dhiman after coming 2nd in UTMB simply put one gotta love doing this, then only one can succeed. Tom Evans also said his relationship with running went to that he had to perform & win but before this year's UTMB, he reclaimed his relationship with running which got reflected in his win. Ruth Croft has been having a similar approach for more than a decade. Does Courtney not have fun, when almost 99.99% would have quit, she kept chipping away and continued to cherish the community she was surrounded with.
I am no where near to getting sponsored, my mediocre 623 ITRA index score is not giving me any sponsors. But one needs to be hyper self aware of what one needs out of the sport of trail & ultra running to chose a pretty good sponsor which aligns with their values. It is not easy to be that self aware when we are bombarded by n number of content in every walk of life and we are on the consumption side which can influence a lot of our decisions and can lead to a different path in our decision making. As Puppi brother said he wasn't okay with Nike, so he left & joined the Hoka team. He was able to make this decision as he was aware of what he needed and what wasn't in alignment with his ethics & values with the brand Nike.
Super interesting read Caleb! I'm an agent based in Italy and it's always very interesting to read the contract numbers in the US vs Europe!
I very much enjoyed reading about motivations too, it's super important athletes start pursuing this career because they love running and not because they might get some good pro contracts one day.
Unfortunately, today, trail running is pretty fragmented with athletes divided in: Skyrunning world series, Skyrunning world championships, World Mountain and Trail Championship, World Trail Majors, Golden Trail World Series, UTMB World Series (and Finals), Mountain Running World Cup, and I believe I'm missing some other world tour. This division creates so many different "world champion" who can (in the short term) get you a pro contract. However, as spectators of the sport, is hard to recognise who is very valuable vs who is not. It would be awesome to see more athletes seeking to compete against who they believe are the best out there and not to pursue a world title somewhere. This would eventually help get better contracts for those who are performing outstandingly since brands can easily recognise them.
Love this!
Great article, I don’t think I’ll ever be a pro but it’s interesting to see how it ‘works’.
Well written. I'm always impressed when I hear how other athletes negotiated in contract clauses that work best for them (ie. childcare, content creation, film funding, etc...) It really does go to show that the best tools are knowing what you want, your why, your self worth, and that you can always say you need more time/ push back on specific asks.
I really enjoyed your insights, Caleb. One of those “extras” to think about is how a sponsor can help you support any charity or community initiatives that are important to you.
Super insightful as a fan of the sport and, I can imagine, super valuable for any pro or aspiring pro in the sport. Thanks for sharing!
I’m curious what types of resources — you mention a potential future as an agent or mentor — you think are missing that could be broadly valuable today. It seems like this area of the sport is still maturing, rarely talked about publicly (NDAs, etc), and may only get more complex at the sport grows and evolves. It seems like there is so much valuable information and advice available, but no centralized set of resources runners can turn to (though they can certainly reference this article now!).
Some resources I think would be valuable to have out there would be templates for contacting brands, contact info of athlete managers, information on tax structures for athlete’s businesses, and lists of races generally being included in performance bonus structures. I’m sure there’s plenty of other stuff that could be helpful too but those are some that immediately come to mind.