Happy Birthday to us!
Black Trail Runners is one year old.
It seems hard to believe. Time has been slippery during the pandemic, not moving at its usual, or even a steady speed. Perhaps because we’ve spent much of that time indoors, in isolation, away from the trails, viewing the world through a computer screen.
So in many ways it seems like only yesterday we were announcing ourselves to the world with an open letter to race directors about the problem trail running has with diversity. We took a breath, and awaited the response. We saw the social media numbers grow, we read the responses from race directors and runners around the UK and the world, and we knew that we were onto something. Not just capturing the zeitgeist, but working on a project, a passion, that could change trail running for the better, for ever.
Yesterday, four of our co-founders joined several other members of our community at the Ultra Black Trails event in Kent, the brainchild of Dora Atim, an important member of our community since the beginning. It was an emotional opportunity to meet people in person that we’d been working with for a year. It was also a thrilling glimpse of what trail running can be: truly inclusive, diverse and welcoming for Black people who have never before been on the trails. There was love, laughter, tears of joy, and frankly a sense of awe and wonder. None of us has ever seen anything like this before. And we want to see more of it.
It’s important for us to reflect on how far we have come during our first twelve months; awareness of our progress gives us the energy to continue moving forward.
Despite the constraints imposed by the pandemic, we’ve held trail taster events at Wendover, the Malverns and Sheffield. We’ve seen a BTR team take on the Ramsay Round in Scotland. We’ve collected and analysed data on more than 12,000 UK trail race entries. We’ve set up collaborations with event companies, sports brands and grass-roots organisations. We’ve made our voice heard across running and general media, appearing in podcasts and on radio, and writing for magazines and newspapers. We’ve created a ground-breaking podcast, amplifying the voices of Black people in the running and outdoors communities. We’ve become a registered charity in England and Wales, and we’ll soon be a UK Athletics-affiliated running club. We’ve enabled and encouraged Black people onto the trails and into trail events. We’ve improved access, developed skills and increased representation.
We have more than 500 members in our Facebook group, and more than 5000 followers on Instagram. Our Strava club has more than a thousand members. Our website has visitors from all the world’s continents except Antarctica.
Most recently, we launched the Black Trail Runners 4.5 Challenge on Strava, with the support of the Strava Challenge Fund – the first diversity-related challenge of its kind in the UK. The response has been phenomenal, with more than 65,000 sign-ups at the time of writing. Money raised from the challenge will support the work of The Outrunners charity and TrailFam. And it will boost the ability of BTR to encourage more Black people onto the trails, facilitating access, developing skills and increasing representation.
More Trail Taster events are in the calendar and in the pipeline. Equipment loan and event fee schemes will launch soon. And next year will see Black Trail Runners host its own trail running race. Watch this space.
On second thoughts, don’t watch this space; occupy it. Get involved. If there’s one thing we’ve learned since last July, it’s that change doesn’t happen by itself. It happens because people work for it. The more of us who work for it, the bigger the change and the faster it will happen. We still need big change, so we need to keep working. Are you with us?
If you have the time and inclination to do more to help Black Trail Runners work towards its aim of increasing the participation of Black people in trail running, get in touch.