While the attention of the running world was on Chamonix for the 2024 UTMB, we hosted our first ever overseas moving meet, bringing people together to move, learn and interact. As well as the running element of the meet, we had podcaster and photographer Danny Easton join Aspire’s Lory Louves on stage to host a panel discussion on community and inclusion, featuring guests:
Chloë Lanthier: founder of Chamonix Mountain Endurance Academy, holder of a Masters in Biomechanics and Human Performance. She has also earned 40 podiums in ultra & mountain running.
Zach Friedley: a professional On trail running adaptive athlete (recently competed at Sierre Zinal), founder of Born to Adapt – which provides inclusive running clinics and trail races for the disabled/adaptive community.
Maili BB: member of Power Up community based in Paris, fresh off crewing at the Chamonix to Marseille Speed Project race.
What follows are edited highlights of the discussion. You can view the full discussion below:
Origins
Chloë : I grew up in Montreal but I moved out west to British Columbia to do my studies and that’s where I discovered the mountains. I was more into the culture of mountaineering first, but I was a pro mountain biker and doing a lot of ski mountaineering. I was still running though and I was invited to do the Marathon des Sables. So that was my first trail race. I suffered a lot, but I had an amazing experience. I discovered something I really loved.
Zach: My running journey started as a kid in sports where running was a punishment. I didn’t really enjoy running, but it was part of my life. And then when I was 21, I got my first blade. Back then, you kind of had to know people to acquire one of these. So my sights turned to the Paralympics. I got my blade like six months before Beijing, didn’t make the team, but was a really high prospect for 2012 London so I trained for that and didn’t make it and then quit about 2014 on the way to Rio. I found myself in a place called Mendocino, California and I started to have a new relationship with my body – I just wanted to move and I had this blade that was laying around and I put it on and started running. That opened up the world to me. And now I get to run in the most iconic trail races in the world. I’m a professional trail runner.
Maili: I started running when I was around 12 as part of a club. I was doing cross-country and I hated it. I love to be competitive but the competition wasn’t so much about being with my friends in the club, but more, we want to be first. I continued to run when I started my studies and when I came to Paris – I was like okay maybe I want to meet people or whatever. I just found the group Power Up, and everything started with them.
I grew up in the countryside, so for me, running on trails was something I was used to doing when I grew up. I didn’t know that was really something. I feel like trail running just brings different things to you, being in nature. I love my city life, but for me I can’t live without the nature.
On Community
Maili: I feel like community really pushes your boundaries and really helps you to be consistent and you definitely learn a lot from the others, like you need to manage your pace because it’s not like half marathon, you need to chill out a little bit. We are 25 members in Chamonix for this week, half of the people are not running, they are just here to be with the others and to be behind them. It’s really great when you are running to know that you have your people around and just they will be there for you. I got really lucky with my community. I had so many opportunities and the cherry on top is to have friends now.
Zach: Community for me, I think it’s unity – like putting the ‘unity’ back in community. For trail running, it’s about bringing groups of people together that maybe wouldn’t meet each other on the street and just crossing paths with like a disabled person, with a non-disabled person and maybe making them more comfortable when they go back to their home and they can invite a person in a wheelchair on their next run. So it’s just exposing people to things that they may not be exposed to and making it normal.
Chloë : I’ve been involved in community for 30 years and it’s something I started naturally. For me it’s always been important to share my passion, but to bring people to the sport, and then my education and my work is very important for me to inform people – injury prevention, how to train, understand their body. But also it’s about bringing them in the mountains – a lot of people are intimidated.
When I moved to Chamonix there were zero community programmes and I started a community programme just before UTMB – what I love is sharing the best way to get into the mountains.
On Inclusivity
Zach: I think for my community, a lot of us aren’t being invited to these spaces – for a disabled person, there’s no real intake process. So I think my thing is just to get people outside and let them know that they’re invited into this place. That’s why I created Born to Adapt: we have a kid from Ecuador, he’s 19, he’s missing his leg below the knee. He came to Born to Adapt this year and we started talking about UTMB. And he’s like, can I race UTMB? We got him into the UTMB Quito and he did a 31K. He qualified, got a stone and is now going to race UTMB OCC next year. That would have never happened if he never came to Born to Adapt – I’m trying to give somebody the experience that I had, and how far they want to take that is up to them.
Maili: Because the way I look, I’m interesting for many brands, so I do shooting for brands, even though it’s not my work, but it’s great just to run and I feel like I’m a good image. But I’m not sure that people will think about me as being part of a trail world, you know, even though I race and whatever. So in that spot, I’m not belonging. And on the other side, I grew up in the countryside where my mother is black and my father is white and I was really used to us being the only like black people. So I’m really used to it.
Chloë : The more the sport evolved, I feel like we’re getting more and more old school. And one thing professionally, I have a hard time looking at is that the percentage of women is 20% in ultra. I have so many friends that are elite, or they’re really strong, that could basically make a top 50, but they’re not at the starting line because they’ve had the stone, but because they (UTMB) go with percentage. I think it should be 50/50. Let’s give it a try! And I think then we would see more women in the top 30 and the top 20. We need to start talking about the accomplishment of women and making women more included instead of looking at why we’re weaker, or why we need more help.
Zach: All the brands that are here, and if all the brands went away, then I think UTMB maybe wouldn’t even exist. They hold a lot of power. If the brands came together and decided on some things that need to change and then presented that to the big organisations, there would be some changes.
Want to learn more about our Moving Meets? Please get in touch at hello@aspirepr.co.uk to find out more.
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Videography & Photography: Phil Hill (@the_phbalance)
