Craig Thornley and Sally McRae to Keynote the 2026 US Trail Running Conference
The 2026 US Trail Running Conference just made its biggest announcement of the year. Craig Thornley, the longtime race director of the Western States 100, and Sally McRae, one of ultra running's most recognized athlete-advocates, have been named keynote speakers for the event, set for September 8, 2026. If you follow trail running at any level, this pairing is worth paying attention to.
The conference is the premier annual gathering for trail running professionals in the United States. Coaches, race directors, brand representatives, and elite athletes converge to shape the direction of the sport. Who gets the keynote slot says a lot about what the industry considers urgent. This year, the answer is clear: infrastructure and culture, simultaneously.
Who Is Craig Thornley?
If you've heard of one trail race, it's probably Western States. The Western States Endurance Run is the oldest 100-mile trail race in the world, covering 100.2 miles from Squaw Valley to Auburn, California, with over 18,000 feet of climbing and punishing summer heat. It's the race that defines the sport's upper limit of ambition for tens of thousands of runners globally.
Craig Thornley has served as its race director for over a decade. Under his leadership, Western States has navigated wildfire cancellations, course modifications, explosive growth in applicant numbers, and the ongoing tension between lottery accessibility and field quality. Managing that race isn't just a logistical job. It's a philosophical one.
Thornley's decisions ripple outward. When Western States updates its qualifier standards, dozens of other races feel it immediately. When the lottery system expands or contracts, the entire ultra calendar shifts. His perspective on race infrastructure is not theoretical. It's tested, annually, at the highest stakes the sport offers.
His keynote at the conference will likely address scaling race operations responsibly, the challenge of managing demand that far outstrips capacity, and how iconic events can maintain their identity as trail running's participant numbers continue to climb. Trail running participation in the US has grown by an estimated 40 percent over the past five years, and race organizations are struggling to keep pace.
Who Is Sally McRae?
Sally McRae is one of the most visible figures in trail and ultra running, and her influence goes well beyond podium finishes. She's a multiple-time competitor at Western States, Badwater, and other marquee ultras, but her reach into the broader running community comes from something harder to quantify: her consistent, public focus on mental resilience and who trail running is actually for.
McRae has spoken openly about the barriers that keep certain athletes from accessing the sport, whether financial, cultural, or psychological. She's built a substantial following not by projecting an image of effortless elite performance, but by being direct about difficulty, about suffering in races, about the mental frameworks that make the difference when your body wants to quit. Her work resonates with beginner trail runners just as much as it does with seasoned ultra veterans.
That accessibility focus matters now more than ever. As the sport grows, it's attracting runners who don't fit the traditional profile of the ultra community. If that growth is going to be sustainable, the culture has to expand alongside the infrastructure. McRae's keynote is likely to center on exactly that: how the trail running community can grow its participant base without losing the values that make it worth joining in the first place.
If you're currently planning your fall racing calendar, her perspective on community and race selection could be genuinely useful. The Fall Ultra Season 2026: How to Pick Your Race guide breaks down the key factors worth considering before you commit to an entry fee.
Why This Pairing Signals Something Specific
Conference organizers don't pair keynotes by accident. Thornley and McRae represent two distinct but complementary forces in trail running right now, and putting them both on the main stage in the same day sends a deliberate message.
On one side, you have the operational reality of trail running at scale. Race directors across the US are dealing with record application numbers, environmental permitting challenges, volunteer shortages, and the logistical complexity that comes with courses that cross wilderness areas. Thornley embodies the institutional side of the sport.
On the other side, you have the human experience of trail running, the reasons people run ultras in the first place, the mental and emotional dimensions that no finish-line clock captures. McRae embodies that. Her presence signals that the conference isn't treating athlete culture as secondary to race logistics. It's treating them as equally essential.
That's the right call. Trail running's growth is fueled by both. Better race organization brings more people in. A culture that actually welcomes them keeps them around. The sport needs both working well at the same time.
What the Conference Represents for the Industry
The US Trail Running Conference isn't a consumer expo. It's an industry event, and the distinction matters. The people in the room are making decisions that affect how millions of runners experience the sport: designing training programs, setting race standards, building community platforms, coaching athletes at every level from first-time 50K runners to elite 100-milers.
The conference agenda typically covers topics like race permitting, coaching methodology, athlete health and safety, and business sustainability for independent race organizations. It's also where trends get named before they become mainstream. If something is being discussed seriously on the conference floor in September, you'll likely see it reflected in the broader trail running conversation by the following spring.
For coaches specifically, this is also a moment to think about training structure heading into fall. The Fall Race Season: How to Structure Your Training Week Now resource is worth revisiting as athletes start finalizing their Q4 goals.
And if you're tracking the ultra racing calendar around the conference date, the Ultra Weekend Recap: September 6, 2026 Results covers the major race outcomes from the days immediately preceding the event.
Trail Running's Bigger Moment
The timing of this conference matters. Trail running is at an inflection point. Participation numbers are up across every demographic. Shoe brands that ignored the category five years ago are now pouring resources into it. Media coverage has expanded dramatically. The sport is being taken seriously by mainstream fitness culture in a way it simply wasn't a decade ago.
That growth brings pressure. More runners on trails means more impact on ecosystems. More race entrants means tougher lottery odds and harder qualification standards. More visibility means more scrutiny of how the community treats newcomers, how it handles safety incidents, and whether its values hold up under commercial pressure.
Safety conversations, in particular, have intensified recently. The trail running world has been paying close attention to incidents in alpine environments, including the ongoing situation covered in the report on Skyrunner Kalie McCrystal Missing on the Matterhorn, which raised serious questions about risk management at the edge of the sport.
Against that backdrop, choosing keynote speakers who represent both race management excellence and athlete-centered advocacy isn't just symbolic. It's a statement about what the conference believes the sport needs to get right.
What to Watch for on September 8
If you're attending the 2026 US Trail Running Conference, Thornley's keynote will likely be the session to bring your most operational questions to. Think about what's broken in race infrastructure from your perspective, whether that's volunteer pipelines, qualifier systems, or environmental compliance. He's lived those problems at the highest level and built real solutions.
McRae's session will probably land differently. It's less about systems and more about what you believe. Who is trail running for? How do you build a training culture or a race community that actually lives up to its stated values? Those aren't soft questions. They're the ones that determine whether trail running's growth becomes a lasting shift or a participation bubble.
Recovery and performance science will also likely surface across breakout sessions. Topics like altitude training for trail runners tend to generate real debate at events like this, where coaches and athletes are actively experimenting with what works at high elevation and what's mostly marketing.
The 2026 US Trail Running Conference has positioned itself as a forum for the sport's most pressing questions. With Thornley and McRae sharing the keynote stage on September 8, it's starting the conversation at the right level.