At the 2025 US Trail Running Conference, Terry Chiplin invited Trailspect’s founder to stand before the entire assembly and promise to deliver a digital community product for race directors.
Terry created the conference and its race director mentorship program, building places where the people responsible for races could learn from one another. The US Trail Running Conference also provided part of the original inspiration for Trailspect.
This Space is the fulfillment of the promise made to that community. It is not an official extension of the conference or its mentorship program. It is a place built to carry that commitment forward and make it available to race directors everywhere.
Race directing is demanding work. It brings together permits, land managers, volunteers, vendors, safety planning, communications, community relationships, and thousands of decisions that most participants never see. Experienced race directors carry hard-earned judgment and institutional knowledge. Newer race directors bring questions, emerging experience, and the future of the work.
Race directors understand the substance of race directing. Trailspect knows how to create the structure that allows a community to communicate, preserve useful knowledge, connect mentors and mentees, and maintain relationships between conferences and events.
Some of the most valuable race director conversations cannot happen in full public view. Difficult decisions, mistakes, safety concerns, operational problems, sensitive relationships, and unfinished ideas often benefit from a restricted setting where race directors can speak candidly with people who understand the work. This Space connects race directors who want to have those conversations while creating appropriate ways for the broader community to understand and support its purpose.
The race director community will determine what this Space becomes through the way it uses it. Race directors will decide which subjects deserve attention, which information should be preserved, which questions need sustained discussion, and where the conversation should go. Trailspect will provide the tools, structure, and continuity. The people doing the work will shape the substance and direction.
This Space begins with mentorship, practical exchange, and connection, but its future should not be dictated by Trailspect. It should become whatever the race director community needs it to become.
A promise created this Space. The people doing the work will build it together.