Inside The 2026 Merrell Skyrunner U.S. National Series

Skyrunning is back on U.S. soil, and we wanted to make the details impossible to miss. James Lauriello sits down with Eti Rodriguez (Managing Director, Skyrunner World Series), Ben Stark (Brand Manager, Merrell), and Louis Down (Media and Communications, Skyrunner) for a roundtable on what the new Merrell Skyrunner U.S. National Series is, why the timing finally makes sense, and how this season can grow a real skyrunning fan base in the United States.

We get into the big questions first: why it has been so hard to establish consistent skyrunning races in the U.S., what role organizers and permitting play, and why the country’s terrain is actually the perfect argument for a national series. From steep coastal climbs to big mountain routes and Alaska-level wildness, skyrunning thrives when courses demand more than runnable trail. Eddie and Louie also clarify the skyrunning vs trail running distinction and why that niche identity is a strength, not a limitation.

On the brand side, Ben explains why Merrell is leaning in globally and what that means for athletes and spectators at U.S. stops. Expect community-forward activations, athlete interactions, and demo opportunities featuring key Merrell trail and mountain running shoes, plus a big push at Beast of Big Creek where the World Series and National Series meet. We also talk about live stream potential, the race lineup (Whiteface Sky Race, Beast of Big Creek, Sitka Skyline Scramble, and the Kismet Cliff Run final), and how rankings and prize money work, including a $20,000 purse at the final.

If you care about technical mountain racing, short and steep sufferfests, and a clearer pathway for U.S. skyrunners, this one sets the stage. Subscribe, share this with a training partner, and leave a review with your pick for the must-watch race of the series.

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Transcript

Big Announcement And What’s Ahead

SPEAKER_03 0:11

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Steep Stuff Podcast. I'm your host, James L'Oreal. And today I am so excited. Uh, we have a lot of really exciting announcements to make, but first and foremost, I am joined by Mr. Eddie Rodriguez, the managing director of the Skyrunner World Series, Ben Stark, the brand manager at Merrill, and Mr. Louie Down, the content media manager for the Skyrunner World Series. And today we talk all things Meryl Skyrunner US National series, including the announcement that the Steep Stuff Podcast will be working as one of the official media partners for the Skyrunner US National series. We talk all about that series, including the races that make up the fabric of the series, how to qualify for the prize money, the final ranking, all the good stuff. Anything and everything you guys want to know, why this is the right time for the series to enter back into the fray of the United States, um, how we can build the fan base, all the good stuff. Uh, and then Ben does a fantastic job of talking about, you know, Meryl's partnership and uh just how important Merrill and Skyrunner this uh this beautiful partnership. We also talk about the sky running and skunner distinctions. Uh, we talked about a little bit of the distinction between trail running and sky running as well. So all kinds of good stuff there. Um I hope you guys enjoyed this one. It's a really powerful and exciting episode. Um I I above all else, the the goal is to continue to build the fan base of Skyrunning in the United States, and I think this kicks things off to uh get the hype going. We have the Whiteface Sky Race coming up on July 4th, and uh what a better way to celebrate the 4th of July than skyrunning in the U.S. and kicking things off. Um, also gonna be races in Alaska with the Ski Talk Skyline Scramble, um, obviously the base of Big Creek, that's gonna be a World Series race, and uh finally the final at the Kis McCliff run in Conway, New Hampshire, which is directed by uh a friend of the podcast, Mr. Tom Hooper. So lots of things to be excited for, lots of prize money, and all the best. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thanks for tuning in.

Meet The Skyrunner And Merrell Team

SPEAKER_03 2:15

All right, Louie Down, E.T. Rodriguez, Ben Stark, welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast. This is gonna be a round table conversation regarding the Merrill Skyrunner U.S. National Series. Super excited to welcome all of you to the show. Uh in the spirit of conversation for a roundtable chat, I'm gonna let each of you introduce yourself as well and talk a little bit about your background and your role. Uh Ben, we'll start with you because you're on the upper left-hand screen and uh we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Cool. Yeah, thanks, James. Ben Stark here. I'm with uh the Merrill team. I'm on the brand marketing team. I oversee the trail run category as well as uh the work we do with our athletes around the world. Um I've been on the team for gosh, just over eight years now, which is kind of crazy to say it out loud. Um but uh yeah, been with Merrill for eight years and on the brand marketing team and uh stoked to be working with uh Eddie and Lewis with um Skyrunner.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Super excited to have you on the conversation. Uh Eddie, if you uh wouldn't mind uh kicking off for your for your end.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Yeah, sure. So I'm the managing director at Skyman, um, which opens the Sky in a World Series. Um and adjacent to that um is the Sky US Sky National Series, um, which we're really excited about rolling out this year um for the first time since I think at least 2019. And as Ben has said, it's been it's been great to work with Merrill. Um so yeah, we've we've got a ton of support there, and it's sort of made our endeavors in the US possible.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Awesome. And last is Mr. Louis Down, if you wouldn't mind uh introducing yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Hey, I'm Louis. I'm in charge of uh media and communications for the Scarina National Series. Um I also work on the Scarina World Series and uh yeah, really looking forward to capturing the season and uh working on storytelling and putting the athletes forward and really encouraging uh encouraging US athletes to come and be a part of part of this sport.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Well, we're super excited to have all of you guys here. I'm gonna

Why The U.S. Series Returns Now

SPEAKER_03 4:27

direct the first question to E.T. If you wanted to uh maybe uh talk a little bit about why why now? I think this is a great conversation to have is why now for the Merrill Skyrunner US National Series? We had a some iteration of the national series way back one in like 2019. And I, for one, as an athlete in the sport, and I think many others can say how excited we are to have uh something like this back in the United States. My question is though, why why in this moment?

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Yeah, um so since I took over in 2022 for the Skyrim World Series, we've we've definitely wanted a race in the US. Um, I mean, for one, it's a huge market, huge country, extremely diverse geography, like honestly, unlike anywhere else on the planet, I think. Um you know, the nature of the mountains shifts dramatically as well, like comparing to where you're when you're out east and west coast, and obviously the Rockies through the middle of the country, um, and the pockets of mountains that you even get in like Texas, and then obviously have Alaska, etc. etc. Like just yeah, the diversity in landscape and geography is just unreal. Um and it's it also has a history, like the Sky Runner World Series was associated with Pikes Peak. Um perhaps perhaps that was like in 2011, so it's it's not so recent, but there is like there is some history there. Um and then I think that there were various attempts, like with the Rut, for instance, that was previously in the Sky Runner World Series, perhaps as recently as 2019 or 2018, don't remember now. Um and then there have been like attempts at having the Sky International series. Um But yeah, so for the Sky Runner World Series, since 2022, 2023, like we really wanted a US race. It was difficult for various reasons. Um you know, it's obviously a sport that's not as well known in the US as what it is in say Europe where it is fairly well established. Um people do it often from when they're quite young. Um this was this was a difficulty, and it was difficult to get like the right organizer, um for various reasons it just didn't work. Like we contemplated creating our own races from scratch. There were various obstacles around this, like around permitting the forestry services. We even went down the route of trying to like align with a private a private company that owns like a lot of land. Um but yeah, at each step there's been obstacles. So we went back to um went back to an organizer, um managed to get the beast of Big Creek in the in the Sky Runner World Series for 2026, um which we're really excited about. So that'll take place in Washington. I guess it's like an hour and a half outside of um outside of Seattle. And then we started getting like um we started working around the same time also with with Ben and the US team, um, the US metal team. And around the same time we were getting some feedback from the International Sky Running Federation who like provides course around skywriting events, that there was a collection of races that had applied for this core certification or had received course certification. And with that, we basically made the decision that it would be a good time to contact those races and to see whether they'd be interested in joining the Sky Running National Series. Um, and we felt like we had the capacity to do that in 2026. So that's effectively where we are. So it fulfills some of our ambitions with bringing Skyrunning back to the US and um and yeah, we're we're pumped and we'll we're excited about it.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Well, I I could definitely could speak for myself uh and so many others that uh I think the the general audience is extremely excited about it as

How To Grow Skyrunning Fans

SPEAKER_03 8:42

well. I I do have a fan-based question for you. I think with this with this series now in the United States, with with some races that have been around for a long time, like the Kismet uh Cliff race uh as well as Whiteface and races like that. Um I I think it with the athletes being able to go to these races and race for something like prize money uh and for the outright win of who is the the US National Series champion, if you will, uh I think it helps building the fan base. What do you think as far as what we can do to continue building the fan base for skyrunning in the United States? Because it already has such a you know such a big following in in Europe and and abroad.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Yeah, I definitely think that like the elite athletes have a lot to do with uh race in pursuit, right? Like you see this with Western today, you see this with UTMB, although UTMB obviously has a fantastic um backdrop with chamony and so on. But yeah, I mean this is this is definitely a big thing. I think people follow um follow runners like based on their success oftentimes. And I think if we can attract elite runners to the Sky International Series, that will definitely have a big impact. I think also just having a footprint um and having like a certain number of races over various geographies and states um will help as well, right? That there'll be visibility coming directly from those races. And yeah, hopefully we do a good job in promoting them as well. Um I think that that will that will slowly like seep into the fan base and start developing a fan base and so on. Um yeah, I think also like where we've selected the races for 2026 may help in this as well. Like we do have diverse locations, right? We've got a race that starts in New York State, then we have uh Washington State, then we have Alaska and finishing off in New Hampshire. So I think like hopefully, hopefully that we have like quite a cross-section of races will be helpful for this as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

It's very exciting. All right,

Why Merrell Backs Skyrunning

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Ben, I'm gonna I'm gonna uh transition over to you. Um I can I ask you, as the Merrill brand manager, uh what what does this mean to you to be able to partner and continue to partner um from the brand side uh with the Skyrunner World Series?

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah, it's a good question, James. You know, I think when we look at our partnership with Skyrunner, it it really goes back to 2020, but a lot of the the first half of the 2020 is when we partnered, it was it was completely owned by our European office, um, and and rightly so. Um they were really leaning into that series with a lot of the races taking place in you know Western Europe, middle Europe. And um it made a lot of sense at that time. Our our side of the globe, we were focused on a different race series and honestly kind of a different consumer target with the race series that we were partnering with. And then the pandemic hit, right? Everything shuts down. Um, and at the same time, on our on our side here, our product team was really leaning into developing, you know, what has become the Merrill Test Lab and what kind of shoes are coming out of that, what kind of shoes our athletes are asking for, um, what kind of races they're going to be competing in, what kind of terrain they're demanding, you know, shoes for. And and a lot of what synchronized over that time was there was a need from our athletes for this type of racing, for skyrunning. And it was last year we had a conversation, I had a conversation with our European counterparts to say, hey, you guys have been doing a lot of cool things with Skyrunner. I think there's appetite and potential for us to take this and try to make it bigger, try to make it more global, and try to lean in holistically as a brand, not just have it be a bit of a one-off storytelling moment from Europe. Um, and all of our regions completely aligned. They leaned right in and we then went back to Eddie and team and said, okay, let's make this bigger. Let's uh let's look at Skyrunner. Let's say, you know, we want races in every region that Merrill operates in the world. We want to make sure that we get a race here in the United States. What do you think? Can we do this? And the team was ecstatic. They're like, yeah, let's absolutely build this with you. Let's make sure that we're covering off on these amazing places around the world that have excellent opportunities for skyrunning that lean into different markets that you know our brand is active in. Uh, and it's been an absolute uh just treasure to be able to kind of lean into that with with Eddie and team and and build that out. Um, for us, for Merrill, you know, our brand campaign, the really the the total ethos of Merrill hinges upon this idea of it starts outside, which is really connecting with consumers to help them find this like reset that we can gain as humans by getting outside, right? That's pretty that's pretty accessible, right? For for the the common person, right? Like finding ways to to go outside out your front door or a trip, you know, go somewhere. Getting outside is going to have all of this kind of power and potential to help you. Then we look at Skyrunner, and this is like aspiration, right? This is this is like the type of racing and the type of environments that's like, wow, my stomach wants to drop out, and I'm sitting at home watching on my TV, you know, the live stream that the teams pulled out. I think what Skyrunner does for us is it provides a little bit of that tip of the mountain sphere, that that element of us proving out our product, proving out the performance capabilities of our product, um, and really giving us this halo effect to say, hey, we make incredible footwear. Um, it's gonna enable athletes like Jose Manuel or Fred, you know, or Morgan or Lena to absolutely crush in these environments, but at the same time, you can step outside your front door and still get a lot of the same respite and the same positive effects that come from the outdoors. Um, but I think Skyrunner gives us that element of like credibility and authenticity and kind of um you know really proves the performance capability of our products.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Absolutely. So well said. Uh

On-Site Activations And Demo Shoes

SPEAKER_03 15:06

I gotta ask you this, and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself when it comes to the races, but what can we expect on the Merrill side at the at the you know, at the US series races, um as far as like athletes, as far as like activations, things like that. Is there anything you can kind of like tease ahead of time uh that fans and athletes uh alike will be able to uh how they'll be able to interact with the brand?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's a great question. Um the the biggest one for sure is gonna be Beast of Big Creek, where we see the the World Series and the National Series combine into one event. Um we're really gonna go all out at that one. We're very excited. Our product team is gonna be out there. We're bringing in all of our North American athletes to that one. We'll be doing um, you know, our our Merrill Test Lab in action with our product team and our athletes. We'll have demo shoes at all of these races. So um the key shoes that are in the market right now, the Agility Peak Six, we just launched this year. This is our super technical um mountain running shoe uh that just hit the market. We'll have the MTL Long Sky 2, which has been a favorite for our athletes um over the past couple of years, uh, as well as the MTL Adapt, which is uh more of a high stack, you know, high cushion shoe. Those will be available for um for test out, for demos. Um and then we'll be looking at different ways to just interact with people on the ground. We're really kind of getting a feel for what uh what I think the community wants out of these in the US because it I think it has a different feel than it does in you know in Europe or in Asia or in Latin America, South America. So um finding opportunities to really connect with the people on the ground, build community, give them trial opportunities to touch, feel test out the product, meet our athletes that are out there hanging out and interact with our partners in the space. Um, this year is really about us um, you know, feeling out that first year and making sure that we're doing it right and then looking at next year how do we expand this? How do we make it even better? You know, are there what live stream opportunities do we have to really help try to grow the fan base here in the US so that they want to tune in and see what's going on, especially as we're moving toward the Olympics coming to the US in 2028? I think there's gonna be a lot of fun opportunities to get people excited about this type of competition outside. Um, and and I think a lot of that's gonna revolve around this type of series being in the US.

Live Streaming The Races

SPEAKER_03 17:24

As far as the live streams go, and I don't want to go too far into uh like a this is just me as a curious fan. I was uh a commentator last week at the U.S. Mountain Running Championship at the Son of Peace Scramble, and we had a fantastic live stream. I just have found that a lot of short trail races or races in the space have kind of moved away from it. Is there, do you think on more on the brand side uh that's something that there's possibly a craving for uh just because of how much you can really get the race out to the world and the masses, um, you know, and really outside of the community with a live stream?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I think it's an opportunity that we have to explore. Um, we've seen some early data back from a few of the World Series races that we had live stream coverage for this year with Skyrunner, and it's been really positive on the back end seeing how many people did tune in and did want to, you know, um follow along as it was going on. Um, so uh I I think it's an opportunity we have to consider and try. And, you know, if if there is appetite for it, then we want to make sure it's happening. Fantastic.

The Race Lineup Across The U.S.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

All right, Eddie, I'm gonna move over to you. I'm gonna ask, uh, because we didn't even talk about it yet. We've talked about the the geographic locations, but we haven't talked about the races. Um if you wouldn't mind, maybe give the lineup of U.S. races this year that athletes are gonna be able to attend, and then we'll talk about the final and the prize money.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

Yeah, so the first race is the Whiteface Sky Race, which takes place um in New York, 4th of July. Um there's actually been an Olympic games, like Winter Olympic Games in um Lake Placid, which I think is like 10 minutes roughly away. So I think that's really cool. Um very rugged course, um very steep. So I think that that will be it'll be different than what you see like for sure in like Colorado or in California where you get like very long climbs, probably the mountains are higher. But I think that this touches on like a different different side of sky running, um but not completely unique to what we see in the Sky Runner World series in certain events, like you know, we have maybe similar races that are coastal that just have like very, very sharp climbs, and I think that this will this will be similar in that respect. Um second race is the beast of Big Creek, which as Ben was saying before is the Sky Runner World Series and the Sky International Series like sort of converging. Um as I said, that takes place like one and a half hours outside of Seattle. I would imagine, or I've seen the single lineup, it's gonna be a very strong contingent of runners, um, both US runners and international runners. That's a 22-kilometer course. Um quite a lot of elevation gained for the distance. Um and then it comes back on itself the same way. I think the descent will be extremely fast. Possibly not as technical as some of the other races in the in either the national series or the Sky and a World Series, but I think a very tough course in that it is just like all one climb and all the descent. Um then we have skin tour skyline scramble in Alaska, which looks to be a really gnarly, a really gnarly race, um, and probably as brutal as what you can imagine from uh from a race in Alaska. Um and we find uh we finished the Skyrim National Series with Kismet Cliff in New Hampshire, middle of middle of September.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

What a great time to be in New Hampshire, too. Um I don't know if you guys have ever spent any time in North Conway. That town, I've always I told Tom Hooper, he's a good friend of mine, uh, and the race director of Kismet, all the time. I always tell him it could be so much potential there for a Mecca of sky ruddering running, just because there's so many great uh trails, and you've got the white mountains really at your front door, and there's a lot of athletes in the area. It's a great, great race and a great course.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Um Yeah, it was James, it was uh conversations with Tom at TRE last year that that really got us into bringing Kismet in as the the final to that to the series this year.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah, it's a great, great selection. Uh fantastic selection. And that will serve as the the final for this year. Um

Prize Money And Ranking Rules

SPEAKER_03 21:51

but I do want to ask you guys how many races do you need to race to qualify for the prize money?

SPEAKER_04 21:56

And how many races is there? Two two races. Um two races that are sort of the three the three races prior to the final, two races and then the final um is what we've decided upon. And yeah, we'll basically be taking the rankings from the top 30 athletes as well and then cleating those. Whoever has the highest ranking after those three races will be a judge to have been the uh international series champion for 2026. Um and there is prize money that's awarded at the final twenty thousand dollars. Um Merrill has very, very kindly um allocated.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Thank you, Ben.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah yeah, we're very excited.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Is there uh is like a big trophy, like a or like a belt, like a championship belt, anything anything cool as far as like uh like a final champion kind of thing? That'd be kind of fun.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

We have we haven't got we haven't got into that yet. What what we'll what we'll certainly do is provide the Sky Runner winner winners bibs. Um this is something of like a tradition in the Sky Runner World Series. So at each race we award the male and female champions with um with a basically a tank top, right? Um and it's it's not dissimilar to like the Mayo John or the um the yellow jersey and cycling. And this has been a tradition from skyrunning since at least 2016, I think. So we'll definitely continue with that trend, whether we go for a trophy as well. Um we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Yeah, we gotta talk about that. Who would it be? Like a huge, huge bald eagle, golden bald eagle. Yeah, something.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

Maybe we need to do that one from the 4th of July.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah, yeah. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

That's true. That could be a good one. Um yeah, no, it's super exciting. And I'm so happy that you guys are bringing the the Jersey concept uh over to the US series just because keeping with tradition and just how important that is to the skyrunning ethos of you know the races going, you know, the history as well. So I'm very happy that you guys are bringing that over as well. Very cool. Um

What Makes Skyrunning Different

SPEAKER_03 24:27

we we hit on the races, we talked about the individual races, we introduced everyone, we talked about the prize money and how to get the prize money, how many races you need to be at. Is there anything that you guys wanted to cover and touch on that maybe I didn't get into?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Um yeah, no, I had a point. Uh I I just want to make make a point that you know um skyrunning is a discipline in itself, and I think a lot of people were confused about it about the Skyrunner World Series and Skyrunning. And um, yeah, no, we are the Skyrunner World Series and the sport, and the sport is skyrunning for anyone that was for anyone that was wondering. It is a it is a completely separate discipline.

unknown 25:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah, I think sorry.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

Yeah, I think I think it is a decent distinction. Um I feel I feel like we are quite lucky to be in a niche. Um we don't necessarily need to compete with anybody, like it doesn't feel like we need to compete with anybody necessarily. And that's quite nice. I think it allows us more flexibility than what we we'd otherwise have. Um when I took over, certainly like my impulse um for various reasons was to like head towards trail running, I suppose. Um you know, you have larger events typically, maybe more eyeballs on those events as well. There's obviously far more trail events as well, so it becomes easier to like to select events. Um but actually like the existing team that was uh sky running basically advised against this. And I listened and I'm I'm really glad I did. Like it's I feel grateful that we're in this niche, and I do think the the distinction that Louie touches upon is is an important one because I think a lot of the time people sort of um confound go running and skyrunning. There's obviously big similarities, and large sections of sky races are often are often like have lots of trail and so on as well. But the ideal sky race is where you're headed up the mountain to get to the peak, come back down, and hopefully along the way, you're like have some period of time where you're using your hands and your feet and you're scrambling and you're navigating like terrain that you wouldn't find in a typical trail race. Um yeah, it there's there's a small climbing element to it as well, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say what separates it is one of the most pure and like special aspects of the sport, in my opinion. What makes it different from trail running and mountain running and things like that. Um it's funny, I I was literally on uh sitting there yesterday thinking about this because I like to consider the podcast a short trail podcast, but what does that mean? What does subultra mean? What does short trail mean? And so I finally just settled on all things trail, mountain, and sky. And like that, that way we try to incorporate as much as possible and catch as much as possible because it's um you know, you want to justify those distinctions because sky is so different, and it's a completely different thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

So James, are we gonna see you out at any of the uh races this year?

Where We’ll See You On Course

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Oh yeah, yeah. I will be at uh Whiteface in just a few weeks uh doing doing finish line interviews. I'm gonna do the the mountain race. So I'll finish up before uh the Skyrunner, Sky athletes get down and uh be all muddy and and disgusting and ready with the microphone to uh to have some finish line, just microphone in the face and all the all the fun interviews, and then probably Kismet as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So Okay, that's excellent. Look forward to seeing you at those. And then uh if there's any way to get you out to Beast of Big Creek, please, please don't hesitate.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Oh, absolutely. Well, I genuinely appreciate you guys so much for coming on. Uh what a great conversation. And uh yeah, I just want to say thank you and uh looking forward to the next chat and uh what we'll be able to uh to build together going into the season. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Excellent chance. Thanks, James. Yeah, thank you.