Then and Now, Still Moving Forward

A photo from 15 years ago stopped me long enough to realize just how much has changed—and what’s stayed the same.

Someone sent me a photo recently.

It was from 15 years ago at a pre-race meeting for the very first Dirty Kiln Trail Race. Clipboard in hand, probably saying something I thought sounded official.

And wow… I look young.

Black hair. Less wear and tear. A little more certainty than I probably deserved.

I remember that version of me pretty clearly. I was frustrated more often than not (mostly with work and were I was in life), unsure of what I was doing half the time, and fueled almost entirely by stubborn belief and a deep, irrational love for trails that didn’t always love me back.

Seeing that photo stopped me for a minute.

While a couple of friends and I were at a local tavern, planning the first Dirty Kiln Trail Race, a guy was sitting across from us at the bar and overheard our conversation. "Running in the woods?", he thought. This stranger walked over and said hello. At one point, he took this photo of me. If you talk to this person, he will say that the path he was on had changed. That day, he stopped drinking and started running.

Because that version of the sport, and maybe more importantly, that version of the community, feels like a different era.

Back then, trail running in Pennsylvania felt small. Not in a bad way. Just… sparse.

You could look at a calendar from March through October and realistically pick one, maybe two races a month if you were willing to travel a bit. You knew most of the names. You’d see the same people over and over again, not because it was trendy, but because there simply weren’t that many of us.

And the trails themselves?

They weren’t always these well-defined, curated corridors.

They were rough. Overgrown. Sometimes barely there. You’d head out knowing the general direction and hoping the path still existed. Blazes were… interpretive at best. Part of the experience was figuring it out as you went. It was equal parts running and expedition. And it was always thrilling.

Now?

Now it’s something else entirely.

Every weekend, sometimes both Saturday and Sunday, you can find a start line somewhere. New races. New distances. New formats. Entire series built around getting people into the woods.

Trail crews are out there quietly doing the work -- cutting back brush, rebuilding tread, reopening corridors that had disappeared. “Friends of” groups have formed around parks and forests that, years ago, didn’t have that kind of advocacy. Organizations like the Keystone Trails Association or the Mid State Trail Association are doing the steady, unglamorous work that actually makes all of this possible.

And then there’s the shift you don’t see as easily. These are the chambers of commerce. Visitor bureaus. Economic development groups. State agencies. Federal partners.

Fifteen years ago, if you tried to explain that a trail race could have measurable economic impact on a rural community, you might get a polite nod and a quick change of subject.

Now it’s part of the conversation.

Trails aren’t just recreation anymore. They’re infrastructure. They’re tourism. They’re identity. They’re a reason for people to come, stay, spend money, and maybe most importantly, they might come back.

That evolution matters.

But if I’m being honest, that’s not what built this.

It wasn’t funding. It wasn’t strategic plans. It wasn’t a packed race calendar.

It was you.

It’s the individuals who keep showing up.

The ones who lace up their shoes when it would be easier not to. The ones who choose a rocky ridgeline over a comfortable morning. The ones who sign up, even when they’re not sure they’re ready.

We talk a lot about the benefits like fresh air, forest bathing, unplugging, all of that. And yeah, that’s part of it. But what I’ve seen, over and over again, goes a lot deeper.

I’ve watched people change out there.

Not in the big, dramatic, social-media-announcement kind of way. In the quiet, incremental, mile-by-mile way.

I’ve seen people process grief on these trails. I’ve seen them carry loss up a climb and come down a little lighter. I’ve seen anxiety get dialed down, not all at once, but step by step. I’ve seen people redirect parts of their lives that were heading in a bad direction --addiction, anger, restlessness -- and channel that energy into something constructive. Something grounding.

You hear it if you stick around long enough.

At aid stations, in those few minutes where people let their guard down. In parking lots after the race, when everyone’s too tired to pretend. Over a beer, when stories start coming out a little more honestly. There are a lot of people carrying heavy things out there. And choosing, deliberately, to keep moving forward anyway. That’s the part that doesn’t show up in race results. That’s the part that builds a community. It’s not just shared miles. It’s shared understanding.

It’s the way a start line can feel like a reunion. The way a complete stranger can become someone you look for at the next race. The way backgrounds, jobs, politics, all of that noise fades a bit when you’re standing on the same patch of dirt, about to head into the same woods.

Fifteen years ago, I don’t think I could’ve imagined this version of it.

I was just trying to put on a race that people wouldn’t hate. Trying to mark a course well enough that most folks would find their way back. Trying to figure it out as I went.

Now, standing here with a lot more gray hair and a much longer list of things that have gone wrong (and somehow worked out anyway), I find myself mostly feeling grateful.

For the growth.

For the grit.

For the people who kept showing up and, in doing so, built something bigger than any one race or any one person.

And I’m excited.

Because if the last fifteen years looked like that. It was messy, imperfect, evolving. Who knows what the next fifteen look like.

More summits. More bad decisions that turn into good stories. More laughter in places that don’t make sense to laugh. More shared suffering that somehow turns into something meaningful.

More of that quiet, steady satisfaction that comes from moving through difficult terrain, rocky, muddy, steep, uncertain and realizing you’re not doing it alone.

Side by side.

Still chasing finish lines, sure.

But more than that, committed to the long way through.