From The President (NOV/DEC 2025)

“Why we pay our membership & Why Every Step Belongs to All of Us”

If you’ve ever been at a trail or ultra event just as the sky starts to soften, you know the magic of those early moments.

The hum of nervous excitement.

The rustle of jackets.

Headlamps still glowing as volunteers pour carb loaded drinks into jugs like they’re fuelling a small town.

Someone’s adjusting their pack for the tenth time.

Someone else is taping a toe that gave up hope weeks ago.

And through the crowd, there’s this quiet, powerful awareness that no one has come here alone.

That’s the feeling that reminds me, every single month, what AUTRA actually is.

Not an organisation.

Not a committee.

Not a structure.

A community that shows up, sometimes in the dark, sometimes exhausted, sometimes hilariously under prepared, but always there for one another.

And every person who joins AUTRA every year is doing far more than joining a members list.

That membership keeps the heartbeat of the sport strong.

It keeps the doors open for opportunities, the trails supported, the volunteers protected, the pathways possible.

It turns into safety, into structure, into connection into the invisible threads that hold this entire world together.

Because AUTRA has always been more than a membership.

It’s a shared promise that our sport deserves a future.

And that’s where the new AUTRA Playbook comes in.

We don’t talk about the Playbook as a document anymore, because it’s not something you read it’s something you will see & feel.

It’s the map we’re following as the sport grows up.

You will feel it in the handshake of a race director who’s been up since 3am marking a course in the rain, knowing they’re not doing it alone anymore.

You feel it in those small gatherings where people swap stories like old friends, even if they met ten minutes ago.

You feel it in the relationships forming quietly behind the scenes the policies carefully built so events stay safe, the partnerships that open doors, the conversations that shape stronger pathways.

And you feel it most in the next generation.

The juniors watching from aid stations with wide eyes.

The teenagers running their first trails with dreams bigger than their packs.

The young runners who need structure, safety, guidance, and opportunity and who now, finally, will have it.

The Playbook is our promise to them:

That this sport will be here when they’re ready to take it further than we ever could.

And speaking of those who chase big dreams here’s the truth that always makes me smile:

Only about 1% of our members are representative runners.

But they carry 100% of our spirit.

Because when Australians line up for major championships whether it’s the brutal simplicity of 24 hours circling a track through midnight hallucinations, or the menacing honesty of Mountain running, or Long Course Trail, they done line-up alone.

They line up powered by you.

By the people who sweep trails, who cheer for strangers, who carry the sport on their shoulders, who give their membership because they believe in something bigger than themselves...

For example, that belief came to life on the international stage at the IAU Asian 100K Championships.

Picture it:

A road stretching out into heat and distance.

Three Australians stepping up with quiet confidence. They talked as a team, and ran as a team. 

The kind of confidence built not from ego, but from community.

Clay Dawson, composed and relentless, crossing the line in second place.

Michael Hooker, steady and fierce, running himself into eighth with the patience of a craftsman.

Ben Kuang, strong and unwavering, taking ninth, proving again that consistency is a form of courage.

All three guided by team manager Ash Daniels.

And with them, Australia rising to second place overall.

But that result isn’t just theirs.

It belongs to the volunteer who shouted to us “Looking strong!” when we weren’t.

It belongs to the race director who got them a qualifier, taught them what grit feels like at kilometre 87.

The coaches who guided them.

It belongs to the states, building pockets of community across the country.

It belongs to the juniors watching in awe, imagining their own future start lines.

And it belongs to every member who quietly said, “Here’s my $49. I believe in what we’re building.”

Because this sport, the 24-hour madness, the 50k & 100k discipline, the trails that break and rebuild us only thrives when we all shoulder a piece of it.

That’s the story of AUTRA this month, and next, and the next... 

Not a report.

Not an update.

A reminder.

A community building something bigger, something lasting, something for the next generation of volunteers, Race Directors, runners and representatives to inherit with pride.

And together, we’re just getting started.

Gary Mullins

President, AUTRA