Black To The Trails is Back! Key Learnings From the Last Two Years

Black To The Trails, the world's most ethnically diverse trail running event, is back for the 3rd time in 2025!

Black to the Trails – an event ideated, designed and managed by Black Trail Runners – is a trail running carnival that includes four inclusive trail distances – 1K, 5K, 10K and an undulating 10K – as well as music, food, activities and an energy that reflects the cultures represented. And, in 2025, due to popular demand, the community and campaigning charity have added 100 extra spaces – taking event capacity to 500.

We caught up with Sabrina, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Black Trail Runners to find out more about running Black To The Trails.

What are some of your key learnings from organising Black To The Trails?

Lesson number one is that it’s really important to have the right people in your team. When it comes to organising a non-profit community event, taking lots of volunteers on board can seem appealing, however, managing volunteers is a minefield. The Black To The Trails working group mainly consists of ethnically diverse people who bring both their lived experience and specific event expertise. We have experts in health and safety, communications, logistics, content creation, etc. You need to have people who understand the task at hand! Play to your strengths, rather than to try and be a jack of all trades and master of none, and delegate tasks.

If you’re seeking to grow, nurture relationships and remember the benefits of involving other communities in your event, be that through directly involving them or giving them space at the event. Understand who your community are and the other communities you want to engage.

This year will be the third Black To The Trails event! What are you doing differently in 2025 in comparison to years 1 and 2?

First and foremost we are having a community space, where other communities can have a stall to sell their merchandise and make information available to people who may not know who they are. Black To The Trails is all about community cohesion, it’s about us all rising so that we can address the lack of diversity in running together.

We’re also going to be incorporating a prayer space this year in response to much feedback from those communities who center, or include, Muslim women.  As our event falls across prayer times, it’s really important that Muslim women have a private space to to pray and have quiet time.

We are also having a dedicated area for young people to connect, as part of our mission is to engage, empower and inspire young people to run. We support one youth charity – The Outrunners - and one youth organisation - TrailFam – and combined, they will be bringing 65+ young people to the event this year!

We have added 100 extra spaces this year, making it the biggest event that we’ve had to date.  With those extra spaces comes a need for additional infrastructure to be added. We are now thinking about to overcoming other participation barriers such as adding period and hygiene products to the portaloos. We want to ensure that we are breaking down as many barriers as possible across the board, not just when it comes to ethnic diversity, but also for the other intersections that our participants inhabit too. 

What advice would you give someone who wants to put on their own community event?

Building the right team is essential. Whether you are able to pay people or rely on volunteers, you cannot do everything on your own. Start by identifying the skills you need and put together a skills matrix. Then reach out to your community first, before looking outside for help. There has to be trust there. You need to surround yourself with people who will help you to get the work done, or be honest with you if they can’t do it.

Understand that even with the best will in the world, if the numbers don’t make sense it can be extremely stressful. There will be set costs associated with your event and if you do not have the funding in place then it can add unnecessary stress. Consider if you need to reach out to brands or apply for funding. Who are you going to go to and what information are they going to need? Understand the costs. If you don’t understand the costs, then you are starting way back in the field.

To find out more about Black To The Trails, check out their website
To find out more about Black Trail Runners, check out their website and Instagram
To find out more about Sabrina, check out her website and Instagram