Our Story
James and Roxanna, partners in business and in life, started The Trail Runner Store® in 2018 in Toronto, Canada.
We first discovered ultramarathons and trail running when we were invited to support our close friend Mark, co-founder of T8 underwear, at UTMB 2016 at Chamonix, France. We had an amazing time travelling through three countries and many mountain roads to meet him at his checkpoints. When we came home, James had caught the trail running "bug" and immediately signed up for his first ultramarathon, the Bandera 100km in Texas. This only gave him four months to start training even though he had never run a race longer than 21km!
James finished the 2017 Bandera 100K race, which gave him a single lottery ticket in the draw for the oldest 100 mile race in the world, the Western States Endurance Run. Defying the odds, James had his single lottery ticket drawn to compete in the 2018 Western States Endurance Run in California. However, at mile 70, James ruptured his esophagus after the taste of an Advil made him gag and forcefully throw up. This life-threatening but freak incident led to 41 days in two hospitals and over 30 days of being tube-fed directly into his stomach.
We decided that life is too short to not move forward with your passions, so we decided to start the Trail Runner Store to help others find high quality, lightweight and long-lasting products after we had difficulty finding these products from a single source.
We are constantly adding new brands and products to our inventory, so please return regularly to see the new products the we are carrying. Please feel free to send us a note just to say hi or to let us know how we can make your day better!
Thank you for visiting our store!
James & Roxanna
Learn about our Commitment to our customers, the community and our planet
*Update: James was extremely fortunate to have been granted Special Consideration entry by the Western States Board of Directors for the 2022 Western States race. James took his time to make sure he could finish what he started in 2018 and 4 years after his original Western States DNF he finally finished with a time of 27:40:55.
P.S. We also advocate for bicycle safety. Get your "i share the road" stickers from our campaign at www.isharetheroad.com and spread the awareness to your corner of the world! We would love to see the awareness (and our stickers) shared around the globe!