The Wilderness Society, a NGO dedicated to protecting America’s wild places, says on its website: “Factors like lack of access to transportation mean many people are being left out of public lands or discouraged from enjoying them. This disproportionately affects people of colour and those in low-income areas.”

The Wilderness Society and others are working to improve access to the wild areas, such as promoting public transport and supporting affected communities. It is a work in progress not just in the US, but it goes to show that the romantic notion of buying a pair of shoes and becoming a trail runner is not true.

Time

There are 24 hours in everyone’s day, whether you are Bill Gates or unemployed. But leisure time is not equal. Trail running, as with any hobby, requires free time to take part. The less time you have, the higher the barriers to participation, especially if you have to factor in travel time.

Constraints on leisure time disproportionately affect particular groups. A survey by the Office for National Statistics in the UK found that men spent almost an hour or more per day on leisure activities.

Empowering each other to stay in sport on International Women’s Day

This could be because traditional gender roles still pervade, and women are expected to do more housework.

A 2020 YouGov pole in the UK found there is a greater range of chores women have a sole responsibility for in their household – 54 per cent of women are in charge of cleaning the bathroom, for example. In contrast, 46 per cent of men are solely responsible for taking out the bins, the highest per cent of any chore for men.

It’s no coincidence that, on average, men spend more time per week on sports, hobbies and computer games than women – four hours and 29 minutes and two hours and 29 minutes per week, respectively.

Trail running can be time consuming. Training can take hours, and the actual race can literally take days if you enter an ultramarathon. To say that all you need is shoes ignores the fact that time is not equally distributed among all groups. And it is not just women, but anyone who works long hours or shift work.

It affects anyone raising children and cannot afford help, or does not have a support network. Not only does trail running require an understanding spouse willing to look after the children, it also requires a spouse who has the spare time to be understanding. If both are full-time working parents, time is more limited still.

It is not just quantity of time but free time with networks or assets to pick up the slack.

Money matters

Even if all you needed is a pair of shoes, shoes cost money. Travel costs money. Race entries cost money. And other gear costs money, especially if you enter a race with mandatory gear lists.

And money affects how you spend your time too, which also perpetuates the make-up of trail running. People from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to spend time outdoors as children.

A 2019 study titled “Relationships between area-level socioeconomic status and urbanisation with active transportation, independent mobility, outdoor time, and physical activity among Canadian children” found that boys and girls of lower socio-economic backgrounds had decreased odds of spending more than two hours outdoors on weekends compared to their peers from higher socio-economic groups.

On the flip side, most the runners (78 per cent) already have sport activities, most of which are usually considered as practised among privileged groups: 35 per cent of marathon runners ski, play golf or ride; 26 per cent play tennis, 28 per cent football or rugby; but only 11.6 per cent are in athletics, according to a (admittedly old) 2003 survey, from an article Marathoners in Pursuit of Time.

Running from arranged marriage to the trails and ‘something greater’

Role models, acceptance and a cycle

The most important factor is the least tangible. We see ourselves in our heroes, but if a person of colour, a woman or someone from a lower socio-economic background looks at trail running, and sees mainly wealthy white men, then they are less likely to take up the sport.

“For better or worse, the perception of outdoor recreation is tied up with the advertising used to sell outdoor gear. When people see catalogues filled with images of overwhelmingly fit, young, white people, it sends a subconscious signal that the outdoors is meant for people who look like that,” the Sierra Club writes on its website.

A growing number of organisations are trying to promote diverse imagery, such as Running Industry Diversity Coalition and books like Black Faces, White Spaces . Industry leaders are waking up to the issue too.

Hong Kong runner builds new community around Asia Trail Girls

Trail runners might like to think that their sport is accepting to all, but it can be intimidating.

What’s more, the shared background can result in shared values. A scorn for anyone who deviates makes access more difficult for newcomers from other backgrounds who are unaware of the “rules”.

The irony is trail runners might enjoy the sport because of the sense of freedom, and the chance to assert their autonomy, while the sport is also a chance for runners to imprint their social values on the wider group, according to a 2017 paper, Undertaking long-distance running: thirty years of studies in the sociology of sport in France.

‘Every drop of blood’ – Han digs deep to finish HK4TUC, again

What this looks like in real time is an unwelcome atmosphere. Danielle Williams, founder of Melanin Base Camp and Diversify Outdoors – two initiatives to get more members of ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ people taking part outdoors – wrote in 2019 that a Leave No Trace campaign had resulted in a barrage of online rage against black people using the outdoors “incorrectly”.

“If you are black or brown in the outdoors, are you feeling the increased pressure to “perform” Leave No Trace principles for Instagram? – pressure to signal to the disproportionately white LNT police on social media that you’re ‘one of the good ones’,” she wrote.

It is a vicious circle – minorities are less likely to take part in trail running and therefore are not visible in the sport so other minority people are less likely to take it up. And consciously or subconsciously, existing outdoor people perpetuate the homogeneous nature of the sport by making newcomers feel unwelcome because they do no comply with the expected norms.

Is this relevant in Hong Kong?

Access to trail running in Hong Kong is easy for such a large, modern city. Even the densest urban areas are a walk away from a trail head, and those that are not have cheap, efficient public transport.

The city has a diverse ethnic make up, all of whom hike and run, providing role models for everyone.

In many ways, Hong Kong is a trail running utopia. But there are still universal barriers – Saturday is a working day for many. So time is still not equally distributed.

For the near 400,000 domestic helpers who live in Hong Kong, their work can be 24 hours a day, six days a week, for example. The minimum wage for a helper is HK$4,630 per month. If a pair of running shoes is a few hundred dollars, or a pair of specialist trail shoes is over $1,000, money is still an issue. Race fees can range from $400 to $1,000, not to mention mandatory gear. Many domestic helpers do not have credit cards, but race websites require online payments for registration.

All you need is a pair of shoes … time, money, access and a welcoming culture to trail run, even in the places with fewer barriers to participation.