Elevation Profile #6: doi strength, TraiLSD by CCRC and Bandit Summer 26

Elevation Profile is a weekly column from Doi Trail Research covering the world of trail running, running fashion, and outdoor culture, with a particular eye on Thailand and Southeast Asia.

A packed week from Chiang Mai to Rayong to Phuket, plus Bandit drops their best collection yet, Strava gets smarter, and two more people do extraordinary things on Everest. Let's get into it.

Dude Run Club x Looker: Streetwear Hits the Trail

Sunday mornings in Chiang Mai keep finding new ways to surprise us. This weekend, we joined Dude Run Club for a trail event in collaboration with Looker, and it was exactly the kind of crossover that makes this city's running scene interesting.

For those unfamiliar, Looker is a Thai streetwear and lifestyle brand known for its urban aesthetic, graphic tees, and hoodies. The brand has been leaning into gorpcore and outdoor aesthetics in its latest camping collection, and this event was a natural extension of that direction.

Everyone who showed up received a shirt from the new camping collection at the start, which leans heavily on camo elements. The result was a group that hit the trail in matching gear from the beginning, which made for a great visual and an even better atmosphere.

The route started at Huay Tung Tao Lake and brought us out to the Huay Tung Tao waterfall and back, covering 6 kilometers with 350 meters of elevation gain. Not a long day out, but technical enough to be satisfying. The combination of a trail run and a fresh piece of kit handed out is a format more brands should be paying attention to. Community marketing is not a strategy right now. It is the product.

doi x Basecamp Strength Series: Building the Chassis

This week, we kicked off something we have been planning for a while. doi trail research and Basecamp Coffee Club launched the first session of a five-part strength series at Training Box Chiang Mai, designed specifically for trail runners and hybrid athletes preparing for races in the first week of August. The series runs every two weeks for ten weeks, with each session building on the last.

The idea is simple: most runners in our community train their aerobic engine hard but leave the strength work until it is too late. This series is about changing that. Foundational strength, injury prevention, and better race performance are the goals. Wilder provided electrolyte hydration and Amino Vital Thailand brought the gels to keep the crew fueled through the session.

Four more sessions to go. If you are targeting a race in August and have not been putting in the strength work, now is a good time to start.

We are also planning to collaborate with some of Chiang Mai's run clubs in this series as the weeks go on. At doi, we believe that building strength is not just for our community but for every runner out there, and that includes our friends across every club in this city. Trail racing season is not slowing down, and neither should anyone's preparation. Keep an eye out for who we collaborate with next. It is going to be fun.

SATISFY TraiLSD Round 2: Rayong Edition

Bangkok's Cruise Control Run Club brought SATISFY TraiLSD back for its second edition, and this time they took the whole operation down to Rayong, a couple of hours south of the city.

The distance was 12.6 kilometers with 469 meters of elevation gain, which is a solid effort for a social trail run, and everyone who came out received a full TraiLSD kit: a SATISFY pocket bottle and trail mix. Track Supplements was also on deck. Post-run, the crew landed on iced coffee from Kepler BKK and a bowl of noodles, which is about as close to a perfect recovery meal as you can get in Thailand.

Looked like a great day out there from everything that came through on social. The format is smart: SATISFY kit, a trail that earns the distance, good food at the end, and a community that is there for all of it.

Kan, if you are reading this: we want a TraiLSD to make it up to Chiang Mai. Let's make it happen.

Phuket 100K Ultra: doi Represents in the Heat

The Phuket 100K Ultra Marathon is one of the big events of the Thailand Ultra Master Series, run out of Splash Beach Resort in Maikhao, northern Phuket.

The course follows a 20-kilometer loop with some epic coastal views with around 152 meters of elevation per lap, meaning runners in the 100k category are repeating that loop five times. In roughly 35-degree heat. It is as demanding as it sounds.

We had two doi athletes on the start line, both racing for Ving as well.

EJ Fabregas took on the full 100k and crossed the line in 12 hours, 51 minutes, and 34 seconds, finishing 40th out of 485 finishers. For context, that means EJ finished in the top 10 percent of a 100-kilometer field in tropical heat.

Emily Rose lined up for the 50k and came home in 4 hours, 29 minutes, and 37 seconds, placing 4th female overall. Incredible performances from both of them.

Congrats to EJ and Emily, and to the entire Ving crew.

Soimalai Trail: A Course Record in the Fog

While the Phuket 100K was taking place on the coast, another significant race was unfolding further north. The Soimalai Trail Rainy Season edition took place at Kaeng Huai Tak National Park in Tak Province, a 45-kilometer course with 1,947 meters of elevation gain on Doi Soi Malai, a mountain sitting at around 1,600 meters and known for its pine forests, steep muddy climbs, and a sea of fog that makes the whole place feel like somewhere else entirely. It is one of the most respected ultramarathon race series in Thailand, and this edition delivered.

On the men's side, Surasak Somboon took the win in 4 hours, 46 minutes, and 27 seconds, a new course record by 19 minutes. That is not a marginal improvement. That is someone having a special day on a serious course.

On the women's side, Supattra Matsilp, running for Suunto and Asics Thailand, crossed first in 6 hours, 14 minutes, and 48 seconds. A strong performance across a course that does not make anything easy.

A special shoutout to our friend Pear Mutita Junin, who finished in 7 hours, 32 minutes, and 46 seconds and claimed 3rd in her age group. A 45-kilometer mountain race through fog and mud with nearly 2,000 meters of climbing is no small thing. Well done, Pear.

Bandit Sin Prisa: The Best Collection Yet

Bandit's Summer 26 collection has dropped, and describing it as incredible feels like an understatement.

The collection is called Sin Prisa, Spanish for "without haste," and the design inspiration comes from two sources that you would not immediately expect to see together.

The first is Mexican architect Luis Barragán, known for his monastic approach to space, bold color blocking, and the interplay between light and shadow.

The second is a designer named Carol Martins, who takes color combinations and transforms them into wild gradients built from tiny geometric shapes rather than soft blurs. That combination opened up something visually different for Bandit, and you can feel it across the collection.

The tech story is equally strong. Four new fabric systems debut this season. Vanisher™ uses titanium-oxide polyester yarn that runs roughly three degrees cooler than standard yarns and is designed to hide sweat entirely. Shredder™ is a jacquard mesh with graduated ventilation woven directly into the fabric rather than punched or cut in, which means the airflow is structural and permanent. StretchKnit™ is a fully seamless mesh with graphene infusion for stretch, recovery, and temperature control. AirKnit™ uses channel-shaped yarns to deliver a cooling effect that does not rely on any chemical treatment.

For running in a place like Thailand, the Vanisher and Shredder stories feel especially relevant. Nobody wants sweat stains showing five minutes into a run, and the Shredder's graduated ventilation is exactly the kind of thoughtful engineering that makes a real difference in heat and humidity.

The Poppy and Copal colorway definitely caught my eye and it’s really hard trying to ignore that it’s in my shopping cart.

And the Orchid Women's Vanisher V-Neck Race Crop, as expected, sold out before most people had a chance to get their hands on it.

Amazing work, Bandit. Keep leading the way.

Strava and Claude: AI Finds Its Way Into Training

Strava has launched a live MCP connector that links Claude AI directly to subscriber accounts, allowing athletes to pull real-time insights from their pace, heart rate, GPS, and event history without exporting a single file. The feature is currently exclusive to paid Strava subscribers and limited to Claude, with more AI clients confirmed to be coming.

What is interesting here is not just the feature itself but what it signals. AI is finding its way into almost every corner of life itself, which is a strange thing to sit with.

But in this particular case, I find it exciting in a way that feels real. Athletic preparation is one of the areas where the application actually makes sense in a tangible way, and the pace of what is being built is accelerating. The question is what gets built from here. Training apps, pacing tools, recovery recommendations informed by actual live data rather than generalizations.

Personally, I am thinking about exploring what it would look like to connect not just Strava but other wearables into Claude and see what kinds of training insights come out the other side. If something interesting comes of it, you will hear about it here.

Oliver Foran Summits Everest from the Sea

Last issue we covered Tyler Andrews' record-breaking ascent from Everest Base Camp to the summit in under 10 hours. What Oliver Foran just accomplished is a different challenge entirely.

Foran has set the Guinness World Record for the fastest sea-to-summit non-motorized ascent of Mount Everest, meaning he started from sea level rather than Base Camp, covering the full elevation profile of the world's tallest mountain without mechanical assistance.

Along the way, his team captured the moment they were engulfed by an avalanche, footage that is as harrowing as it sounds. The expedition ran 50 days in total and was carried out in partnership with Youturn Limited, an Australian non-profit focused on mental health support. Foran made the summit alongside Gelje, Ongchuu, and his mother through spirit.

His words from the summit: "Standing on the summit of Everest is like no feeling I've ever felt before, and one I think I'll be looking for again for the rest of my life." Simple, honest, and just outstanding.

Kejelcha's 10km World Record Is Finally in the Books

On Monday, World Athletics officially certified six new world records, including the one that distance running fans have been waiting on for over a year.

Yomif Kejelcha's 10-kilometer road world record of 26 minutes and 31 seconds, set at the Facsa Castellón 10K in Spain back in February 2025, is now officially recognized. The certification process takes time, and the wait has done nothing to diminish what the performance was. 26:31 for 10 kilometers on the road is a number that reframes what is possible at the distance.

Kejelcha also made his marathon debut earlier this year at the 2026 London Marathon, where he ran 1:59:41, becoming one of the very few people in history to officially break the two-hour barrier in a sanctioned race. He still finished second. Sabastian Sawe took the win in 1:59:30. Both wore the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3, which continues its run as the shoe at the center of the sport's most historic performances.

Two world records, one athlete, one week. A good week to be a distance running fan.