Running a race with 500 participants in a town of 800 people creates unique challenges when pitching brand partnerships. Angie Lake knows this intimately as co-director of Wild Woman Trail Runs, where she's learning that grassroots authenticity can be both the biggest selling point and the hardest thing to communicate to brands accustomed to events with 5,000 runners.

Angie's journey from nonprofit work making $30,000 a year to building multiple revenue streams through race direction, storytelling consulting, and community management reveals what it takes to create sustainable business models around authentic community experiences in the outdoor industry.

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Arc'teryx partnered with Wild Woman in 2025 because getting women to your business when they're already excited creates more authentic connections than forcing them past conference booths. Arc'teryx was moving store locations in Portland, and many Wild Woman runners live there. The partnership gave people a reason to visit while connecting with trail runners who aren't hardcore alpinists.

Many brands see "small event" as 5,000 people, not 500. Wild Woman runners are moms, nurses, tech workers balancing careers and parenthood. Most aren't competing to win but showing up for community. Angie's pitch centers on reaching the demographic that drives volume rather than chasing front-of-the-pack prestige that generates headlines but not necessarily sales.

Angie bought into Wild Woman Trail Runs alongside co-director Susan Elliot, joining founder Stephanie Irving to create a three-person leadership team. Stephanie provides vision, Susan handles data and partnerships, and Angie focuses on marketing and outreach.

Three people splitting profit means everyone needs the business to scale for stable income. When your race happens in a town of 800 at the base of Mount Adams, scaling options are limited. Wild Woman solved this by moving their half marathon to Sunday to accommodate more runners per day and adding year-round "wild runs" that aren't races but adventure experiences.

Angie partnered with nonprofit The Cairn Project to launch a scholarship program selecting 15 women who've never run an ultra to receive free race entry, LOWA trail shoes, Microcosm Coaching, and product donations. The women will share their training journeys publicly, creating storytelling content throughout.

The business model is elegant: 15 units of product represents minimal investment for brands but delivers authentic storytelling from diverse voices over months rather than one-off sponsored posts. Instead of paying an influencer with 50,000 followers for a single story, brands get embedded in real transformation narratives from micro-influencers within their own communities.

Angie's consulting work centers on "radical honesty" in storytelling. True stories aren't just what happened but why something changed you. Transformation has emotion built in with clear before and after states.

She helps outdoor brands and women identify which moments matter and how to communicate them effectively. For the Cairn Project, she creates packets helping people mine their lives for stories and determine which messages resonate. Her prediction for 2026 is that brands will increasingly pull back the curtain to show messy behind-the-scenes reality rather than picture-perfect content.

Angie conducts coffee chats to understand brand values rather than relying solely on survey data. Language choices on websites reveal priorities, and marketing approaches indicate whether brands actually serve women's needs or just market to them.

She looks for brands discussing nutrition, menstrual health, and bone health with scientific accuracy. At Wild Woman's kickoff panel, speakers like Rachel Entrekin and Sarah Allaben emphasized that women probably aren't fueling enough and once they eat more, they'll run better with more longevity. Trail Sisters provides criteria for race approval including pregnancy deferrals and menstrual products on site, which Angie uses as frameworks for creating inclusive experiences.

Angie didn't have a safety net going self-employed. She made $35,000 max at nonprofit jobs with side hustles generating maybe $10,000 annually. After running her first 50K, she got divorced, moved, quit her job, wrote a book, and started a podcast within a year.

Her first year self-employed, she replaced her small nonprofit income. Year two she doubled it. By year three she approached $100,000. The growth came from multiple revenue streams: race direction, storytelling consulting, community management, podcast hosting, and menstrual health education. She describes entrepreneurship as the biggest catalyst for growth in every other life area.

Wild Woman's challenge is maintaining grassroots authenticity while growing enough to provide stable income for three co-directors. The potluck on Friday night, camping in the woods, and intimate feel differentiate it from bigger trail marathons, but that intimacy makes it harder to communicate value to brands expecting flash.

Data shows 83% of female trail runners rate inclusion as high priority, 68% would more likely participate in races promoting female participation, and nearly a third feel intimidating messaging is a barrier. Events serving this demographic with authentic community experiences position themselves as valuable brand partners even at smaller scale by articulating ROI beyond registration numbers to focus on engagement depth and reaching demographics that drive purchase decisions.

More from Angie:

Wild Woman:

The Cairn Project and the First 50k Sisterhood:

Long Run Labs:

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Jon is a runner, cyclist, and podcast host from Boston, MA, who now lives in Boulder, CO. For The Long Run is aimed at exploring the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated.

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