When runners go back where they’re no longer welcome: the private-course problem outside race day

It’s a pattern that keeps popping up on trail races and semi-urban events, where sections of the route cut across private land that’s only opened on race day. A farmer who agreed to let a race pass through his fields later spots runners strolling through like it’s no big deal, GPS watch on the wrist, route loaded straight from Strava. One phone call to the race director later, and permission for next year is suddenly up in the air. That, in a nutshell, is the scenario repeating more and more often in France, and it’s starting to cause real damage.

A fragile agreement, and an even more fragile trust

If you want to put on a race off the beaten track, you don’t just wing it. Joseph Boyer, director of the Ultra Trail du Vercors, sums it up with disarming honesty: “ To organize our race, we’re in constant dialogue throughout the year with local stakeholders: local authorities, the regional park, farmers, hunters, foresters, alpine herders, to minimize our environmental impact. That’s how we can adjust routes, avoid nesting areas, and limit public access to sensitive zones. ” Months of invisible work, back-and-forth, and boots-on-the-ground diplomacy before the first runner even hits the start line.

That shortcut in a half marathon across private property, the two hectares of a semi-urban race skirting a farmyard, all of it exists because one owner said yes one day, on an implicit promise of respect. A promise some runners, bib long put away, seem to have completely forgotten.

Strava, the unwitting accomplice

For landowners, who pay property taxes and sometimes maintain the paths themselves, the surge in traffic, bad behavior, litter, and trampling has become unbearable. And in the middle of it all, technology has massively sped the problem up. Between GPS watches, platforms like Strava, and GPX sharing, it’s now incredibly easy to find a route and replicate it outside the intended window, with no real way for organizers to keep tabs on it.

A runner finishes the race, goes home, posts the activity. The track is now visible, downloadable, repeatable. Another runner stumbles on it two months later, likes the look of the route, loads the GPX onto their Garmin, and heads out thinking it’s just another training run. Except that the path they take at kilometer 8 belongs to someone, and that someone never agreed to year-round access. The organizers of the “À la Belle Étoile” race in Normandy explicitly called out this dynamic in a public statement, asking runners not to use GPS tracks posted on platforms like Strava to re-run the course solo without permission.

Normandy, or how to lose your partners’ trust

In fall 2025, the organizers of this urban-edge race got the full, brutal version of the story. Several participants went back onto the course outside the event: no heads-up, no permission, no thought for the fallout. Fences forced open, animals spooked, unauthorized crossings on land owned by local farmers who’d trusted the organization for years. In their statement, the organizers didn’t mince words. “ Yes, the former La Belle Étoile courses are stunning, they wrote. Yes, they sometimes cross private property. But NO, that doesn’t mean you can go back whenever you feel like it as if nothing matters! ”

The line that then did the rounds on social media says everything about the mood: “ Every unauthorized crossing, every damaged fence, is a little more trust lost with the residents and farmers who host us. Without them, there simply isn’t a race ”.

In Chartreuse, a landowner who’s had enough

A few hundred kilometers from Normandy, in the Chartreuse massif, things escalated in May 2025. The Vermorel trail, loved for its beauty and technical terrain, has featured for years in local trail routes. Except the landowner finally had enough. “ I put up private property signs a year ago, but they’re regularly torn down, he said. Runners come through, trample the crops. Organizers don’t ask for right-of-way permissions, they don’t bother, and we can’t take it anymore. ” And on the idea that it’s just a careless minority? “ That minority grew after Covid. They’re destroying everything ”.

The immediate result: Jonathan Rouquairol, an event contractor for both races, had to urgently redraw the routes after learning the owner no longer wanted the events on his land. The Raidlight Trail Festival and the Grand Duc therefore started without the Vermorel trail, to the dismay of runners used to that segment.

The law changed, and it’s on the landowners’ side

What makes this especially serious is a private-property law strengthened in 2023 that reasserts the right to say no. Specifically, since the February 2, 2023 law aimed at limiting the fencing-off of natural areas, entering rural or forest private property without authorization can now be punished with a fixed fine of €135. Originally designed to protect nature from fencing in Sologne, the text has become a far broader tool. For the French Hiking Federation (Fédération française de randonnée), the drift is real. “ This text, diverted from its initial goal, now makes it possible to lock down waymarked paths, to the detriment of the general public,” says Germain Vandeneeckhoutte, FFRandonnée coordinator in Isère, not hiding his concern.

“ If everyone stays on the trails, there will be less impact on the parcel, adds Vandeneeckhoutte, sounding the alarm about a paradoxical consequence of closures. But if an owner posts ‘no entry’ signs and removes the waymarking, people will go anywhere. Without markings, they’ll drift off route, get lost, risk falling. In the event of an accident, the landowner could then be held responsible. ” An irony that shows just how tangled the situation has become.

The majority pays for the stupidity of a minority

The phrase has been everywhere since the Belle Étoile incident. In online reactions after the Normandy statement, several trail runners spoke up, calling out the abuses of “ so-called trail runners who respect nothing ” or lamenting that “ the majority pays for the stupidity of a minority ”.

That feeling of betrayal within a community that prides itself on respect says something important. Off-road running is built on an image of nature lovers, athletes aware of their surroundings. Watching that image get dented by a handful of irresponsible people annoys organizers as much as it does runners. The La Belle Étoile team summed it up bluntly: “ Trail running isn’t just running in nature: it’s sharing, preserving, and respecting ”.

Not just a trail problem

It’s tempting to box this debate into the trail world, but semi-urban road races aren’t spared either. Some half marathons and 10Ks that venture into suburban areas, private parks, or vineyard estates opened for a single weekend face the same tensions. A course that uses roads normally closed, or cuts through residential areas under specific agreements brokered by city halls, can be undermined in exactly the same way when runners show up outside the authorized dates. During nesting season, transhumance, or hunting season, those passages may be strictly off-limits, even to organizers. The logic is the same everywhere: a tacit agreement, trust granted, and off-calendar use that can bring everything crashing down.

The practical answer is summed up by Germain Vandeneeckhoutte in FFRandonnée’s own line: “ People live and work in the natural spaces we pass through. If we want to keep enjoying them, it’s on us to adopt a ‘leave no trace’ mindset. ” In practice, it starts with a simple reflex: before loading a GPX file found online, two minutes on Géoportail is often enough to check whether the path crosses private land.

For organizers, the trend is also toward more caution in sharing official tracks and in managing access agreements. Some are now leaning into more responsible approaches: limiting field sizes, adjusting routes outside sensitive periods, and rethinking formats to reduce pressure on natural spaces. That’s the price of keeping long-term relationships with landowners, and keeping races alive.

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