Zach Friedley — professional runner, founder of the nonprofit Born to Adapt, and a human born missing his right leg from just above the knee — recently returned from Rotorua, New Zealand, where his team just wrapped up hosting their largest trail running event for parathletes. With 45 adaptive athletes participating and more than 100 people in attendance, the event — held in the well-known trail running town that also hosts the Tarawera 100 Mile — was a significant stepping-stone for Friedley on his quest to open the trail running space to adaptive athletes.
When Friedley first started trail running, he hadn’t met anyone in the space who looked like him. While there were parathletes competing in trail events, including Amy Palmiero-Winters who finished the Western States 100 in 2010, and Jacky Hunt-Broersma, who began her own running journey in 2016 and quickly found the trails, they were few and far between. In his 20s, Friedley had tried twice, unsuccessfully, to make the Paralympic team in running. He didn’t realize that he could run on trails until a work situation several years later forced him to modify his blade — the prosthetic he uses to run — to let him move in the mountains. There was duct tape involved.
From signing up for the 10-mile event at the Born to Run festival in 2019 to completing the 40-kilometer MCC in France in 2023, to finishing Sierre-Zinal and the New York City Marathon in 2024, Friedley has been an outspoken advocate for adaptive athletes in the trail running space, acting in capacities ranging from a professional runner for On to race director of his Born to Adapt events. He believes in the “if you build it, they will come” model, tirelessly encouraging race directors to actively invite, instead of just welcome, adaptive athletes into their events.
While one could look at Friedley’s list of accomplishments and his impact on the trail running space and already be impressed, after learning more, one also gets the sense that he’s just getting started.
Zach Friedley. Photo: Andy Cochrane
Paralympics Bid
Growing up in a small town outside of Kansas City, Missouri, Friedley was always an athlete but didn’t grow up with trail running on his radar. Instead, his competitiveness and drive were forged on the wrestling mat, a sport he could participate in without a prosthetic leg. Wrestling was a family sport — Friedley’s younger brother won multiple Missouri state championships and wrestled in college.
It wasn’t until 2007, when he was in his early 20s, that Friedley got his first blade, a prosthetic that allowed him to run. The prosthetic design, which is shaped a bit like an upside-down question mark, flexes to store potential energy and provides propulsion through a running stride.
Harnessing his innate competitiveness, Friedley immediately took his new blade and set his sights on the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games, which were being held in just six months’ time. He didn’t qualify. Four years of training later, he again didn’t qualify for the 2012 London Paralympic Games. After, he says, “I kind of gave up running, right around halfway through the cycle of Rio, I was like, ‘Running isn’t for me.’”
After more than half a decade of dedicating himself to the Paralympic goal, he says, “The blade basically became a thing I had in the closet, just collecting dust.”
Time has given him perspective. “I was just trying to prove things a lot at that time period in my life.” He realizes his training and mindset didn’t set him up for success, saying, “I was training in a way that I would say was sporadic. I didn’t have a coach. I would go to random gyms around and find somebody that was into running, and I maybe would do a couple weeks at a time, and then I’d fall off the grid.”
Friedley (right) with fellow adaptive athletes at a Born to Adapt event. Photo: Slow Blink Media
An Invite for Finding Purpose
After walking away from running, Friedley continued living in his hometown, but he says the measures of success — a house, marriage, job, climbing the corporate ladder — that his community valued “never really did anything for me.” Knowing he needed to make a change, he says, “I literally woke up one day and was like, If I continue this, I’m not so sure I’m going to be alive.” He goes on to explain, “I just felt this yearning in my heart that was like, I don’t think this is going to end in a way that’s positive, and I just felt this pull to do something else.”
He seems almost a bit regretful when he explains how he started over. “The only way I knew how to do it was to basically cut the ties to everything abruptly and get the hell out of there with no plan.” He says, “I basically broke my life, burned everything down.”
A tragic event in 2014 led to an invitation for change. A family friend had died of a rare disease, leaving behind two teenage daughters and a husband whose work required extensive travel. The girls needed a nanny — starting immediately — so Friedley flew to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the day after the funeral, leaving all of his belongings at home to care for them.
He says, “I needed purpose. And I felt like, This is a way to give me purpose.” The new role also gave him a new perspective on life. Perhaps most importantly, it got him out of Missouri.
An Invite Into Self-Belief
After six months of caring for the girls, Friedley found himself on the doorstep of a farm in Humboldt County, California, looking to make some money. He’d neglected to tell the farm owner about his disability, and he says the reaction he received upon arrival was less than positive. Friedley says the farmer told him, “If you can’t hack it in two weeks, you’re out of here.”
Committed to keeping the job, Friedley thought, I’ve got to prove it to this guy that I belong. He goes on to say, “I basically took my blade and duct taped a shoe to the bottom of it so I could move around the hills and work hard.” He didn’t get fired, and the opportunity planted the seed of using the blade — with a bit of innovation and modification — to move around in the mountains.
Friedley’s newfound ability to move in the mountains opened up a world of possibilities. Photo: Toni Spasenoski
While the physical pieces of the puzzle for trail running started to fall into place on the farm, a trip to India allowed Friedley to embrace the mindset that launched him into the trail running world. In 2018, Friedley found himself at the Prem Nagar Ashram on the banks of the Ganges River. He’d connected with meditation teacher Mahatma Faqiranand Ji online and received an invite into the country from Satpal Maharaj, the Minister of Tourism for Uttarakhand, a state in Northern India.
Friedley says, “I’d never left the country in my life. I got a passport, flew to Delhi, ended up in a car with some strangers, went to this ashram, and stayed there for a month.” Friendly studied intensively with Faqiranand Ji and says, “He was basically teaching me how to meditate, giving me confidence that I was a good person.” The lessons resonated, and Friedley says, “I was ready to give up everything. I’m going to be a monk in an ashram, and this is my life.” But his mentor had bigger ideas for him and told him, “No, that’s not what you’re going to do. You’re destined for other things. We need you out in the world.”
Armed with that confidence and self-belief, Friedley returned to Mendocino, California.
An Invite to Race Direct
In 2019, Friedley ended up at the Born to Run festival, a long-standing trail running event near Santa Barbara, California, organized by well-known race director Luis Escobar. He ran the 10-mile event, a big step up from his previous longest run of three miles. Friedley had never seen anyone running trails on a blade, and after extensive internet searching and looking for adaptive athletes in the trail running space, he saw an opportunity to pave the way for others like him. He says, “I really latched on to the idea of, I can do something big in this sport, and I didn’t even know what big meant at the time.” Friedley took a deep dive into trail running on YouTube, discovering UTMB and other big races around the world.
Zach Friedley running Sierre-Zinal. Photo: Sierre-Zinal
Friedley says, “[Born to Run] really altered my life.” He started going to national parks to run, moving his body in ways he’d never imagined before. Immediately thinking of others in the disabled community, he says, “I wanted to have that opportunity be present for anybody who was disabled, from the grassroots runner to the next UTMB parathlete. I wanted to give them a path to choose whoever they wanted to be.”
Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened, putting the brakes on everything. But Friedley kept running and returned to another Escobar event in 2021. Escobar approached Friedley after the race and asked him to be on his podcast. During the recording, Friedley talked about how he wanted to see more events that were welcoming to adaptive athletes. Escobar suggested that maybe Friedley should be the person who created them.
It was an invitation to action that Friedley quickly seized, and Born to Adapt was underway.
Piggybacking on Escobar’s know-how, experience, and connections, Friedley and Born to Adapt hosted their first event in 2022 in conjunction with Born to Run. They had six athletes attend the five-kilometer event, the first of its kind.
An Invite From On
Later in 2022, Friedley got a call from David Kilgore, manager of the On Running Global Athlete Team. When Kilgore asked about his vision for trail running for adaptive athletes, Friedley says, “I just basically shot for the moon.” Friedley pointed out that there weren’t any professional parathletes in trail running. He told Kilgore, “I envision this world one day where it won’t be abnormal to see a parathlete on a pro team. It’ll just be normal, and that means a salary, that means bonuses for racing, that means travel.” If On wanted to sign him, Friedley told them that he wanted to be treated like any other one of their athletes. He says Kilgore’s response was basically, “Cool. I think it makes perfect sense.”
The invite to join the On professional team came the same day. Soon following came the opportunity to work with On engineers in Zurich, Switzerland, to develop tread patterns specifically designed for his blade.
That August, Friedley lined up for 40-kilometer MCC, the kickoff to the weeklong UTMB festival, with 2,300 meters of climbing, but missed the first cutoff. After another year of training, he tried again in 2023 and finished the race. The weather conditions were cold and wet, and Friedley used a special tread designed by On for his blade for traction. In finishing, Friedley had shown the world what was possible for adaptive athletes in trail running.
Since then, Friedley has completed several other high-profile races, including Sierre-Zinal and the New York City Marathon in 2024. When he registered for the latter, he realized the very simple way that trail running could invite parathletes into the sport: a simple modification in the registration process.
Friedley running the 2024 New York City Marathon. Photo courtesy of Zach Friedley.
Inviting Others
Friedley says the New York City Marathon was the first race ever to ask him if he was disabled during the registration process. He could choose his specific disability from a dropdown menu, and the option made him feel like he had an actual space at the event. Even he was surprised by the intensity of his reaction to such a small thing.
He explains that while many races welcome adaptive athletes, it’s a different level to invite them into their space. He says a race saying that they’re open to having parathletes is welcoming, going the extra step to ensure they have a space on the registration form is an invite. Friedley says when he sees that an event has a disability option in their registration form, “[It shows] these people have planned an event that includes me.” For others, he says, “It’s scary, maybe, coming to your first race and not seeing a thing for you to fit.”
Registration forms can also take the pressure off the athlete to track down the race director to ask questions. Friedley says, “You’re not having to track down the race director trying to get these accommodations, or a pacer or whatever. Everybody is just providing information, and it’s organized, and it’s inviting.”
Friedley has been working with race directors to help educate them on what inviting adaptive athletes to their events looks like. He’s found an ally in Tim Tollefson, race director of the Mammoth Trailfest in California. The pair met in Europe while working on separate projects, and Tollefson quickly latched onto the idea of a Born to Adapt event at his Mammoth Trailfest. Friedley says, “Tim is a collaborator. Tim is a guy that, whenever he has an idea, he wants it to happen.”
The pair worked together to put on a Born to Adapt event as part of the Mammoth Trailfest in 2024, and Friedley now holds the organization up as a blueprint for other race directors who want to actively invite adaptive athletes to their events. In Friedley’s words, “Mammoth Trailfest is the gold standard.”
Inviting in the Future
Friedley still has personal goals as a runner. One that he hasn’t given a public voice to before now is a desire to qualify for the Boston Marathon and be on the podium in the parathlete category. But he’s realized that while he once thought his biggest impact on the trail running world would be going out to major events and finishing them, he believes he can have a much larger effect by focusing his energy on goals that go beyond his personal achievements. These days, he says, “I’m all about building different systems and getting more people opportunities.”
On the immediate horizon is Born to Run in May, the organization’s fourth year hosting a Born to Adapt event. Then there’s Born to Adapt’s involvement with the Broken Arrow Skyrace in June, where 20 spots are reserved in the 18-kilometer race for adaptive athletes. And then there’s the Mammoth Trailfest, and later, other events happening in New Zealand.
Friedley says, “My big goal is to do a Born to Adapt trail series that has prize money, podiums … to use the same courses [as a host event] because the infrastructure is already set up. There doesn’t need to be some separate event. Let’s all get to the start line together, and let’s rock it out.”
Clearly, Friedley is still passionate about his own running, but as he says, he wants more for the adaptive athlete community than just what his own athleticism can accomplish. “I want to do legendary shit where other people get to benefit from it, too.”
Call for Comments
Have you been inspired by Zachary Friedley’s running and advocacy?
