Journal · 2 October 2026
What to wear for trail running
The question sounds simple and the answer is not, because most trail clothing was drawn for someone else's body. This is the guide we wish we had been handed before our first mountain race: fabric first, then cut, then distance, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
Fabric before everything
On a descent that drops 1,000 m, your clothing does one job: move sweat off your skin and keep its shape when a pack strap crosses it for six hours. That rules cotton out completely and narrows the field to two families. Nylon and polyester knits, usually with elastane, dry fastest and resist abrasion against rock. Merino blends feel better over long hours and stop smelling, but they hold water and weigh more when soaked.
A plain rule: next-to-skin pieces dry fast or they are wrong for a race. Outer pieces can be slower-drying if they block wind, because the wind on a col is colder than your own estimate.
Cut, and why it decides the race
Most technical tops are cut on a men's block and scaled down, which is why the shoulders fit and the hem rides up. The differences that matter on a course are small and expensive to fake: a hem that stays level when you climb, seams placed away from pack contact, a chest pocket you can reach with the strap on, and room for shoulders that pull a pole.
If you already own a technical piece you like, wear it. We would rather say that than pretend every alternative fails. What we build at Clone is the piece you keep for the races where you also want to look like yourself: silhouettes taken from women's ready-to-wear, made in trail-grade fabric.
By distance: 20 km to ultra
Under 30 km and in summer, one fast-drying top and a short or legging with real pockets will carry you. Between 30 and 60 km, add a light wind layer, because the last hour is usually colder than the first. Over 60 km, merino against the skin earns its weight, and a full cover layer belongs in the pack whenever the route climbs past 2,000 m.
Race rules decide some of this for you: most mountain ultras publish a minimum list of clothing to carry, and the check happens before the start line. Read that list the week the entries open, not the night before.
What this has to do with Clone
Clone makes small capsules of pieces for women who race, cut from women's ready-to-wear and built in trail-grade fabric. Each capsule is sold as a pre-order in two drops a year, made to order in the founder's workshop, with pieces priced from 120 to 250 EUR. Between drops the waitlist is the way in: you leave an email and hear when the next drop opens.
This site, and the business behind it, are built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is also where the waitlist below is stored.