Shane Asbury spent twenty years building sales teams, developing markets, and turning around underperforming operations in the health and fitness industry before he did something most people only talk about — he converted his life's passion into a full-time operation. The result is Wanderlust Running Unlimited, some of New Mexico's most celebrated endurance events, and a seat at this table doing what he has always done: getting people to show up and keep moving.
Before Shane ever directed a race, he spent two decades learning how to move people — commercially. His career ran through sales management, regional market development, and organizational turnaround across the health, wellness, and fitness industry, accumulating the kind of operational discipline that doesn't show up in race-day photos but is visible in every well-run event: the logistics that hold, the partnerships that stick, the volunteer teams that come back year after year. He is a B.S. in Business Management and Sports Marketing from Virginia Intermont College, an RRCA Certified Race Director, and someone who has been running competitively for more than thirty years — most recently earning the Abbott World Marathon Majors 7 Star Finisher award, completing all six of the world's most iconic marathons. He did not come to this industry from the outside. He arrived from deep inside it.
"Putting on fun family-friendly events and helping runners achieve their personal goals is now a passion of mine. Is this all you do? I wish — it was a lot easier back when I could just show up to run them." — Shane Asbury
In 2018, Shane turned that thirty-year running habit into Wanderlust Running Unlimited. The name is precise: this is not a race management business. It is an operation built on the conviction that the desire to move through terrain — to cover distance, to finish something hard, to stand at a start line you were not sure you could reach — is a fundamental human impulse worth serving at scale. He earned his RRCA Certified Race Director credential and a Certified Tourism Ambassador designation, then spent three years as Race Director and Co-Owner of the Tucson Marathon, directing its 50th running and creating its inaugural 50K. By the time he brought Wanderlust fully to New Mexico, the foundation was solid.
The portfolio he has built here spans the full range of what it means to get people outside in southern New Mexico. The State 47 Las Cruces Marathon — voted Best Marathon in New Mexico — draws runners from across the country to the Mesilla Valley. The Sacramento Mountains Endurance Series strings three events together across Cloudcroft's high-altitude terrain for a single price. The Grindstone Trail Races, Ruidoso RunFest, and Day of the Dead Series anchor the Lincoln National Forest corridor through the racing calendar. The Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race — seven nights, five days of running in the Himalayas — is the furthest expression of his belief that the terrain itself is the point. He is also the producer of the Backyard Ultra (Last Runner Standing) in Las Cruces, one of endurance sport's most demanding formats: run a 4.167-mile loop every hour, on the hour, until only one person remains.
In January 2025, The IRONMAN Group contracted Shane as Race Director for the inaugural Ironman 70.3 Ruidoso — July 11–12, 2026. That the Ironman brand chose him, in a state not previously on their calendar, to build a brand-new event from the ground up is the clearest signal of his standing in the professional race-direction community. His job is to make 70.3 miles of swimming, cycling, and running through the Lincoln National Forest feel world-class — not despite the terrain, but because of it.
Tymmber is building the argument — in hardware, in content, in community — that getting people genuinely outside is a mechanism for human development. Shane has been proving that argument right, event by event, in the Sacramento Mountains and the Mesilla Valley and the Tularosa Basin, for years. The terrain he works in is Tymmber's backyard. The audiences he activates are Tymmber's future customers. What he brings to this table is not theory. It is the operational proof of what happens when you build something worth showing up for.