Episode 92: Safe Races and Being Willing to Walk Away

As events go, trail ultramarathons are far from easy to orchestrate. The many variables and interesting problems that are needed to be solved to pull together a safe and enjoyable trail race take a tremendous amount of inspiration, passion, work, sacrifice, and commitment from all involved from runner to race director. 

One of the unfortunate circumstances that a runner may come across is that of a cancelled race. Wild places bring serious and rapidly changing weather that includes electrical storms, flash floods, avalanches, wildfires, and more that elevate the seriousness around the risk already being taken by participants. 

With all the work and passion a race director puts into each event the very last thing they want to do is to cancel a race but sometimes it must be done. Eat Clean Run Dirty wanted to learn more about cancelled races, what best practices there may be, and hear from runners and race directors that have been impacted by them. ECRD writer and field reporter Chad Sullivan interviewed Race Directors and runners from all corners of the United States and Canada for a very special investigative article featured in issue 5 of Eat Clean Run Dirty Magazine. In today’s podcast, I read that article to provide an interactive audio version of the piece. I am joined for discussion with the author, Chad and Lee Conner, a friend of the show and a trail runner that was interviewed for this article titled  Rhonda Del Cims, Safe Racing, Doing the Right Thing &Being Willing to Walk Away.