I had a busy morning.
Running out the door a little late, I saw the tweet from Craig Thornley saying that he’s expecting a flood of emails for the opening day of registration for the Waldo 100K in Oregon.
Waldo is a race I’ve been meaning to run for a couple years but I set the thought aside since I had to get to work. By the time I had made it into the office and had a minute to check back, much to my surprise — the race was full!
In 2011, Waldo filled to capacity in around 32 days.
This year, it filled in five hours and forty-seven mintues.
What. The. Hell.
I get it. Ultrarunning is popular now. I have no problem with that.
What I do have a problem with, though, is the overwhelming evidence that the path we’re on as an ultrarunning community is totally unsustainable.
Just as a mental exercise, imagine what would happen if the current growth continued into 2013. Simple napkin math tells us that the race would sell out not in a few days or a few hours, but in just under two minutes and forty-five seconds.
Friends, that ain’t gonna work.
To be clear, I’m not here to criticize race directors. They do amazing work and they’re absolutely doing the best they can under huge demand for little (or no) pay and sometimes hordes of cranky runners. We should all be grateful for what they do.
So, this isn’t really news to anybody. We’ve had lotteries for races like the Wasatch 100 and Western States for years now. In Europe, classics like UTMB have a points system which require that a prospective runner race a certain number of qualifying races to accumulate enough points to be able to enter the lottery.
Much talk has centered around implementing other mechanisms to limit the prospective field for popular races.
Some favor increasing race pricing to limit the number of prospective applicants. I don’t think the ethos of trail running really jives very well with this strategy, nor do I even think it would be particularly effective.
Others favor implementing a qualifying system for major races whereby a runner would have to had to run a particular time at a particular distance in order to qualify ala the famous Boston Marathon. This approach seems on the surface be more merit based but doesn’t provide equal access to beginners and elites and I think a lot of people find the mix of grizzled vetrans alongside fresh newbies to be a highlight of our sport.
Some races, such as the Wasatch 100 and the Tahoe Rim Trail 100, require that a runner complete some number of hours of trail work or volunteer work before being accepted. Usually this amounts to a single day of work. I’m not aware of any race that requires more than 8 hours in order to qualify.
So, here’s my proposal:
I believe that popular races should dramatically increase the number of volunteer hour required in order to apply for registration. The most popular should require multiple days of trail or volunteer work in order to even be able to apply for entry. (Working as an RD or Asst. RD should also qualify.)
If runners have thousands of hours a year and hundreds of dollars to register for a particular race, I don’t believe for a second that they can’t give up some of those training hours to go out and serve others by volunteering or invest several days working on their local trails.
If the worst that happens is that this approach doesn’t significantly reduce demand and our trail systems get thousands of hours of free manpower as a result, is that really so bad?
So, friends, that’s pretty much it. What do you think? Is this an idea that warrants further attention by race directors and race committees around the country? If you think it is, kindly drop a link to this post on your own blog and, if you like, leave a comment below.
The one race that I wanted to do this year for sure sold out in a week. It was the Ice Age 50. I missed the date. It doesn’t require any trail time and I only have myself to blame. But, I agree with you that for the larger races they could increasing the trail time. I think making it possible for an early registration for those that do 20 hours of trail time would work. But they should also limit those early registrations as well. I am not sure anything will really fix it based on the growth of the ultra sport. I am one of the new guys bitten by the bug so I have not be around long enough to know what it was like before the boom.
So here’s the flaw in your proposal – those races that do require volunteer work don’t require you perform it until after you’ve been selected. Also, this isn’t a very realistic scenario for people who have strict professional lives and for the busy race pros (I’m thinking of someone like Killian who spends most of the year traveling the world – when would they do all of their volunteer work?). They will just be at a disadvantage to those who have more open schedules to perform volunteer work.
I do think that races like Waldo and Squaw Peak are ridiculous though. It is unfair to a whole bunch of people. Here are my suggestions for high profile races:
1. Hold a certain number of spots open for elites (how to determine an elite could be figured out by the RDs).
2. I actually think more 100s need qualifiers. There is a difference between a rookie and someone who has no business being out there taking another persons slot who deserves it more. It doesn’t mean that the person needs to have run another 100, but they should at least prove they belong at the starting line.
3. The whole concept of automatic entree qualifications needs to be revisited. Hardrock requires 5 years of finishes. Well, auto-entrants now make up nearly 40% of the total people who run the race each year. That is not sustainable.
4. Get rid of first come/first serve altogether for races that are in high demand. If that means holding a lottery, then so-be-it.
Here’s what the real problem with ultra running in America is – there are no consistent standards and no governing body to help maintain them. Trail and ultra running is HUGE in Europe and much of it comes from the fact that it is just WAY more organized across the board. I think our RDs do a great job with their individual races, but there is no set standard between races and that is hurting the sport. Wow, I totally got on my soapbox.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for the feedback!
My proposal actually involves changing the way volunteer hours are done. Instead of performing the hours after one has been selected, one would have perform them prior to applying for registration. I realize that there becomes some incentive to cheat in this system and that’s a downside but my counterargument is that there’s already incentive for dishonest people to cheat in the current system of requiring volunteer hours after they’ve been accepted. My gut tells me this isn’t very prevalent but I could be wrong.
As far as elites go, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to ask them to do a couple of days of volunteering every year. Maybe (and just maybe) for Killian I can see that being a problem but the vast majority of elites that I know already volunteer a lot of their time anyway for various causes. Besides, they’re already volunteering in order to run in races like Wasatch, are they not?
As far as people being disadvantaged by having a lot of free time, I don’t quite understand this. How can a person have many hundreds of hours a year to train for a 100 mile race but not a dozen hours to volunteer?
That said, I happen to agree with all three of your suggestions. I think you’ll see those implemented in varying degrees over the coming years.