Is UTMB Still a Net Positive for Trail Running? James Elson Weighs In (Sunday Conversation)

In this episode, Centurion Running founder James Elson joins the show to unpack one of the most complex moments in trail running right now.

We examine the collapse of high-profile events like Dragon’s Back and what it reveals about the economics of modern race organization - including rising operational costs, participant trends, and why certain race formats may no longer be sustainable. James also shares a behind-the-scenes look at how race directors actually think about pricing, no-show rates, and business viability. 

In the second half of the conversation, we turn to UTMB and its growing influence on the sport. We discuss the tradeoffs between scale and safety, the risks of removing qualification standards, and whether the current growth model is aligned with the long-term health of trail running. We also explore who is ultimately responsible for runner preparedness, the role of media and culture in shaping expectations, and whether UTMB is, for now, still a net positive for the sport.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track Podcast. I'm your host, Finn Millanson, and this is the latest edition of our Sunday Conversation. Today I'm talking with James Elson, the CEO of Centurion Running. James wears multiple hats in this community. He is an event director for many races in the UK scene, including South Downs Way, which is part of the World Trail Majors. He owns an online retail store, a coaching business. He's an athlete himself. He's done many things in the scene, ranging from Western states to Lavareto, even to Barclay. So he's just one of those people who deeply understands the levers across our sport, across multiple subcategories. Anyways, wanted to have him on to make sense of what's happening over in the UK right now. Many of you have already been briefed on what's happened at Snowdonia and with ARIA events. We talk about both of those at greater length in more detail. We also get into other trail event industry topics like market saturation at certain race distances and formats, the cost structure of trail races, and why high-end expedition events like Dragon Spec are so financially fragile, the increasing presence of UTMB on the UK scene and the potential cannibalization of the same participant pool and volunteer pool across events, the squeezed middle, as we call it, and issues of safety, competency, and risk managed by event directors as increasing number of inexperienced folks enter the sport. More than anything else, if you are someone looking to deeply understand as many aspects of the sport as possible, basically, if you're like me, I'm a student at this. I hope this is a conversation that contributes to your understanding of how events work in trail, or at least just gives you more stuff to think about. The Single Track Podcast is brought to you by Norda, the official footwear partner of the show. And if you're getting ready for a race this spring or summer, I must recommend to you their 005 model. It's the lightest, fastest, most stable super shoe on the market right now. Alongside the 055, I'll be using it at key races all season long. Don't wait. Go check it out, NordaRun.com. Today's episode is also brought to you by Precision Fuel and Hydration. If you've ever blown up late in a race, chances are your fueling plan, that's carbs, sodium, fluids, wasn't quite right. Precision has a free fuel and hydration planner that helps you figure out exactly what you should be taking in per hour based on how you've trained your race and the conditions out there. I have been using it recently while dialing in my own race nutrition strategy. I have seen the benefits. If you want to try it out for yourself again, it's free. Head to precisionhydration.com forward slash planner. James Elson, welcome to the Single Track Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Thanks very much for having me. Absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Before we get into everything around URIA and Snowdonia, UTMB, state-of-the-vent scene, how has all of this news made you feel personally about your own business?

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Um I mean, obviously I was in shock initially at some of the bits of news. And you immediately then reflect on your position, don't you? You think that could have been us, or how could it have been us, or you know, I start empathizing or sympathizing even with the people that are in struggling and had a bad time and how long that's been going on for. And it's a small sport, you know, and especially here in the UK, in our race director circles, there are a few of us who you know interact all the time. I'm sure it's the same in the US, I know it's the same in the US. And so you kind of take it personally, but what I would say the positive side is the way the community seems to have pulled together around these quite divisive issues, potentially, and that has left me feeling more buoyant than ever that we're in a good place as a sport because of the strength of the community.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Okay, so this was not an indicator of bigger problems in the UK scene to come.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

No, and I I try to be clear that that doesn't need to be the case. We we definitely, you know, one of my hats is as chairperson of the TRA here, which is our Trail Running Association. So we're we're responsible for licensing trail events in England, right? And so I know the permit numbers and participant numbers of the races. So we are issuing roughly, say, 750 permits a year at the moment, which is the highest we ever have done. We are down still on participant levels from pre pre-COVID. So 2019, we had 125,000 people in 650 races. Last year we had 115,000 people in 750 races. We know the market is is struggling, like it's a bit saturated on the event side and it's still a bit underpopulated on the on the participant side. But that that isn't across the board, it's skewed in certain places, and we'll come to it, I'm sure, but one of the challenges ARIA faced was that their point of entry price was so high, and so they are a real outlier in our space. So it's not endemic of of you know in issues across the board.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

You mentioned the stats, and I think you mentioned these on feet first as well, which I would encourage people to go and listen to. That was a great race director, roundtable yourself, Shane, uh the folks from ARC, etc. Uh increase in events, decrease in total runners. What drove the increase in events in the last seven years?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

That's a really good question. Um I think certain races failed after COVID. They tended to be the ones that were longstanding, organized for the love of the sport by race directors who were perhaps getting a little long in the tooth to want to keep doing it for the love. And and COVID just basically finished them off. It finished a lot of runners off, too. You know, there were a lot who were on the treadmill of racing every weekend, and when they were forced to step off that treadmill, forced to not just put it on again, they actually took the decision to sort of say, you know what, we had a great run at it, and and that's enough. Some of those races were reincarnated or passed on to others. Um, some of them just disappeared. A lot of local, a lot of the race saturation we're seeing now, however, is in a very weird space here in the UK. And I don't know if you have it there, but if you want to race a six-hour timed event on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday here in the UK, you can do it.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

And so there's a whole scene of people that basically you know race in the week, and a huge number of our licenses are for these very low-key six-hour timed events. And obviously, the beauty of that format is you can run one 5k loop or you can run for six hours, and so they're really inclusive. But that kind of skews the numbers a bit as well. So, actually, at my end of the sport, 50k, 100k, 100-mile, you know, trail events, the market's not necessarily more saturated, it's more in the lower end of the spectrum. But there is there are still more events uh at our end, and the challenges are high. Um, costs have gone up too, you know. So we're getting pinched on both sides. And it was that podcast we did, Shane would have known how close to the edge they were. Um maybe we can come to how close he thought he was to the edge versus how quickly it could become apparent where the edge actually is, which I don't think runners realize. Um, but it yeah, his his situation was kind of a unique one, although the challenges we all face are pretty obvious.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

It makes me wonder if you look at that total number, 115,000 runners that are uh let's call them blanket trail runners or ultrunners, of that 115k, what percentage do you believe are addressable for centurion running or for AREA events? Like are what percentage of that population would actually sign up for a race like Ark of Attrition or South Downs Way or Northern Traverse? Like, or is it just a bunch of different subgroups, you know, that are their own little community, like these timed event people?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

It's both. I I'd I'd say five percent. I I think that the you know, those numbers are trail running, so they they could be your 10k club run trail event on a Saturday in May. That that could also be at the other end of the spectrum. It won't be a UTMB event because obviously they don't get uh licenses from the governing body, they just do their own thing. Um, but in my case, that could be you know a thousand people at South Downs Way. Um, so there's quite a spectrum there. The number of those people that would take part in Shane's, I mean, Shane never licensed, ARIA never licensed with the TRA either because events are so unique, they actually can't conform to governing body rules. They wouldn't even fall into that bucket. So it that's how disparate it is. It's a hugely uh diverse world, as I'm sure it is of your side of the pond, right? Like distances terrain types, runners, you know, it's all over the place. It doesn't feel very cohesive, I don't think, personally.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Do you get the sense that that total number, 115k, are is the UK approaching like peak numbers, or do you still believe, you know, if we were talking five to ten years from now, it it would be a larger number?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

It's definitely on an upward curve. I think this year we'll surpass the 125,000 mark. So I think we'll be back. Probably this year we'll record the highest ever number of people participating in a trail race in England, and I'm confident that we'll continue going in that direction. I think the accessibility of it is only increasing. So there's real positive signs there. But for us at our level, like entry point, let's just look at price point for entering races. Uh, our standard fee is let's say equivalent of$250 for a hundred mile or$300. Shane's$3,000. So the difference there is massive as well. You know, you're 10Xing, asking someone to put 10X the money into an event that's almost like, if I dare say it, like all like a tour. It's almost like an operated adventure rather than a it is a race, but it's is so different to what we do in terms of how it's delivered and how people experience that event.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

If you look at an entry fee for a race like Dragon Spec, do you believe that the price of entry was justified?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

What are what are the biggest cost drivers that people don't understand there?

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Okay, so I I knew coming into this, it was uh I'm gonna it's gonna be tricky for me because I have all the information. I know I know the revenues of these races, I know the operating expenses of them. The company went into administration last night officially. So uh I also have had conversations with the administrator. Um, so I have lots of information, some of which obviously I it can't be in the public space, and some of which it's fan. But let's just say if you're an organizer and your operating expenses, these are direct costs of organizing a race run at more than 50% of the revenue of that race, you're gonna you're gonna struggle to make the business work. And I think with races like the Dragons Back and Cape Rat, those expeditions style races, the only really Shane and the Area team have been brave enough to try and put on here and done so successfully, the operational expenses are so high that the minute you and and the the the it the revenue, the entry fee is so high, the minute you take a dip in participant numbers by even 20%, you've got nowhere to go. It's not sustainable. Whereas for organizers of simpler races which are less logistically involved, you could stomach a higher you know dip than that and survive it. And that's principally that double pinch point that's caused it, increasing operational costs and decreasing revenue. The the the operational expenses on dragon's back, to answer your question, that just the sheer logistics and manpower required to break and rebuild camp every night for 500 people, um, cater those people, um, provide you know safety infrastructure across rugged, remote mountain terrain with next to no signal, they're just astronomical. Um, let alone the expertise it requires to actually deliver those kind of races safely. That there's just so much overhead that we would never even have to think about here.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Huh. Given that it's such a precarious business model there, if if a new owner was to come in and take it on, would they be taking it on just for the love of the game? Because it's this like community event, or is there actually a pathway to good, you know, unit economics there?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna just answer this. Uh uh people might not like the answers, but I'll just I'll I'll say it as I see it. I haven't had Shane is a friend of mine, I've been speaking to him the whole way through this process, and I hope he doesn't mind me sort of being as forthright as to say what I think caused a lot of the problem. When you've got a race like the Dragons back, and you've got a race like Cape Wrath, uh, they used to happen on alternate years. So did Northern Traverse. So that's three of the four races that Area had in their stable up until last week. One of which has never taken place. Skyline Scotland, which is a reincarnation of the Glencoast Skyline, um, you know, those classic sky running world champs events that he had for a while. They've moved, they've relocated, and they were set up from scratch again this year. So that that's never it that's never taken place. He's got three going entities. The runners for the Dragons back and the Cape Wrath are the same people. So the minute he, you know, Ariar went from organising one every other year, he kind of cannibalized his own market. In that there's not really anyone else in that space in the UK. Yeah, people go and do the MDS or other desert races, whatever, but that's a major part of the problem, I think on reflection. I think he would probably say the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Interesting. So, and again, just thinking about the race directors that are in this audience listening to our conversation, knowing what you now know about the arrea event situation, if you're thinking about expansion, adding races to your portfolio, you do you want to add events that sort of complement your pre-existing categories? Like if you are steeped in like the technical stage mountain race scene, like you bring in a timed event or you bring in a road ultra to sort of like buffer the business model in other subcategories of Trail and Ultra?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

I think so. I think if I if I had to say, I think it's likely that the Northern Traverse and Dragon's Back portions of what Aurea did were likely very sustainable by themselves. And could could have sustained, you know, ARIA had a full-time what, you know, full-time staff of eight. Maybe it could have sustained four or five. Um, again, you've got to look at this as me just just spitballing here because I don't have all the internal facts. I don't I don't know the full picture. But the minute you've added Kate Rath and upscaled your employee uh levels and and costs keep spiraling up and there's a small dip in revenue, that's where the pinches come.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah, yeah. I mean, two two comments from me. Uh here stateside, it's interesting. I don't know the details at all, so I can only tell you like the headline, but there was a classic stage race here in the Western US called Trans Rockies that just announced this year that it would be the last running. Which, and again, I don't know why, but they basically put that up front saying the event is going to go on this year, it's our last year. I wonder if these two bits of dudes are related. Second, I wonder as the sport grows, if the area for like technical and less accessible race formats, the races like Dragonsback, even more extreme races like Trofeo Kima, if we will ever see a corresponding growth rate there, or if that is so niche and stuck in the past that when you talk about the growth of the sport, you can't make that a dependable North Star for Dragonsback or that type of race.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

I think that's spot on. This sort of reflects back onto what Killian's been saying recently, right? About how there's been a s you know a reduction in in the in the technicality of a lot of events. And this is maybe pertinent when we segue eventually to UTS and the issues they've had. Technicality removes the ability for scale. So I think Glencoe Skyline really had, I think, a hundred entries. You know, you would know about it because a dozen of those entries were the very best in the world, including Killian and Emily and Anna Frost and you know everyone else from the UK back in the day. But you can't you can't scale that race. It's not it's not safe to do that, it's not sustainable. These are ridgeline events, you know, you just form queues and people taking risks. So that is for the love of it. You know, you can use that as a marketing tool for your other events, but that's for the love of it. And that's where so many of these events are just disappearing, is that when that person, because as a race organiser, the stress, and Shane admitted this to me last week, the stress of organizing something like Glencoe Skyline, where runners are on Curved Ridge and Anarchy Gak are probably that you know they're scrambles slash rock climbs, not not running terrain. He would just pray, he said to me, for that entire time that race was going on, that he would get everyone off that hill safely. That's not sustainable longer term. You cannot do that for any huge period of time. You just you no one can do that. So part of the reason, there were other reasons, local reasons, that they stepped away from that, but part of it was just burnout. And part of this arrear situation is burnout. Now, again, um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I'm not sure if this is fair, but the image that I have in my head of these technical races attempting to achieve scale is the same image that I see on Mount Everest when during you know May of each year in guiding seasons at its zenith, you just have this massive, I mean, like shoulder-to-shoulder line from the top of the summit on Everest down to maybe even camp four. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah, and and obviously, you know, to those who've been exposed to the space, they will curve ridges, you know, you are there's a competency to get into that race. Shane and the urea team demanded evidence of rock climbing background. You needed to prove you were a climber and you knew how to use you know basic climbing techniques and kit. And it would be a one, a one-up, one way. So there's no way you're passing anyone on curve range, there's no way anyone's letting you. But the bigger issue, obviously, is rockfall, particularly. And then you're talking about people being required to run carrying helmets, um, potentially clipping in on fixed lines. There's a crossover into this amazing space. But like Glenn Coe, there was another race in Andorra called Els 2900, which was just the most incredible idea for a race. It's very Andorran or you know, Pyrenean thing to do. It's stopped, it's stopped as well. Like these are not if anyone has events like these, snap up the chance to run them while they exist, and you've got the skills, obviously, because that they just they're gonna burn bright and then they're gonna burn out. There's no there's no real com there's no commercial future for them, and therefore, you know, there is a timeline probably on them too.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Maybe a couple since we're on it, I want to talk a bit about more about safety. There was this, there's this story, or maybe it's actual stats that people t tell about the 1970s marathoning scene here in the US, where it was like because the sport was so small, all the guys were running sub-3, all the women were running like sub-330, and it was they were using those stats to kind of say that this sport is just a cohort of extremely competent athletes across the board. And then as that scene grew, uh that sort of unraveled. It do you buy that type of story for what's happening in trail right now? And I don't mean to be a gatekeeper or to say that, you know, as the sport grows, totally unprepared, uh, unexpecting people are entering to the sport, but what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 21:02

I think there's probably still the number of same number of competent people at the very top end. Let's let's say it's competency, experience, whatever, however you want to frame it, on that technical ground. And I'm not a big lover of the word technical. I think it's a bit broad strokes, but let's call it very rough, very exposed terrain, particularly in the UK here, without any kind of phone or cell reception, uh, usually map and compass, carrying minimal kit, you know, that's the heart of fell running. And there's 9,000 people in our fell running association here. We have 1,200 people in our trail running association, right? The the fell running community is huge, and um and they are still out there in their numbers doing this stuff all the time. But the number of people flooding in at the bottom, or let's call it I always like your terminology of the bucket. Number of people flowing in at the top of the bucket is expanding to include more and more people who have no. Competency at all, and this is where one of the issues I had with the direction of UTMB is that they don't require qualification standards for their events. So if you look at I've used Shane, Shane pioneered in many senses. He comes from the world of mountain marathoning here, which is map and compass, deep, uh, open ground, navigation in all conditions. That he's a world-class athlete in that level, and he's got as a climber an ability as an athlete that very like a handful of people have. He put something up called the classic rock route here in the lake district that maybe has had five or six people replicate it, like it's off the charts. He pioneered this this world really in the in England. He deserves to hold on to the credit for that. Um, but then there is when you have these big races on technical ground, and UTS is an example, and you have no qualification criteria, you are inviting disaster. You are just inviting disaster because you cannot buy that. You can buy the kit, you can buy the entry, you can pay for the but you cannot replicate mountain experience without time in in those places. And that that's where there is a problem. And that's why Shane said on that Feet First Podcast, he's just waiting for the first, you know, real catastrophic accidents sort of happen.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

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SPEAKER_02 24:56

I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna say runner. Like, we can give everyone all the information in the world as organizers, which we try to do, and you can give them too much information, by the way, and you can you can cloud the important things with fluffy details about drop bags and whatever. So you've got to be clear with them that the runner has to pick the event or adventure that's reflective of their skill set. And the problem is it's fine on on our dry trails at South Dunsway. I can have a first timer, and it's the perfect environment because they're 500 metres from a road at any point, as ubiquitous phone signal, you know, even if the weather's awful, it's they could sit out there on the hill all day, absolutely fine. You get onto the terrain that UTS is on, even the 50k there, and you could fall to a serious, I mean, you could kill yourself within the first 15k of the race in several places. And I'm not one for drama, like this is incredible ground to be organizing races on, and yeah, you can enter that race having never set foot on a hill before. That is insane. Um, and and therefore, it you know, as the organizer, you can tell people all the everything they need to know, but they have to have experience themselves. Of course, as an organizer, your responsibility is to I would put them second because you're the one who's got to put the safety infrastructure in place. That includes obviously all mountain rescue, um, you know, hillside safety teams, volunteer teams, checkpoints, course markings, all that stuff, but also competency level. You have to ensure the competency of the runner that's appearing at your race and has the opportunity to do your race. And if you're uh you know, if you're looking for scale, you remove the competency level. That is the fastest way to bring people in because a lot of guys, less so women, but a lot of guys are gonna jump at the opportunity to do something that looks insane, and especially on this this world where content's king, um they're gonna jump at the chance, and and you're the one as the organizer who then has to pick up the pieces, or local rescue services, even worse.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Can you talk more about what you see as the pros and the cons for UTMB's safety policies and how that leads to more growth, but possibly consequences as well?

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Um I'll try. I have concerns that they're in markets that they don't. I mean, the UK is a unique set of environmental conditions, is very wet and it's very cold in the winter. So that kind of maritime, freezing cold, very, very wet, heavily wet. You know, visibility is an issue, uh, underfoot conditions can be absolutely horrendous. Um, access is poor. And we've got very small mountains, but the weather conditions at the top for 900 meter peak in the in the spine race could be minus 20 easily, when in the valley it could be minus eight, minus nine, which might be okay. UTMB are now managing their UK events, just looking at UK bubble for a minute, they're managing them from France, and um their understanding of the coast path in winter for the ARC is just they're not local people to it. So they're going to consume the forecast and they're going to consume the lightly conditions and they're going to assess those things within their framework. And I've no doubt their framework for all these things is actually way more uh involved and complete than than most, you know. It like let's say wind speeds and what structures you're allowed to maintain in 100 kilometrour winds versus not, they're not making anything up, they've got protocols, but there's those conditions mean different things in different places, and that's part of the issue. My my main problem is just the number of people without prove without proven competency on that terrain um out on these courses that concerns me. And and this isn't anecdotal or subjective. This is they've run out of water numerous times at checkpoints at UTS. They've run out of food numerous times. They've had people all over the hill, absolutely no clue where they're going, because course marking on an open, you know, fell side is impossible, especially if members of the public or local groups don't want them there, and then just pull the so they use things like the hard rock style stakes with ribbons, for example, for markings. They just get pulled out and there's no course anymore. Um there's no mountain craft, you know, with it past the top 10% of the fields entering those races. You know, they they wouldn't know what to do. So there are huge holes in it, let's put it that way. And the scale of it is what exacerbates those holes.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

So I'm sure it's I'm sure it's fairly different depending on the region and the event. But in the case of Snowdonia, at least for the last few years, are you suggesting that U Tim B has sort of been like porting in a team from away to administer the event? And these are people that maybe are in like a boardroom hundreds or thousands of miles away, making rough estimates on how much water to put at an aid station and where to staff people, and that's why things are falling through because it's like it's a different reality on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

A mixture. So they had a UK um event director until late last year. So last year's events were executed by this event director. Bear in mind, I'm only talking about the Arc of Attrition and Associated Shorter Races and Ultra Child Snowdoned. Uh they're currently the only two UTMB events in the UK. Um that rate that event director then left uh the end of last year. I'm not quite sure why. Um, so now the team that managed the arc on the ground are Ferg and Jane, who and Andy, who were the mud crew, who who UTMB bought out. But the race director, and all decisions are are made by UTMB guys. So they had a team of of half a dozen people, flew in for the race, and they made the decisions, and then Ferg and Jane execute those decisions out to the wider team of staff and then volunteers. That's that's how it works. And at UTS, it's the same, except you don't have a Ferg and Jane there. You maybe have a course manager and uh a couple of other people who are sort of you know part-time at best, and they're executing the race themselves, UTMB. So they're bringing their protocols in and then executing them and calling all the shots for the race, yeah, on everything supplies, quantities, all that kind of stuff. Now, I'm only I'm I'm telling you that because these people are friends, not the not the French, but the the British side of this are good friends of mine and are quite forthcoming with information. So somebody can comment and say, he's got this wrong, blah blah blah. Yeah, I may I may be slightly off the mark, but this is this this is what I have witnessed myself as as happening. Because I was there at the start of the arc this year, they had a really difficult decision to make. Wind speed was so high. I said to Ferg, I personally would have held the race for an hour at least. Wow, they went ahead anyway. The the the wind was actually they managed that well, it was a good decision, but the tides were huge and washed some runners out on some of the beaches. And that I don't know how well that was handled, if I'm honest. There were reports from runners that it was incredibly dangerous, and important reports from UTMB that they bit had people on the ground monitoring it. So that's where you get in the weeds of he said, she said. But um, that was a a real margin call. Um, and they made that the French team, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

And it's interesting as we're recording this, it's uh it's Wednesday, March 18th. We're less than 24 hours removed from UTMB cancelling uh their Tenerife event altogether. So it's interesting how I guess it it must be handled on an event by event basis fairly right up to the last minute of uh of race day.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Um I was on the phone with uh Fernando Gonzalez, who's the race director for um well he uh he's in charge of Arista events that put on Transgran Canaria and uh we were chatting on Monday and he said this race is getting cancelled. We've got snow above 2,000 metres here, and uh there is you know a lot of that Tenerife Blue Trail course is above 2,000 metres. And whilst it's Trans Grand Canary and then Tenerife by UTMB, as he describes it, they're all Canary Islanders, they're all one and the same community, and he doesn't want to see that either, even though you know Tenerife moved that little bit closer to Grand Canary this year. Who knows why or what the real deal was there? Grand Canaria moved back a bit too, and that caused some friction. But yeah, I do feel for them because that you know they are still trying to put a race on. I don't I don't want to see UTMB fail, I just want to see them reflect on on scale and yeah, competency and plug some of the holes, which are pretty gaping. But nobody wants to see a race like that get cancelled, and they've had that happen a lot to them, you know. If we reflect on all their races, so many times they've had course changes or cancellations on their hands. Nobody wants that.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

It's I'm I will say this because I do want to have a larger UTMB discussion uh later on in the conversation. I am setting aside both positive and negative views, I am I'm impressed at how resilient their business has been in spite of a relatively high number of cancellations of these events in the past few years. And again, that must be reflective of just how big their cohort of total events is across the world where like you could you could lose five or six a year or whatever and still be fine. But I do wonder how many times this can happen with Tenerife, for example, before they have to pull the plug.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Yeah, and and I think um I think UTNBI Matt, they they are they are not gonna throw good money if they feel event it's not viable, this has happened once or twice already, they they will pull the plug. They will they will say, okay, this this wasn't viable, we're we're getting rid of it, we're moving on. When you've got 60, 70 events, I think, and soon to be, let's be honest, 100 plus easily. Um you've got some resilience to that baked in. I totally agree with you. Where I felt that shift, particularly was with this latest UTS news, it suddenly seemed to change tack from, oh that's a that's a shame, or that decision's obviously because of this, you know, let's give them the benefit of the doubt to vast majority of people saying, guys, this is pretty transparent at or in a lot more sort of vociferous terms than that. What you're doing is transparent here. We see through it, we're not standing for it. Whether that's a British sentiment, I don't know. But I've wondered over the years, and you might have a take on this, why, if they cancel one event, do they not offer additional places in other events that you know, deferrals into one of the and I know they're operated as separate businesses sometimes, but ultimately they could lessen the blow uh and still maintain numbers? Like, why don't they defer people to other events of their choosing over a 24-month period rather than just say you've lost your event and you've lost your money, you know?

SPEAKER_00 36:40

So it's interesting, and again, I think at least in the last two months, and this is not a new take, but I do believe one of the places UTMB can improve is in their overall communications and with their PR team. I'm not sure if they have a dedicated one, but it does seem like the critical information tends to come out after the fact. And I had to reach out to Fabrice at UTMB personally to get some sense of what happened here. And he said two things to me, and I think it's it's now out there in the in the public, but it again, whether it was like pushed out widespread enough is another debate. He said that they are offering no questions asked, transfer into any other events in the 2026 UTMB carousel event season, and then also they would uh offer deferral into any 2027 UTS events. Where he did stop was at I they they'll not offer refunds. So uh if you bought uh a ticket for UTS this year, courses change, you're pissed. Um they would I I I think they're gonna honor refunds on a case-by-case basis, but it's not like an official no questions asked policy yet.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Let me just peel back the curtain. This this this this isn't wise for a race organizer to admit this stuff, but let me just peel back the curtain on this. I can give you the data on no shows at races and how you know a 50k an average no-show rate might be 20% average. Uh a hundred miler, it's more like 11%, right? Okay. The shorter the distance, the less inclined people are to show up if it's marginal, the investment's less financially and time. When you start deferring people, that number absolutely crumbles. You know, if you deferred 500 people into the race the following year, you would see way less than 50% of those people actually show up on the day. So the smart business strategy is to defer those people, it makes your event look more sold and oversell it because there will, you are near as dammit guaranteed that over half of them won't appear on the day. Now I know you're an event organizer yourself and have come into this world more recently, so you're probably starting to get your own data. I'm bringing that data from we've we've staged 130 events over 15 years. So I I run the data before every race to get my exact start count, and obviously I forecast everyone has to forecast your level of no shows, but you you you go super conservative on that. But someone coming in commercially wouldn't go conservative and would overreach quite substantially, and that's why there can be supply issues at events. Interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, I I know again, we are so new to the game on events, but for example, you know, for our Twisted Fork event, we opened up registration last year like 11 months in advance, and we sold quite a few tickets in those first three months, like eight months before the race. But then on race day, I think we had like a 30% no-show rate. Yeah. Which I think is pretty high.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

But uh Let me ask you, did you give any of those places away free to volunteers or sponsors or no?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

It was people paid. So it was uh it was a mid-distance race. It was 68 kilometers, so it wasn't short, wasn't long, but uh yeah, we had quite a high no-show rate. And so I I know this time around, and in like we're constantly testing, and I I could see because it's also just a more regional, local type event, I could see us opening it up five or six months in advance as opposed to like way before. Like I think our rationale was give plenty of time for people to consider, look at their schedules. But I think we'll probably just end up in future years waiting until after classic lottery season for hard rock western spine, stuff like that, and then open up.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

So so two extra thoughts just on this. If we so roughly 20% of any starting field of ours is volunteers who've earned free entries. So our system is if you commit, we had a 50k on Saturday, if you committed seven hours to that 50k, you earn a free spot at one above 50k in 2027, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

20% of each start line on average is a free place. That there is a 50% no-show rate amongst the people who've got a free entry. And it sort of mirrors the deferred entry number. If you you and I both know as organizers, and this is really pertinent to your rear situation, you make all of your money as an organizer on the last 15-20% of entrants, right? So if you can oversell your race by 15%, knowing that that number on the start line is going to be what you have capacity for, you are a fool not to do it. And that is the the commercial side of race organization that runners probably don't see.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

One last question on safety, and uh maybe more of a comment here, actually. On the US side of things, if I had to pick the most relevant talking points for growth of the sport right now, uh or at least the concerns for it, uh, one of the biggest ones has just simply been the worry that new entrants are gonna share the same social values that the pre-existing cohort of runners share, and that there's gonna be harmony. So it's interesting that in the in this conversation and more so internationally, one of the most pressing issues is as we add new entrants to the sport, are they even capable of completing this stuff? And are they a massive liability to the event and other runners themselves? And maybe it's because of just the the the the pre-existing uh event inventory on the US scene where it's most of the events are not crazy dangerous in general, and that's more of a European thing. But I just this is a not this is a relatively novel conversation for our American audience. I just I just find it interesting.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah, I I think there's an element of truth to that for sure. I think uh if I look at the UK scene, we have got a really good development pathway of pretty big organizers in the space who are in the 15k to 50k trail space and they are very community focused. I'll give you an example. Maverick Events were bought, 50% of Maverick was bought by London Marathon Events. So London Marathon Events is not just London Marathon here, they own four or five of the biggest races in the UK, including the Brighton Marathon, etc. They bought half of Maverick, who were essentially our equivalent in the shorter trail space. There was a little bit of crossover at the 50k level, but otherwise, loads of their runners fed from Maverick. Really well-organised races, really good feel, sponsors. It made you feel part of a big race, but also like it was a I've come out of town for a really great community afternoon. You know, I've run a race, I can have a few beers with my friends. Awesome. Younger demographic than ours typically. Um their competencies learned on the on their journey through, because once they've found that, they're they're in and they're and then they're looking for the next thing. And that's when they land at our door. And it's why I never dip down lower. In the in you in the Alpine Pyrenean scene, these people are doing sport year round in the mountains. Their competency is learned from childhood. Our guys are coming out of cities, sometimes experiencing this world for the first time and then jumping in, as we know people are liable to. And I did it 20 years ago, both feet, way too hard, and then coming up short. And it's fine. South Downsway, they come up short, they get picked up, they go home, they learn a lesson, they come back again. Not so easy to do on the coast path in January down in Cornwall. You know, that's far more serious.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

I want to pivot quite a bit here. There was another sub-conversation that you and fellow race directors had on Feed First. Uh, and it was about archivatricians' history in the sport, and you know, in recent years, their uh sale, their transfer to UTMB. And one of the points that Ferg and Jane made that I found fascinating, and I'd love your take here, is their belief that that race had hit a ceiling. And because they were so focused on legacy and creating, in their view, a world-class event, they were adamant that they needed external backing, they needed a UTMB type to grow. And from your perspective, do you agree with that assessment?

SPEAKER_02 45:18

That is exactly what happened. And it it happened because of who they are and the point in their lives they're at. So, you know, Ferg is turning 60 this year. Ferg's a really good friend of mine. I stayed with him for ARC weekend this year. Um he's crewed me at Desert Solstice, by the way, just as a funny segue one time. Um he's he's 60 this year. Like we talked about the stress on organisers of organizing these sort of highly technical, very exposed, dangerous races. We've had years at the ARC where everything's been iced in. We've had years where runners didn't arrive because they couldn't get through the snow drifts on the A30. And they've had situations that are, you know, they've nearly lost people out there. Um, some of which are public, some of which not, because they've chosen not to share them. But there's only so many lives you think you've got as an organizer before you've got, you know, uh a fatality on your hands, for example. Does does Ferg want that to deal with every year now? Like as he goes longer and no. He's also someone who has done every UTMB event going. Like he and I, for years and years, would go to UTMB. You know, we met at UTMB, that's the first place we ever met. Western States, uh, Lavaredo, Transgrand Connect, Mia, you name it, Ferg has done it. And he loves that big race experience. He's a big race man, that's what he loves. And to get UTMB even interested was is the like biggest kudos you could imagine. And he loves it, he genuinely loves it. And he, if the direction of travel is right, he will stay on that train because he loves a big race experience more than he does, and he still does really low-key short races too, as Jane Jane does tons of our races. Um but he wants the biggest race in Cornwall, and now he's guaranteed that. But not only that, these decisions like do I let this race go off in this wind, not his problem anymore. So he gets the best bits from it without and doing a lot of good for the Cornish community, by the way, without having the overarching kind of this is on me. So that is what happened, and I think it's more than justifiable from their point of view, the decisions they took.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

And again, maybe I'm misunderstanding his philosophy, but generally speaking, like if you if you remove his personal experience and you just think about other race directors, the market as a whole, yeah. Uh, is is he directionally correct that you need that external backing to hit the next level for your event or the level that he was trying to go for?

SPEAKER_02 48:06

That is a very good question. I'm gonna say no because there are races here that have achieved scale. Lakeland 100 that happens in July every year here, is I think on paper, us South Downsway 100 and Arc 100 would be the three biggest 100 miles in the UK. Let's say roughly 700 entrants for 600 starters right, but Lakeland 100 also has a two nearly 2,000 person 50 mile, right? It's probably the biggest sultra weekend in the country, with the exception of UTS now. Um has done it all with no content, no social media presence, no, no care. They have a sponsor, Montaigne is the sponsor, that helps. But Mark and Terry, who who run that race, it's it's the Mark and Terry show, and it's it's not that deep competitively, they don't mark the course. Um, it attracts best to British, but never really any international interest. So it it inevitably it can't ever be framed on the same level as a UTS now because competition, because live broadcast, because but it's got the scale, and within the UK, it's as coveted as UTS, you know, in terms of like how much it matters, probably more. It just doesn't have any international resonance. For me, if South Downs Way was not on World Trail Major Circuit, it would not have the resonance that it does. I got contacted this morning by an athlete who I guarantee you will never ever have heard about us if it wasn't for that. So I think being part of a global series with very iconic races is possibly, unfortunately, now the only way.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Okay. Interesting. So this could be interesting. Like in the media ecosystem, one of the things that is happening right now, top to bottom, if you look at the biggest media companies out there, they're doing pretty solid. If you look at the very smallest people like myself, the indie creators, we're doing solid. And where the market is being disrupted is in the middle. The middle is just getting totally hollowed out. And I'm wondering if this can be transferred to our event scene. Like, do you see that the premium experience races do it, like like the UTMB stuff doing solid, the the fell races, the club races, uh, the quote unquote grassroots races, they're doing solid. And is it in addition to these technical races that we're losing, is is the middle tier, generally speaking, in this climate being threatened?

SPEAKER_02 50:41

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think you've polarized the the scene out really nicely there. I think there are lots of club run events that are not for profit, put on by volunteers, very low cost, people love them, they're raved about and they're loved. And then you've got you know your iconic big entry cost. You know, I'm not including Area in that. That that is your UTMB style events. The middle ground, lots of decent sized organizers in the last few years have failed. Um, White Star running's a prime example here. They maybe had several thousand runners like us over the course of eight to ten events a year, and just basically got ground down, pinched on the costs, runner numbers lacking, other competition stepping in, not dynamic enough, not a diversified portfolio, and and just basically went the same way AREA did. And that it that area feels like it's getting squeezed out. The the on I don't know what the answer is, and I don't know what the upshot is. I think AREA is a real extreme edge case because of their business model was so highly reliant on very, very expensive race entries. You know, if if Cape Rath had another 150 runners in it for later this year, AREA would still be trading. It's that simple.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 52:02

But but 150 people paying two grand for a nine, 10-day race across Scotland, as amazing as it is, then they're not they're not many that are in that boat. So that that's the difficulty.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Why is it that why is the middle tier going? And is it okay that it's going? Like, is this a natural market correction? Well is it good?

SPEAKER_02 52:23

You said to me something really pertinent, and I've reflected on quite a bit since. Like, you know, runners will vote with their feet. Like if UTNB are coming into the Wasatch at a similar time of year to you and bring it on, like yeah, competition. Um, and the runners will vote with their feet, right? Like, and I truly believe that's right. I I completely agree with you. If you're putting on a poor product and runners don't have a great time and they're not coming back, then that's on you, right? To not have moved and been dynamic enough and reflect, you can't just keep putting on the same race every year and expect it, not not everyone's that fond of that race that you love, you know. They want to see change, they want to see new stuff. We put on new races and they sell out every single time. Whereas one or two of the old hat races in a series of 10 are genuinely not, you know, not doing as well as they had done seven, eight years ago. You've got to be brave and say, look, I'm in the middle ground here, I'm at scale, I'm expensive, we're putting on a great product, but I just can't just keep going for the sake of it. One or two of those events might have to go, and I'm gonna have to try something new. But I think there's a level of fatigue in race organization, I really do, and I think a lot of these middle ground guys have got a lot of burden, a lot of stress, have been in it a long time. And this is true of Shane because he said it to me. The fight, the desire to keep fighting just is not the same as 15 years ago, you know. Um is it a bad thing? Yeah, I think you know, losing the dragons back and northern traverse is an absolute travesty. Losing a rear organizing them is a travesty, but someone else someone else will be putting those races on for sure. And it's just what they do with them, then. So the races might survive, but the actual organizer might might not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

So for folks that haven't tuned in, uh I I was on your show a few months back, the Century and Running Podcast. I would highly encourage folks to go listen to it. I did I did say something on that uh interview that was highly optimistic. I still personally believe it because I think it's an important credo. Like you should just live your life optimistically and and hope that in the long term, you know, that that wins out. I was told after the fact that there are plenty of examples in business where bad products beat good products. And you know, it can come down to just like speed and price consistency, clear value prop, even if it's just like just get me to the finish line, brand familiarity, ubiquity, like it's everywhere, like UTMB. So uh I'm not like totally I mean, like I said, I still believe in this personal credo, and I do think that as race directors, we should operate with just like if I put out a great product and I'm relentless about it, over time it's gonna win. Um, but I should put that asterisk out there that okay, yeah, like if we are looking at like the history of business and our sport and elsewhere in America here, it's why like Bud Light can still beat out these great craft beer brands or you know, make people go to McDonald's for a burger as opposed to In and Out. In and out or Shake Shack, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

I think uh I think that's fair. I think our as small indie and I, you know, I might be viewed as one of the bigger organizers in the UK, right? 4,000 runners a year, 11 events. We're you know, in our ultraspace, we're one of the biggest ones. But I'm very much in the middle in terms of the scale of some of these races that are out there. Um I do believe in the indie thing. Like we're in a sport where people value place in so much value on that, and that's why brands like ours and yours, I I continue to be optimistic that we'll be just fine because we care deeply, and it's so authentic and transparent. People can literally see it, hear it, that it builds resilience. Like the brand's not just the product, it's it's this is all a bit you know, trite, but you know, it's the community that you've built around it, and that authenticity and your genuine love for the sport. I mean, you and I run in races ourselves any chance we can because that's how much we love it. We're not in the space for commercial reasons, really. Um, and I think that has got and will continue to have a huge place here. I mean, I'm confident of that at least.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

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SPEAKER_02 58:57

100%. Listen, first race I put on, I ran Western States, I saw all the course markings and the incredible aid stations and the buckle. That's what we did. That's what we did here. Uh, no one was doing it at the time. You know, I'd by that point I'd raced several other bigger, you know, I'd done all the desert series races, MDS, UTMB, Badwater, and I just pulled all of those experiences as a runner and went, this is this is the perfect package. Where I got it a bit wrong was like all the little outdoor gazebos at Western States and the blazing sunshine didn't quite fit with the UK environment. So I ended up moving lots of checkpoints indoors over time. But that that was the model. Like you take your experience as a runner and you try and give that to other runners, right? Bringing all those pieces together for sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

And I think we we might have talked about this when I was on your show, but uh, you know, when you look at Centurion's business model, it's you've got the retail piece, you've got the coaching piece, and you've got the events. I'm I might even be missing a category, but that creates some stability and resiliency where like if you if you happen to have uncertainty in the overall economic climate or for whatever reason a tough year event-wise, that doesn't sink your ship. And maybe with like Shane's example, maybe he was all in on the events.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

I t I I told him this, and uh he all his eggs were in one basket. Um for me, I saw fairly early on that I I mean I was just interested in good kit. One of the first things we did was import UD stuff direct from the US before anyone had even seen it here because I I saw Anton running around a signature series vest and was like that's got legs. Um again, being a fan of the sport and being into those areas and helping and educate people, you know, taking coaching qualification, all that stuff. Yeah, we set those three platforms going. And there's been times I nearly, nearly shelved the store in 2015. It just wasn't really working. I was like, you know what? I could, I'm not a retailer, I'm not a salesman. Let's just bin that off and I'll plot it. But then I just thought, you know, we just I just held on a bit longer and the momentum started ticking up. And I, you know, I it was I'm very, very glad we stayed in that space. Um, we are more resilient. During COVID was the biggest example of this, and and one of the reasons ZREA has failed is that during COVID they did the moral thing, they refunded people or deferred them and took debt on to do that. A debt they were saddled with that they never got out from under. We had the shop and the coaching, which took a huge hit but kept going when the events couldn't. We put on a virtual race because we could, you know, utilise all three elements and and combine. We had 4,000 people do that. Jamil's Ara Viper Strong was the kind of the basis for that. I was talking to Haley Pollack, his RD at the time, who helped me sort of put that together. Um and we we fought hard. And and Shane, Shane just had the events and was you know, there was no way he could stage his races, whereas an outdoor summer race was still viable even in 2020, right? So, yes, that that's always been important for me. Um but it's not, you know, Shane's a man who's pursued his passions, he deeply loves what he's done and what he what he will do again. For me, I've been slightly more conscious of plan B, I suppose, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Let's let's switch here again. Uh I I made a note to come back to it. You you know, when we were, and I want to look both at the pros and the cons, but some of the cons for UTMB that that we were reflecting on earlier, the big ones for you appeared to be scale and competency and how that's all being executed here in 26. What else is on your list for uh what makes their role in the sport problematic right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

Uh I just it's sustainability is a bit of a broad term, but if I look at UTS and the ARC, what I see is complete overrunning of the trail uh and then the local environment, um, over reliance on you know mountain rescue in UTS because because these people are those mountains are treacherous and they are absolutely crawling with people at that time of year. Mountain rescue, busiest service in the country, Glanberis. Uh if there's a problem on the course, a genuine problem, these helicopter evacuation, guess who's coming? It's not UTMB in a helicopter, it's mountain rescue. That's pressure. Uh, and it is it sustainable to just keep adding numbers on top of that. Now, the local community thinks different, difficult, because what actually happens in Cornwall is it spreads out, and businesses and hotels that are basically shut in the winter down there get this huge economic boost. So there's real positives, but the pinch points are around the trail in the course itself, which are tiny fishing fishermen's coves and fishing coves, and you know, towns that just do not have the capacity for thousands of people to flood in. The trail gets destroyed because it's a wet environment. Whatever, however dry it is, it's always wet down there. Um, and uh, and therefore the trail gets trashed and doesn't recover very quickly. Of course, it recovers in time, but not very quickly. There's a huge local impact. Um, and I just don't think it's necessary. If if you just scaled it twofold rather than four, six, eight, tenx, you'd have a great profitable race and make it sustainable. And in and instead, it's just this it's always gotta be bigger thing that I have the real problem with. And this UTS debacle where they've changed things to to just get more numbers, is just it just exemplifies the problem for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

So again, just reading or listening into this more are you are you suggesting organizational greed or are you looking at individual actors within the organization and pointing to that is this person is representing sort of a greedy philosophy and trying to just like extract as much as possible out of an area?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

I don't I don't know any individuals. I I really don't. I mean, the only one I've met is Michelle Pelletti, who is I would describe as like you and I. He's in his own races, absolutely loving life, you know, grinding it out, uh, deep lover of the sport. There's no point pointing at the Pellettis and going, oh, this is their fault. You know, Michelle's deeply ingrained in the heart of the sport. Like, um organizationally, you've got to look at, you know, they they have to keep this massive thing turning now. You know, they're on a with the investment they've got um and the scale they're at, they're the pressure continues to mount to keep this. Thing growing, and that that doesn't gel well with what our sport's sort of known for and what people generally love about it. It's a real clash, and I think they've avoided clashes most of the time, but they're becoming more and more prevalent as individual events are kind of forced to keep looking to grow outside of the scale of the really these local areas can can handle.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

What are they getting right when you think about what they get right? What are they doing well right now for the sport?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

I mean, I I love to sit down and watch watch a race. What a privilege it is to be able to watch the the the caliber of their live stream at UTMB is just insane, you know. I thought Transgrand Canary was fantastic as well, but the coverage of these races is amazing. Um, and I think as a fan of the sport, to be able to watch it is yeah, like I say, I I feel that's a privilege, and they are so good at it. And I know I I don't know, but I can only imagine just how expensive that is to deliver. Um, I think they try to do a lot of good, they're behind on a lot of stuff. Let's take the female participation in their events as an example. They tend to respond, and I agree with you on the comm side, they tend to respond a bit late, having made a few blunders, and then sort of try and overcorrect a bit. But ultimately, I get it, they're bigger, they're less dynamic than a smaller organizer. I think they try to get some things right in those areas and have have have made improvements, which is positive. I think they bring some incredible courses to the mix. I think ultimately for me as a runner, it's almost always just about the course. That's the main thing for me. And they do have some absolutely incredible races. Um, but but there is a but with every single thing that I've mentioned, maybe apart from the live broadcast. Um, and most of those buts are avoidable, I suppose. I mean, what let me throw the question back to you. Give me give me your major pros because you know it's they've made life difficult for me at times, albeit great on a retail and coaching business point of view, by the way. I'm very, very happy to have UTNB in the space. We get tons of customers from them. But you know, from an organizer's point of view, like pros-wise, what am I missing?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

Well, before let me think about the pros for a second. I'll just come back to I I think I might have mentioned this on a recent single track episode. So if I'm being repetitive to the audience, I apologize. But one new insight that I've gained as a race director that has helped me understand better their ability to proliferate across the world with relative ease. Uh I get the sense, and again, I can only speak to regionally here in the Salt Lake City, Park City area, but it appears that when it comes time to permit, they are the preferred partner by local governments and the non-endemic private sector who see their organization as more competent than the local regional counterpart events at bringing in tourism. And like, for example, I know depending on where you are in Utah, one of the biggest criteria for getting permits to run your race is like if it's on ski, if it's at a ski resort, for example, your ability in the summertime to fill hotel beds. And can I do that if I show you the demo for our audience and it's like 85% locals, people that are waking up in the morning at their homes, in their apartments, in the on the Wasatch Front Metro and showing up on the start line that day. No, I can't tell you that our race is able to, or even like interested in bringing in a national or international audience. So right there we've we've lost. And um if I point back to the UTMB Whistler controversy a few years ago, uh, you know, between Gary Robbins and UTMB and Vail, when I look at it in the latest light through my race director lens, I can I can totally see how that might have actually been less the fault of UTMB, and more so Vail just being like, if I have to pick between Coast Mountain events and UTMB, and like as a person in my role there, my incentive is to like fill hotel beds and bring in tourism, uh, I'm gonna go UTMB. So I I see I see that issue a little bit differently than I did at the moment. In terms of the good, I think bringing in a lot of new entrants to the sport, I do believe that they can be a serious portal, especially because uh, you know, Iron Man is involved in totally different endurance events. And if they can be that portal, great. If they can put on, like you just described earlier, this amazing, presently superior media live stream product, amazing. Um, everything comes with trade-offs. We talked about safety earlier, but I love the growth aspect. You and I certainly both benefit to some extent, I think, even if it's just a trickle, trickle-down effect from that growth. So yeah, I mean, I if if some were to, if if someone was to ask me, looking at that UTMB live stream product, are you proud as a hardcore fan of the sport about how the sport is being represented to a potentially new audience? I would say that UTMB live stream is incredible. And I can nitpick certain issues, you know, how the top tens are being covered, representation, all that kind of stuff. But by and large, I love the product. So I'd say those are the pro the positives for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:54

I've thought of maybe one more just as you were speaking there, just in terms of really selfishly, not selfishly, but really self-ref in a self-reflective way. They force us to do better, right? They they make us as organizers who are running, okay, not equivalent size events, but let's say I've got a thousand people at South Dunsway this year, and they had, I don't know what it was at the ARP two. I can see the things that they do well, and I can see the things that I don't think they do well, and I can correct them and bring them in and make house better. But I tell you, I've I found it personally really eye-opening. Some of the things they do to affect scale at relatively low cost that make the runner experience better. There's a there's a there's a step up that you can make as an organizer that we're only recently just doing. And I'll use one example car park matting. It's so expensive, right? We've always avoided doing it because it is incredibly expensive, and it's often like we had a 50k at the weekend, bone dry. But that that in previous years, that has been a flood. If you X your runners by sixfold, guess what? You can buy all the car park matting in the world. They still didn't use it arc this year, but that's a side swipe. They you you can you can see the next step because they're doing it right, so it's not fair on every account for me to judge them and go, oh well, they did this wrong. I don't know what it's like to organize a race for 4,000 people. I never will, probably. Um, but they help me improve and make steps because I can see the pitfalls and the difficulties and also the the opportunities, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:43

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:44

Yeah. Yeah, and I think I said this on our on our last conversation, but I I feel confident that regardless of how much money you have or how big you are, yeah, we never you never want to get into a battle over, you know, price in a race to the bottom there. But everyone is capable of competing on the intangibles. And I think that's what keeps us going every single day. Just like a special, you know, what what's what's something that only we are capable of doing uh from an event experience standpoint? Yeah. And I I s I still think if you look hard enough at what you do, there's there's stuff that you can deliver on that uh is either hard to copy or uh you know, your competitors don't even have the interest to to engage on. So okay. Maybe one last question, or maybe two here. I mean, if you had to call it today, like you know, feet to the fire assessing all the pros and cons, is U Timby a net positive or negative for the sport?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Oh god, that's a hard question.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:49

You've gotta go one of the two directions. I'll hold the feet to the fire here. Even if it's just a little bit one way.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:56

I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say it's net positive right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

So you think that their incentives, by and large, are aligned with the long-term health of the sport? By and large.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:11

I yes. If I have to say yes or no, I'm gonna say yes. I I the question mark I have is the I I feel like the the curve is only going one way, and therefore right now could be very different in a year. Let me use the UK as an example. If two events in the UK becomes five or six, as what we're being told is is the likely story, and let's call it what it is. This area um demise is is only going to lead to an opportunity for UTNB and others to step in to a very big space very quickly if they want it. Um they could easily wash out a whole ton of organizers, suck a whole load of runners in, destroy the pool of volunteers we have to a degree, because we don't have endless numbers of those either. There could there could be a huge downside. Like in a year, I could be answering that question as a 90-10 in the opposite direction. As of today, I think they're right on the fence, but if I had to tick one way, I'd say it's still not positive for now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:19

In in your version of sustainable growth, because I know it's a very broad question, what are some examples that come to mind? Like the is the growth lever just 2x instead of 10x for participant numbers? Like what what are some of the examples in this worldview that come to mind?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:35

Well, I need I need the starting point to understand that. If you if you ask me, like let's take the if they if they took over Dragons back, for example. Okay. It's not a race I've done. So I can't say for how congested those trails are and camp. And but if they 2x the numbers, I would have major concerns. They are never ever gonna stop at 2x the numbers. Let's not make any like that. A arc was 2x in year one and 4x on year one last year. We know what's gonna happen next year, it will be 6 or 8x. That that I don't know any event at the moment where they're simply happy taking it on as it is and not scaling it. So I'm gonna say in the Dragons Bat case, and a Dragons Bat runner might say, Oh my god, no, the trail was already really crowded, and there was no space in camp, and the toilets were horrendous. I I mean, I doubt any of that's true because Shane doesn't run races on that basis, but uh 2x would be my limit, but there's no way that's the limit for them.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:41

Before we go, a few more questions. Uh one to follow up on Snowdonia from earlier. Especially with the follow here, even if it's even if it was just a function of lack of communication, do you think that there is anything that could actually damage UTMB's position at UT at Snowdonia, or are they effectively insulated at this point from any of these PR nightmares?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:08

I think their biggest battle is if the National Park and the National Trust shut down their access to the high mountains, they will be forced to run races only in the valleys, which is what they've turned the 100k course into, and the product is diluted by 40%, but the product in people's minds is diluted far more than that because those key moments, those the the reasons they're picking that course, have gone. That being said, I I don't see any sign that the Stones model, the in-the-bucket for you know, pyramid scheme, let it just happens to look like a pyramid, by the way, in Burton. Uh we'll they'll guarantee they're just I I just think at the moment they are guaranteed to sell almost everything, um, no matter what, is my unfortunately I feel the case. Okay. Um again, those is I know there's caveats to everything, but they're those runners are not bad for the sport. They're coming in, they need gear, they need education, they're helping us. They might do UTM UTS and then come and do South Downs Way and go, oh my god, that was so much better, maybe. Um, they're not all downsides, but I I think the only thing that could seriously derail them is local authorities going, that's enough of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:37

So their their primary first worry is not consumer sentiment. It's not people boycotting this, it's it's structural, it's just permits.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:45

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

Wow. Okay, so they like you one of your predictions is that in the coming years UTMB has like very little incentive to change their behavior based on what runners think about things, because you don't think there's gonna be that much of a of a movement. No. Do you not? I don't know enough. I really don't. Um yeah, I I I mean, just I I guess could I and again, you've been in the sport so much longer than me. I'm I'm j I'm just barely coming up on 10 years in the sport. And so I'm still I still feel like I'm in my like senior year of high school here or something, or starting college in terms of my education. But I mean, I don't I'd have again I would have to go and look at registration numbers for Utimbi Whistler, which by the way is a an amazing place to host a race. You know, Gary Robbins obviously was uh had an amazing thing going there. It doesn't seem like that race is suffering, from what I can tell, based on what any marketer would look at, any PR person would look as a massive communications nightmare, massive PR blowback. Didn't seem to suffer.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:04

So yeah, I look you know what let me use a piece of data. They launched an ATK at Snowdonia the end of January. They didn't tell anyone what the course was, and they sold 300 places in a heartbeat. Uh the only reason you could say that that because those people want a stone and want to be part of that race weekend because they've consumed it. How can you enter a race? It's not Barclay. How can you enter a race without knowing what the course is? How can you assess your competency? How can you assess if it's a good product? And they just so they just print like 300 entries for a 100k race in the UK, that immediately or 80k, that immediately puts it in the top 20 biggest races in the UK in that distance.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:53

So I have a couple questions. I mean, from what I understand, and again, I'll I'll tell you, I'll tell you what how Fabrice, I think it was either it was Fabrice. Fabrice briefed me this way. He basically said, look, back in July, we opened up registration, and then in October we went to the trust, the private landowners, and they basically told us that uh for the 100K and the 100 mile at Snowdonio, we're gonna give you a total of 600 spots, and you can disperse those spots how you see fit. And then so what they did was they opened, you know, they I think they put 300 spots for the 100 mile, 300 spots for the 100K, and they sold it, and then they had a backlog, they kept a wait list, they kept a backlog. And then recently the landowners came back and said, actually, instead of six, you have 300. And so they kept the 100 mile intact with 300. They obviously reorganized the 100K, they opened up that wait list, and boom, they filled the 100K immediately. My question is with that 80K, was that also from that other wait list? And there was just so much pent-up demand, or was that totally separate? And then what run my other question is what runners out there are buying up, are willing, like, who are they targeting of all the runners out there that have a willingness to pay without knowing what the product is? I mean, if they can do that, kudos to their sales and marketing. That's amazing. I want I want what their what they have, their skill set. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:19

And by the way, the most expensive 80k in the country. Like, this isn't like they're coming in at a really reasonable price point delivering value off the bat because it's 70 pounds. You know, 200 quid. I mean, I'm putting that figure out, it might be 180 plus booking fee, whatever. Makes it, I mean, uh undoubtedly the most expensive 80k race in the UK.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

Do you know when that 80k opened? Was it after all this course change stuff happened or was it earlier?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:47

So they opened the 80k, uh, they didn't announce the course, then they released the extra 300 places for the 100k, and then 48, less than 48 hours later, 24 hours later, they released the courses for both races. And the 80k runners went, oh, like generally, I mean, I still believe a massive proportion of those people like, excellent, I get my stone easier. That's definitely a very valid consensus. A lot of people in the 80k went, oh, that wasn't quite what I was hoping. Like, but I understand, you know, I can't just add to the numbers on Snowden, like the Queen Mountain in the area. The 100k runners went, hell no. Like, we entered this race for this reason. And by the way, you took my entry two days ago, and I thought I was entering this course, and now you're telling me it's 60% of what it was, and you've removed all the good stuff. No, that was a huge comms error. The timing, the way it was delivered, then the total silence. If that was me, I would get out in front of that the next day and just say it as it was. And so the silence breeds, you know, discontent, it breeds rumor. Oh, well, you've just juiced the number, you juice the numbers and then downgrade the course because you know you can't take that many people over the high points. Then then they go, oh no, there's access for numbers, we weren't allowed to. Yeah, but you've still got those in the other two routes. So you to get scale, you had to take those bits out. So you've compromised all of our race experience to get more runners. That's how it looks. Whatever they say, like that's how it looks, whether that's the whole truth or part of it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

Okay, two two more questions. Uh I'm trying to think of how I want to phrase this. At what point does a course change go from acceptable to unacceptable for someone who's purchased the product?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:49

That is a fantastic question. Okay, so obviously let's caveat, assume it's not for bad weather or flooding where it's out of your control and you just can't do it again. I think five, ten percent at that point, you've changed if you knowingly organise a race under I mean, we released the course with registrations. If we then six months later said, I'm re we're removing the last 15k and we're gonna make it an out and back, I would expect quite a severe backlash, but the majority of people to sort of go, okay, there's obviously reasons, that's fine. If it was to make the race bigger, I I I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. Like, that is not okay. Leave it to the next year and be clear up front. You know, be be honest with your runners, guys. Like, would you or I do that, like knowingly, morally, do that? Would we be happy as runners if that happened to us? No.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:49

That's the problem for me, is that there it it's it organizationally, it's too big in terms of it's lost its connection to the the individual at the root of it and the way that they're feeling about this thing and that we're trying to deliver them this amazing thing, you know, and uh just for more, just for more bodies when it's already massive. This isn't a 50-person race, you know? It's a huge race.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

Is there any sympathy or empathy to have for you, Timby, with what, in my opinion, appears to be a really complicated relationship with the land trust and the private owners, where in October they told them you'll have this many people to permit for, and then they come back out of the apparently out of the blue four or five months later with actually you're getting 50% of that, like deep into registration.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:43

We've organized 130 races. Uh in the South Downsway 100, we cross three areas of National Trust land, right? These are organizers, these are national governing bodies. Uh that's never that's never happened to me. Not even this I'm now.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

Can you speculate? Like, why did it happen here? What if you're speculating?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:04

If I've got to speculate, and I I realise, like, oh guys, all of this is speculation. I'm not inside the organization. It has to be because they've asked for more numbers and then been told no. Now, things change. The National Trust might go, We're looking at visitor counts on Snowden, and they've increased 20% year on year, like from a million to a million two. And therefore, on that weekend, we've gone from 80,000 to 100,000 expected visitors. So we're reducing your allowance by 20% with it. That's totally plausible and could easily have happened. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. What they don't deserve is not to completely tell us why they had to change so drastically and why they released those entries so close before they told people about the course change. That's the part that bit. If they'd just gone without taking the extra entries, um, the course has changed, guys, nothing we could do, National Trust access, they would have had a fifth of the the blowback. That was handled really poorly. Will we ever find out the whole truth? I I just don't know if it's within their code, you know. They had the course manager, Kevin, um, make a video last week. I don't know if you've seen it, sort of explaining that yet. Explaining the changes and why. Like it's not Kevin's job. The poor I think it's Kevin. The poor bloke looks like he's been held captive. Like, here's the company line I've got to tell you all. Like, I've been course director here since pre-COVID sort of stuff. All true, lovely guy, not hit, not his fault, you know. And he's kind of like, here's the face of the fall guy type thing. Um, but I can't what I cannot believe is how far this resonated. Like I heard Corinne talking about it on free trial because she she don't race. Uh, you know, you're talking to me about it, and this is, you know, these are for me, you guys are the big US media outlets. I know you'd say you're much smaller and indie and what have you, but yeah, we love more than but the you know, this has really gone wide. And and when they make these errors, these things tend to get pretty well covered, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:17

Yeah, and I think for good reason, I think you know, we'd both agree that uh, well, it feels like we're living in like an eight to ten year long inflection point. It feels like we've been saying it's an inflection point in 2021 and it still is in 26. So yeah, I feel like with so much structurally to cement, uh, it's worth having these conversations. And I do hope, well, I don't really care because I follow my bliss, but I do hope that the people that are listening and viewing see value in this type of conversation, even if we're getting in the weeds of event economics and the politics of permitting and stuff like that. I I personally think it's uh if you care about the sport, it's interesting to at least listen into and develop your own opinions for so that uh you could be a more informed participant and I mean maybe even get involved yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:06

Yeah, look, I mean, I always say the same thing. Support your local races. Like everyone, nobody nobody thought AREA would fail. You know, true, true gross, like true to their roots, organization, doing things that they loved, races that were so hard to organise so people they loved. People were shooting, oh, I'll do the Dragon Spat next year. It's on my bucket list, I'll do it in five years. Yeah, okay, the Dragonsbat might be there in five years, but it won't be an AREA event, and there's no guarantee of that. Like, can I ask you one question? I just got this. Uh sure. Because I think you know about this more than I do. How much do brands dictate the way the big brands dictate the way UTMB Iron Man behave now?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:49

Let's go even deeper. What's uh like what would be like a sub-question there? Like, what would be like a an area of operation that we could drill in on just to be more specific?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:57

Okay, so there's title sponsorship, and then there's money in the sport generated by advertising marketing revenue because the key athletes are sent or you know, contracted to run the big UTMB races, right? We all know that the bonuses in athlete contracts for performing well at UTMB outweigh any other event, right? Maybe Western. How much of that and the sponsorship revenue coming from those brands and the money then the brands are generated actually dictating the pace of this? Like we're pointing at UTMB Iron Man, but how much are they a product of the circumstance of that sponsor and athlete money?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:34

I would assume certainly a major, major contributing factor. I know that I've seen a few contracts here and there. I've seen what the tiers look like. I know there's quite a bit of uniformity across at least all of the major shoe brands as to where their stable of professional athletes have to go. Uh I know that if you're if you're running, and again, I'm gonna just say a brand that's not in the space just to as name. Let's just say that you're a professional runner for Reebok. And if you're running for Reebok and all of a sudden in 2027, you do a 180 and you start prioritizing, you know, uh an FKT on the Trantor round. Or uh here in the US, you decide to do uh uh the Wasatch 100. Yeah, the long trail of the Wasatch 100 year over year, uh you're probably not gonna get renewed. Unless something dramatically changes in your storytelling, and somehow or another that resonates with an audience and everyone is surprised. Um, if you are not on the Western States UTMB treadmill, going for golden tickets, going for stones, you will not be renewed. Uh yeah, like it's it's it is you are incentivized heavily as a professional athlete to compete on those circuits, compete with your peers, which by the way, I don't necessarily disagree with. I think for a long time I have been calling for a consolidation of competition and seeing opportunities for people like Caleb Olson and Jim Walmsley and Ben Diemon and Harry Jones to have matchups more often. You know, I think that's good. But um yeah, there's definitely, I mean, it's probably a chicken or the egg thing at the end of the day, but it's at the very least, it's significantly reinforced.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:29

Yeah, that's the part I I don't fully comprehend as an organizer. We have a stable of brands who support us and partner with us who've supported me since the start. Um, and I don't question it. We're like the relationship with those people behind those brands is much more important to me than trying to change brand every year and go for the highest bidder. But I'm acutely aware now we the brands that are operating at the top of the space that engage in those bigger races are calling so many of the shots because of the amount of money they're putting on the table. And therefore, you know, I blame UTNB and Iron Man for their growth model, but I wonder how much of that is actually being demanded by the brand. They are allowing that sponsor in is still their decision, but they are also then taking so much money that the brands are dictating the pace, and we're not seeing that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:23

It's such a different world for uh, for example, for our events. I know that our biggest forcing function is simply ensuring our our only job as events here, like Buffalo Run, Twisted Fork, Fall Classic. Our job is simply to create an opportunity for locals to get outside their house, come together, be seen, celebrate, have a good time together. Like that our big like our the equivalent of our uh well, yeah, that that's that's just our forcing function. Like we we don't necessarily have to answer to any big brands. The partnerships that we do have, they recognize exactly who we are and they just want to plug into it. Um but like our our overarching pressure, I would say, and it's a good pressure, is from just the locals that want to come out and have a good time and be seen together.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:13

Yeah, I would say the same here. Really.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:16

And I love that pressure. I love I love being accountable to that. That's I again, we all have, I mean, Bob Dylan, gotta serve somebody. And I love that we that's who we get to serve.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:25

Yeah, is how long uh I just don't know. I know you asked me this before, but I I just don't know what direction we're headed in. I do not know what the sport looks like in five years' time. I just I can't see it, you know. It's exciting, it's quite quite worrying as well. Um, and when we get news like the arrea news last week, uh it just sends this shock wave. I mean, I was literally in shock on the phone to Shane, I just didn't know what to say. Like the first reaction is I just want to help, but it's so late, it's too late really to do anything. Um and it's it's probably going on in more places than we realise, uh and we're just not seeing it. So I want to be really optimistic. I do think more runners are in, and I think I think we're in a good space if we're sustainable with it, but I I don't know that yet, you know, it's not it's not a guarantee.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:22

I worked in politics for a bit before getting into trail running, and it was always disheartening here in America to uh encounter so many disaffected people who didn't feel like their participation mattered and or that their vote didn't count, stuff like that. And one thing that I have been trying to instill, at least with the people that I am around on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, whatever, that you do have an incredible sense of agency. And on an individual level, if there is a worldview that you believe in, um relentlessly work towards it and be a contributor to it, because I think you'd be surprised at at what can happen. I kind of love the idea that we don't know the future and that five years from now, like the fate is uncertain because that does mean that there are stakes and that we can impact it. Like nothing is set in stone. It would it would actually be kind of sad if things were set in stone, because then what do we have to work towards?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:16

No, I agree. And in the meantime, we'll try some hard races and do some hard things and maybe enjoy the play.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:23

Well, James, I I I really I really appreciate the time. I've learned a ton in this conversation. I I think I said this on our last uh conversation, but I I I appreciate your role in the sport and in how many different avenues uh of this community you you've invested yourself and made a difference. So um I mean maybe just I'll leave you with the final word. Is there anything that you want to leave the audience with before we go?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:47

Uh I'll just I'll just reiterate what I just said in and support your local independent races, like offer to help, um, volunteer. Like those are the things that underpin the sport. Yeah, we need runners, but without those other things, like it it it doesn't it doesn't happen. And never assume that everyone's doing brilliantly all the time. I mean, we could use that in society for two, but certainly on a race organization basis, like your entry matters. You know, racists don't need tons of runners in our space to make it viable. So, you know, support your local independent races. Carry on, like I will, racing the bigger ones too, but pick one or two, and otherwise, you know, fill them in with some some cool local ones as well, I guess.