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

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

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

Becca Jones and Sonia Steely, both badass trail runners, are special guests on this podcast conversation about women in trail and ultra running, or more specifically, why there aren’t more women. 

You have seen it. 25k and 50k usually have a pretty even turnout, in fact, some races even have more ladies lining up to run than the fellas. It seems that the number of runners that identify as female starts to decrease as the terrain gets more rugged, the miles get longer, and the aid more sparse. Most 100-mile mountain races have on average 20% of the field identifying as female including the ever-popular and famous Western States Endurance Run. 

Policy or procedure changes can help. Building equity. Race Directors encouraging women to participate and race. Thoughtful lotteries. Recognizing female winners. Equal representation from media to sponsorships. Child care at races. The ways we can grow our sport are both complex and obvious and there are many excellent examples of this community doing the right things to increase female turnout.

The limiting factor is much more personal and individual.

We have heard of all sorts of reasons from ladies on why they aren’t racing for those buckles and in this podcast episode, we discuss a few of them. It could be fear of being alone in the woods at night, fear of men, fear of what happens when things get awful hard. We've heard about the guilt of training, the guilt of using family funds for running, or just a lack of time. We've heard all this and so much more.

Sonia, Becca, and Jess are the 20% that line up at these races. They are here to say they’ve saved a spot for you alongside them. We want you to feel encouraged and safe. We want you to know it’s not easy for us either. 

The 20% are recruiting.

Christen McFarland can be found at Northeast Ohio’s favorite specialty run shop, Vertical Runner. There, Christen offers much more than personalized service and gait analysis. Christen really listens to the needs and goals of runners both seasoned and new and serves as a wonderful ambassador of our sport. Christen herself is an accomplished trail runner having competed in many races including Mohican 50 mile and The Burning River 100. In today’s show, I chat with Christen about all the wonderful things a specialty run shop has to offer, both inside and outside their brick and mortar locations. This is a great show to share with folks just getting into running as well as a valuable reminder of all the amazing things our run shops do for our community.