Kauai 50 Cancelled

In 2023, The Kauai 50 gave away $55,000 in prize money, had 74 finishers, 41 DNFs and 45 DNS, according to UltraSignup. The entry fee was $550 and apparently race director Brady Silverwood invested over $100K into the creation of the race.

For 2024 Brady announced the cancellation on Instagram:

The Kauai 50 event lost a significant amount of money in the first year of the race and unfortunately isn’t receiving enough support to survive another year.

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Success, just like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For some success is all about the numbers and the money. Those people would say this race was not a success.

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Instead, I believe this race was a massive success.

I don’t know where to begin here.

• Insane entry fee for a looped course 50M race.
• Insane investment to build a race that is just a 12.8 mile loop with 750ft of vert, per loop.
• Odd time of year for a race in Hawaii. Not just is the weather hot and humid, but there are so many competing events all over the world, that this seemed like an uphill battle from the start.
• Prize money clearly doesn’t bring all the pros to the yard. Which is something we’re seeing over and over.

And finally, according to the Instagram post the inaugural race was a huge success, but not a financial success. And while some might look at money as a measure of the success, he doesn’t. But the race can’t continue because it didn’t make any money the first time around, but it still was a huge success. Or something like that.