Trail Running’s Growing Pains

Canyon Woodward writes for Outside Run a response to the Black Canyon disqualification kerfuffle:

The rapid growth and influx of money into trail and ultrarunning has led to an unavoidable juncture. Many runners, myself included, were drawn to trail and ultrarunning because of “the spirit of the sport” and its grassroots, community-based vibes. Yet as elite fields swell, media attention balloons, and sponsorships and prize money grow, the professionalization of these races must be commensurate with the professionalization of the sport itself.

Canyon calls for specific solutions to what he calls a problem of ambiguity in our sport. These suggestions, which can be summarized with a call for more professionalization in our sport, all seem pretty reasonable to me and I agree with most.

A couple points Canyon makes I want to respond to individually:

• I don’t care that elites are faster and might not need all the required gear. If you want to compete you have to follow all the rules. Making specific rules that make it easier for elites because they are faster is adding exactly the kind of ambiguity back into the system that he’s trying to get rid of.
• My (very little) experience with the International Skyrunning Federation and the Skyrunner World Series is that if you as race director want your event to be part of that race circuit you essentially agree to race monitors and course marshals from the ISF to be there on race day to make sure everything is on the up and up. As I have not been able to afford the steep fees associated with being part of that circuit, I don’t know what this actually looks like in reality, but this in theory could solve the problem of race directors not knowing how to deal with event rules and the enforcement around them.

I bet the voices of our sport would have massively different expectations on this slow rolling toward professionalization here in the US if Westerns States would be a for profit business. Clearly they are BY FAR the most important event on the North American calendar and their Golden Ticket races are creating real professional competition for elite athletes. But, while Western States occupies so much of our mind space and influences so much of what is happening in the American racing scene, they have shied away to create broader guidelines and expectations around the professionalization or the support of the elite runners. Of course, you could say that it’s not their place and I don’t want to solely put this at their feet, but sometimes a leadership role is given to you, if you want it or not.