Feedback on Inaugural Run Rabbit Run 100

Grab onto the Festivus Pole.  It's time for the airing of grievances.

I've got plenty good to say, if you're patient, and I suppose if you read my race report, I had a fun time overall.

The Ugly

Course Flagging: Early in the course, the course markings were difficult to see -- yellow flags were tied to yellow brush going up ski hills.  It felt more like an Easter Egg hunt.  The most egregious problem was when we had to connect with the Chisholm Trail over to Storm Peak, when a flag clearly led us over to the opposite direction.  Of the early group of Tortoises (first couple dozen), the majority seemingly went the wrong way.  In this case, I do not believe there is evidence of course tampering or vandalism -- the most likely scenario remains that a yellow flag was put up mistakenly instead of a blue one.

A note on course flagging:  Some argue that the full responsibility for following a course resides with the runner.  This is a gross oversimplification.  The race course is defined by several communications methods: flagging/marking, course maps, and course descriptions.  All are susceptible to human error and interpretation issues.  Maps may not be sufficiently detailed, or even incorrect. When the majority, or even an appreciable minority, of people interpret something in the same manner, it is a strong suggestion of ambiguity, and it is a severe disadvantage to ignore what the majority is doing if you're taking a risk about being wrong.

The idea of "elites" taking maps, let alone everyone else, is laughable in big-time races.  While some navigation is required, the whole point of flagging and marking is to keep the flow going.  Signifiant navigation questions take away from the concept of a race.  Yes, some fast finishers in both races won't see the issue....because they pre-ran the course with maps!

I'm concerned about the worst and average-cases here -- people should have the chance to do well without having pre-run the course.

Course Signage:

The first sign on the course very distinctly pointed in one direction, saying "100 Milers."  I followed that sign, incorrectly.  If this sign didn't exist, I wouldn't have followed it!  And I wasn't alone.

Again, signs are meant to convey information, and can be augmented in ways that provide as much information as possible.  On the other side of the arrow, tell us where we're coming from.  Later, I saw a sign that pointed one way to Long Lake aid station, and another to Steamboat High -- this would have been the perfect information to be placed at the Fish Creek Falls junction!

I take responsibility for missing the turn, as I had the information at my disposal to have done it.  All I can say for sure is that I hadn't encountered such ambiguity in any previous races, and if I had the chance to save 160 people from making a mistake, I would feel more concerned about that than I do as an individual runner.

Course Mileage: Apparently the mileage was off appreciably -- race winner Meltzer had it around 110 (8 miles long) and others had it closer to 115.  It's one thing to meet the physical demands of running 110 miles or so when you know it ahead of time, but it's another thing when water and calorie needs are planned accordingly, or estimated arrival times at critical junctures and aid stations.

Course marking: As opposed to flagging and signage, some of the marking getting to/from the high school was confusing.  Chalk?  Glow sticks?  Signs?  We managed it decently, but I know it ruined some other people's races.

Cutoffs: Again, this didn't affect me, but I'm looking at the big picture.  Some cutoffs seemed to be enforced differently or affect people later after they were told they could continue.  I think some Hare money was won after the cutoff if I'm not mistaken.  Clearly this was confounded by marking and mileage issues.  I don't have all the information on this, but it's worth hearing the voices of those that were affected the most and giving them more weight.

Drop Bag Management:  They were dropped off overnight in Bear Country...and some bears got into them.  Didn't affect me, but potential bummer for some. 

After the race, drop bags were spread all over the place: some in various spots of The Bear Bar and Grill (sense a theme here?  just wait...), while others were outside at a bus stop, unattended.  Here, I should note that, immediately before entering the awards ceremony, we saw a bear in the parking garage!

Unattended food in bear country = bad.

People's expensive jackets, gear, etc. getting stolen when unattended = also bad.  (Luckily my gear is a hodge-podge of nearly worthless junk).

The Overrated or Unsatisfactory

Prize Purse/Competition: This was a big deal, and didn't affect me, so why bring it up?  I thought the prize purse was awesome and was really looking forward to seeing what it would bring out, but course marking issues and lack of a deep women's field took away from this.  I hope it's sustainable and that they can bring it back in future year's, because I do like the idea of good runners getting paid.

Split Divisions of Tortoise/Hare: I've heard that many folks raved about it, so if that's the majority, so be it.  My experience was a few folks raved loudly about it, and the rest of us focused on grinding out out our own races.  I'm happy to be wrong and follow the majority.  I thought it was cool to see the guys at night, but I literally saw the top 4 or 5 for about 40 seconds each.  This would be improved with a deeper, larger field, I imagine, and was confounded by other contenders dropping for issues beyond their control, as there'd be more visible action.

But as it was, I was in a bubble, netherworld in between Hares and Tortoises.  I'd rather run with as many folks as possible.  Splitting the field up makes that part harder.  Especially, when there are different rules on pacers...

Lack of Pacers:  I'm going to write this up extensively at some point, because I feel very strongly that pacers are a good thing for the sport in general.  Briefly, pacers do increase performance for everyone, and though some may call it "cheating" (I know there's a high-profile opinion or two against it -- I respect that) -- I call it 

  -- faster performances

  -- less DNF's from getting lost due to course markings

  -- more involved spectators on course

  -- better pictures and stories and thus more exposure

  -- interesting team dynamics from sponsors -- you don't think companies like PI love to have a couple jerseys in the picture when one guy's racing and another is pacing?

  -- great recon for runners to do it the next year

  -- a gateway for other runners to be introduced into the sport.

  -- a nod towards history of American ultrarunning, as much as it is a nod towards supported historic alpine efforts

  The crux of my argument is that attacking the concept of pacers is biting the hand that feeds the sport in multiple ways, and that allowing pacers provides for better performance.

My observation is that a lack of pacers, combined with course marking issues, combined with a split field, lead to less compelling competition and finishing rate than could have otherwise been achieved.

The Good

I wanted to end on the good note, so hopefully you got this far.

I was pretty upset immediately, and for hours, when I took a wrong turn after several marking issues, and then learned others had done the same.  If I had written to or talked to Fred immediately afterward, I'm sure I'd have more choice words.  Luckily I had a bunch more miles to work my frustrations out!

I thought more holistically about what goes into a race, and remembered the things I was initially excited about.  I know many things go into a race like this, and I remembered that many things, up until race day, went well.

Sponsors: Great sponsors led to many great things: a big prize purse, raffled-off schwag before the race, great beer afterward.  Work was obviously put into building these relationships, and I hope it's sustainable.

Profile: The race got immediate attention, it became a Hardrock Qualifier in its first year (definitely merited!)

Timing and Coverage: The race great coverage from Bryon at irunfar, and decent timing on ultralive.  (One issue: some checkpoints were missed, such as my Cow Creek and Olympian, despite explicitly calling out my number when entering and exiting at all times.  Others are missing splits, this is somewhat of a deal when your crew is racing, but some of the moneyed Hares are missing splits as well -- this could be a huge deal potentially in the future with all this money on the line!)

Time of year/weather: It's a great time of year in Colorado, I love having an option during the Fall Colour season.  Steamboat housing availability was reasonably available.  We had great weather this year -- not to be taken for granted, for had it been more like last year's 50, combined with the other issues for this year's race, I think consequences could have been semi-disastrous.

Overall Course: Get it closer to 100M, but I still liked it.  PG has some thoughts otherwise, but going through town was pretty cool and needs to be maintained (IMHO) if you want to build spectator following in the coming years

Charity: This isn't a corporation making money, it's local charities.  I'm a big fan of that still, and it kept my disappointment in check when I took a wrong turn and thought about asking for a refund!

Aid Stations and Volunteers: Everyone was awesome!  Things were a bit shaky at Long Lake in the morning, when people were getting things figured out and we were trying to communicate marking issues, but overall everything was awesome. Volunteers were kind, quick, and helpful -- food was plentiful and available.  I especially liked the Honey Stinger products and ate their waffles all day...drank Jameson coffee at night...and really dug the mashed potatoes!

We were "warned" that aid station volunteers might not necessarily be familiar with the course, but at night, we always asked for explicit instructions, and there always seemed to be a sort of "leader" that gave great directions.

Recommendations for Next Year

The mistakes were big, but counting it up, there are plenty of positives as well.  I would hope to take feedback from everyone, not take just the happy voices of those that finished "in the money" or Tortoises that finished well.  Let's try to find out the experience of everyone and not easily dismiss wrong turns as boneheaded runner mistakes (when they were made by many) or missed cutoffs as unprepared runners.  Some folks picked this race to run hard and try to win some cash, but missed out from course markings; other folks have full-time jobs and families and wanted a good race and run, but didn't get that chance.  We should look at it as a loss for everyone who was prepared to run but didn't get the expected chance, and move on.  Let's take a poll of everyone and see what the consensus is, rather than making assumptions.

My opinion is that multiple factors compounded to cause problems: too much complexity at the same time.  Simplify, simplify, simplify:

-- Fix the distance and get it closer to 100M.  

-- Better course marking -- ideally, courses are marked in the direction of the race, as it appeared to me that some markers were "hidden" from sight lines because they were possibly marked in the opposite direction.  Consider using a colour other than yellow!!!
-- Better map and description: The course "map" is actually a stack of maps.  The initial part going up the hill refers to some ski run names, so if you want to know that, you should look at the Steamboat ski map (keeping in mind that the run names won't help you on the actual trail because they're downhill-skier oriented).
Your best bet was to acquire the Steamboat Skyterrain map and get out some markers:

(I actually did this....)

Other folks were even more ghetto (I like it!):

Source: Steamboat Today

I'm not kidding about this.  Next year, there'll be a single map -- I'll draw one out!

-- More on-course information: Better signs that tell you which direction each aid station is, and possibly the mile.  Also consider the fact that flagging can be informative in other ways: striped flags before turns, or flags consistently on one side of the trail to suggest direction (e.g. always on the right your first trip on that trail).  More re-assurance markers.

-- More people running together: we were quite spread out, and people got lost.  One possibility is eliminating the separate divisions, but this gimmick is more likely to stick and admittedly does have other benefits (people finishing closer together or entering aid stations in a tighter window of time).  So my preferred suggestion is allowing pacers for everyone.  If not, I'd like to see a strong majority response to my list of benefits of pacers; yes, I'm curious if the majority of contending Hare runners (and possibly sponsors) think racing without pacers is the wave of the future.

It ain't my race, though -- just putting an opinion out there.

-- More cowbell: 'nuff said.

Overall, I'm excited about another 100M option, especially in Colorado, so I want this thing to succeed.