Climate Change and Outdoor Events

Hi Folks - it has been a while! We were all wrapped up in race season but it's time to get back to blogging.

Rather than repeat what has already been written, check out this article in the Globe and Mail where I had the honour of being interviewed regarding my thoughts on how climate change affects outdoor events.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-marathon-races-climate-change/

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The 2025 Season

Canadian Running Magazine 2025 will mark 24 years of me hosting events... and what an adventure it has been. I am never quite satisfied with just sitting still, and the crew at Sinister Sports has had an itch to do more. In case you missed the news, we're going to expand into Ontario with two new events. The SOO 200 will be our second 200-miler, and it will take place in the third week of July in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The Blue Bully Ultra is a three-day stage race that will happen the first weekend of October at Blue Mountain Resort, north of Toronto. Rather than me going into great detail, check out this excellent article by Keeley Milne of Canadian Running Magazine. We go through a painfully long assessment process when picking new venues. We try and balance both our schedule, and other regional race schedules to be sure we minimize any conflicts. We look for locations that have great amenities, and helpful people. I hope we'll see a lot of you out there for the firs...

What's on the Menu?

Food is undoubtedly a big part of the race experience. More so, getting nutrition into your meat sack is critical for a successful race. We spend a lot of time trying to decide what foods to offer at each event, and we actually look at eight different values when we are deciding on aid station menus. We get a lot of requests for different things; sometimes it's an "ah-ha" moment, and often it's just not practical based on our requirements. Here are the eight values we consider when selecting food options. Satisfaction Basically, will people like it? We want to be sure we have stuff that is easy to consume and palatable, as well as having broad appeal. When we try something new, we always assess after the race to see if people actually enjoyed it. If there was a lot left, it means it was either not popular, hard to serve, or people just didn't know it was an option. Usually it's the former, and it gets taken off the menu for future races. Racer expectations ar...

My Perfect Race

There is no rest for the Sinister, and we are in the thick of planning for 2024. I follow a lot of race director forums to keep tabs on what's happening around the world, and there are always a lot of questions, both profound and basic. There is one common strain of questions asked by new RDs: can you plan a perfect race? And then I laugh and laugh because I love the naive optimism. 😂 I need to tell someone to get off my lawn now. So I'm pondering what would make a perfect race for me, from an organizer's standpoint... My perfect race would have flawless registration and it would fill up really early so that we can plan our expenses for the year, and know how much swag to buy. Everyone would fill out their shirt sizes and not make any swaps last minute. All of it would be within our budget and vendors wouldn't increase our prices at the last minute. The permits would be a breeze and everyone would welcome us with open arms. There would be no course changes due to logg...

RD INTEL

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