US Trail Running Conference RD Master Class Webinar Encourages Attendance at 2024 Conference

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Race Directors share highlights and new content scheduled this year 

Why you need to be at this year’s US Trail Running Conference was the subject for the seventh webinar in the nine-webinar RD Master Class series produced by the US Trail Running Conference presented by Marathon Printing, and was live on Tuesday, July 23. The webinar series is free for all race directors and event organizers to access, and is held in partnership with the American Trail Running Association.

This webinar’s panelists featured four race directors and an industry professional that will be participating in the US Trail Running Conference this year. Dale Garland, race director, Hardrock 100, will make his third appearance at USTRC. Shalini Bhajjan, race director, Terrain Trail Runners, will celebrate her second USTRC. Katie Wallace, race director for Over the Rainbow Runs, will be a first-timer at USTRC. Aimee Kohler, race director, The Running Kind, will join  USTRC for the second time. Corinne Shalvoy, Assistant Event Director for USTRC, an industry professional and pro trail runner with Aravaipa Running rounded out the panel. Terry Chiplin, founder of the US Trail Running Conference, was the moderator for the session.

Shalini Bhajjan shared her experiences of the US Trail Running Conference having attended the event in Estes Park, CO, in 2016. Bhajjan was asked what her biggest take away was from attending that Conference, and how this has helped move her from where she was then to where she is now. “So back in 2016 as I said, I was still very young, and very new to the sport itself. I had probably run a couple of ultras. I had also started two races here in St. Louis, both with 50k & 25 k options. At the time there were some races, but not a whole lot happening here in St.Louis. Even today I feel like the ultra running community at large is small and connected, but regionally we are very disconnected…..during the Conference there was not simply networking, I also picked up a lot of good information. The biggest thing for me when I got back was we went cupless. Sustainability was a huge component that year, and my mind was kind of blown thinking about how to eliminate trash and all this other stuff. Also just having the opportunity to talk with other race directors.”

Dale Garland shared something that he learned from the Conference that he has then incorporated into the Hardrock race. “The first was last year especially, listening to Ryan Montgomery, and talking about some of the things around LGBTQ, and BIPOC and that kind of thing. One thing that Ryan said to me that I have kind of adopted in my own management is, a lot of things in our sport are evolutionary and there is a process, and you don’t have to do an all or nothing kind of thing. Hearing Ryan say that there are some things that you can do along the way to help in terms of diversity and things like that. You don’t have to switch everything on a dime. Bite off little pieces every year and work towards the greater good or the long term goal.”

Next, Katie Wallace, who will be participating in the Conference for the first time this year was asked what she is looking forward to about the Conference. “One of the things that stuck out for me with my experience is that any Conference that is worth its salt has built in plenty of time for networking, and I have noticed that there are lots of good windows for networking at the USTRC. It often is the people that you meet more so than the content. So I am really glad to see that this is built into the Conference. You are not just going to be running from session to session, there is going to be time for making those connections that will probably be the most valuable. And then secondly, I am very excited about the variety of sessions. There are best practices in all kinds of things around sustainability, inclusion, marketing, course marking. It just seems like it’s a really well balanced agenda. So yeah, I am excited for it.”

Aimee Kohler attended her first Conference in Fayetteville in 2021. She was asked how that Conference provided the spark that ignited her becoming an entrepreneur and setting up The Running Kind? “When I first came to the Conference in 2021, I was a race director for Spartan Trail, and a local ski resort. In the mountain running events that we were hosting I was really interested in making them carbon neutral or more sustainable. I had the opportunity to go to the Conference, and I was really excited to learn about the sustainability components that were discussed in those sessions. Particularly being connected with Native Energy, and Claire was at that Conference, and having conversations with them about carbon offsetting and what that would look like on the back end to actually have a carbon neutral event. This really left me feeling like it wasn’t something that was out of my realm to actually do. Those conversations and sessions empowered me to feel like I could take those next steps to actually be doing this myself outside of Spartan and the ski resort, and make it a focus of the events that I wanted to host carbon neutral events with a sustainability focus. Being at the Conference gave me the tools to create The Running Kind. It was six months after the Conference that we established The Running Kind, and we had our first race in November of 2022. So it was pretty quick after the Conference.”

For Corinne Shalvoy 2024 will be her first US Trail Running Conference. She shared why she is excited about participating in this year’s event. “Races are essentially the masterpiece of the sport, and I feel like the race directors are the artists that are creating those canvases that become those masterpieces…..I really look forward to learning from a lot of those people.”

You can see three short videos from the full webinar session, featuring Dale Garland, Shalini Bhajjan and Katie Wallace, at the links below:

You can also see the full session recording at the following:

Active at Altitude, organizers of the US Trail Running Conference and the webinar series, reported 194 participants registered for the session, representing 40 states, as well as Bolivia, Canada, Great Britain, Iceland, Macedonia, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The next webinar in the RD Master Class series presented by Marathon Printing is titled: Mastering Sustainability, Innovations and Inspirations from Brands, and takes place on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, from 10.00 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. MST. Panelists for this session are Kim Ashworth, Anthony Foster, Jeff Jackson, and Sam Burke.

Who is this for? Race directors and event organizers who are interested in discovering the latest in innovation and inspiration from brand partners in the sport.

Registration is free – see https://ustrailrunningconference.com/webinar-series/ for more details.

More info:

For details on the US Trail Running Conference and the webinar series, go to https://ustrailrunningconference.com/webinar-series/

Contact Event Director, Terry Chiplin for further information, terry@ustrailrunningconference.com, or + 33 06 79 76 31 53

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