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Nigel Preston | The Singletrack Events Story, Behind the Event Curtain, and the Future of Australian Trail Running
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In this episode, James sits down with Nigel Preston from Singletrack Events for a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it actually takes to build, grow, and deliver some of Australia’s biggest trail running events.
Nigel shares his journey from growing up in Bendigo’s cross-country scene, to working in events and sponsorship, before helping launch Singletrack Events out of the chaos of COVID. From the early days of taking over Buffalo Stampede and Roller Coaster, through to the growth of GPT100, Hounslow, Running Wild, Wonderland and the World Trail Majors, this conversation pulls back the curtain on the business, logistics, risk, and passion behind modern trail events.
James and Nigel also dive into some of the bigger questions facing the sport: whether the Australian trail calendar is becoming saturated, how we bring more young runners into trail running, why shorter distances matter, what role prize money should play, and how events can better support both elite athletes and the back of the pack.
They also cover the importance of volunteers, the Singletrack Trail Team, live streaming, national championships, international athletes, and why creating a great event experience is about far more than just putting flags in the ground.
A big conversation on race directing, community, growth, and the future of trail running in Australia.
***Don’t forget, use code PEAK at Bix’s website for 20% off Bix products, exclusive to PPP listeners!***
Thanks for tuning in to Peak Pursuits! Connect with us on Instagram @peakpursuits.pod to share your thoughts, questions, and trail stories. Until next time, keep hitting the trails and chasing those peak pursuits!
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Peak Pursuits podcast. My name is James Sieber and this week I'm joined by Nigel Preston from Singletrack Events. Most people listening will know Singletrack through events like Buffalo Stampede, Roller Coaster, Hounslow, GPT and last year they added the Running Wild series as well. They're a huge part of the Australian trail running landscape and Nige has been there from the start.
00:00:36
Speaker
In this episode, we talk through his background in running, how he found his way into events, which has been going on a lot more than just Singletrack, and then ultimately how Singletrack came together out of COVID.
00:00:47
Speaker
From there, we'll go into what it takes to actually put on these races, the logistics, the finances, volunteers, permits, A-stations, sponsors, elite fields, all that kind of stuff that you probably don't think about when we just turn up to race. We'll also go into some bigger picture topics around the state the sport. Are there too many events?
00:01:04
Speaker
How do we get younger runners into trail? Why do we keep glorifying the longer stuff? Should shorter races get more attention? What role should prize money play? And what does the future of stra trail running look like?
00:01:15
Speaker
I really enjoyed this conversation with Nigel because he was super open. He was really happy to pull back the curtain and give open and honest answers to my questions. I think it gives a lot of context to just how much work goes into creating the experience that we all get to enjoy on
Transition to Event Organization
00:01:30
Speaker
race day. So whether you're a runner, volunteer, coach, an event organizer, or just someone who loves the sport, i think this has got a lot of really great stuff in it.
00:01:38
Speaker
With that, here's my conversation with Nigel Preston. Nig, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here. how are you going? I'm going well, James. Thanks for having me. a Long-time listener, first-time caller. Thanks. I like that. I feel like we've had a couple of people say that, but it's in in a good way. like it's It's nice to know that people do actually listen and ah people are in all avenues of the sport. Obviously, you're here as a race director with Single Track Events. like I think that it showcases that hopefully the podcast has some value to people outside of just the runner stories, but you're also a very good runner yourself.
00:02:13
Speaker
Thank you. Maybe used to be a good runner once upon a time. Once upon time. Yeah, that's good. No, good to be here. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is, well, it there's two main reasons. One is the obviously involvement with single track.
00:02:29
Speaker
We've... Anyone that's been listening to the podcast will know that a lot of the previews that we do are events that you guys run, that typically GPT, Buffalo, Rollercoaster.
00:02:40
Speaker
can't remember if we did Houndstown last year as well, but it is a very strong elite component to your fields, hence why we keep reviewing them. But also... From a race director's perspective, the number of events that you have, ah you like individually but also with with with single track, is you've got to be one of the most expensive, experienced race directors, potentially the former as well, out there. So I think that you'll have a really interesting viewpoint on the sport. and We've been having so many conversations about the state of the sport, the future of the sport, all the avenues of it, all the little kind of corners that you might be able to help tease out some some interesting perspectives on. So I appreciate your time in doing this today.
00:03:17
Speaker
That's good. No, good to be with you. And yeah, keen to peel back a little bit of the single track magic maybe today. Yeah, I'm excited. I think ah as anyone that's been listening to the show for a while will know that i used to be involved with you guys for about 18 months or so. So i I've seen probably a bit more of behind the scenes than most people. um But I think that it's going to be be fun for me to learn more, but also for other people to hopefully ah understand a bit more about you guys as I do. So before we get into all that, though,
00:03:44
Speaker
I do want to kind of take everyone through your journey to get to the place that you are, not so much now, but the place where you guys decided to start single track events at the end of end of COVID. So what took you from Nige, the runner, to the person that goes, you know what, actually, I think we can do trail running events and we can do them well and let's go for it.
Influence and Motivation
00:04:05
Speaker
Let's do it. Yeah. So I started my family background. I'm one of four kids and i ah grew up in Bendigo. So that's in central Victoria. And every Saturday afternoon, we would be out cross country running. And this is very basic practice.
00:04:22
Speaker
cross-country running in the bush around Bendigo. It's relatively flat, so very little vert, which is difficult to train for a ah trail run. But this was what our family was doing every weekend. And particularly my brother, who's five years older than me, um you know was quite good at cross-country.
00:04:42
Speaker
And we just did athletics as a family growing up. It was just part of our culture And my dad's now a life member of Athletics Victoria. So probably gives you a sense that athletics was always around. He's still a photo finish judge and things like that even even now. So he's still involved. And then my brother, he moved on to like a national level cross country runner, represented Victoria, was also doing triathlons, really seriously represented Australia in duathlon at one point. And this was kind of 1990s and he was competing against Colin Taylor um at the same time. um Colin grew up in in Melbourne. He was doing triathlon at the same time. So these cross these paths kind of crossed in the late 90s.
00:05:30
Speaker
um So from there, I was still doing cross country myself. um I did a bit of running at at sort of state level, did go to a nationals at a junior level in cross country. So that was...
00:05:42
Speaker
Always something like running's always been really big for me and it's always been the, I guess the the better sport, the sport that I could take up most easily, I suppose. Yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
Enjoyed playing volleyball to a decent level, did some cycling to a good level, but it was always running that was kind of the best thing. And I think just being in Bendigo, where there's bush five minutes, like two kilometres from my house, there is bushland starts basically. And so it's just such a great place live.
00:06:12
Speaker
to run. So ah running lots, not not crazy competitively, but just doing it and always enjoying like the community aspect of that. Finish school and i was when I was in school, I was doing this really random thing called the Energy Breakthrough, which is a schools program in Victoria where schools build a vehicle and come and race it, pedal it for 24 hours around the track, right? So this is... um this initiative and I enjoyed it so much that after I finished school, I went to volunteer and it was like all these 60 year olds.
00:06:49
Speaker
um And they're, and you know, they probably weren't actually that old, but to me when I was 18, I thought they were so old. um And they're just like a young person. What do we do with a young person? Like, what do we do? So I just volunteered. And that was really my entree into events work, basically, at that point, 18 years of age.
00:07:11
Speaker
So there are a few of the foundational blocks, I suppose, that if we cast back 25 years ago, get to where we are now in a really strange way. So I moved from Bendigo to Melbourne, did a PR degree, started working, did some work in the government, went and worked at World Vision for a few years, got involved, started really interested in events actually, and took the leap from World Vision to start working in the Victorian Tourism Industry Council, which is like a peak body for um tourism operators. And so
00:07:49
Speaker
What happened here was that I got to meet all of these regional tourism bodies and all these tourism operators in different parts of the state and just get an understanding of how tourism works and how events work and visitation works. So that's talking...
00:08:05
Speaker
14 years ago now from there, um left that job and I wanted to really get into the world of sponsorships. And I was like, I don't understand sponsorships. i understand events, but I don't understand sponsorships. So after leaving the Tourism Council and getting the chance to doing in conferences at the exhibition center and the MCG and all of these locations and regional locations as well, um took a job with Active Edge, which was the business of Colin Taylor.
00:08:39
Speaker
um So Luke, my brother, had been doing some design work with him. And, um you know, I took on this sponsorship role with with Colin working around the Weet-Bix Kids Triathlon Series. And so i was working on sponsorships, so getting to work with fun companies, Bupa, Trek, um Arena, Sanitarium, lots of different companies, and just getting a feel around...
00:09:05
Speaker
the sponsorship side of the business um and how sponsorships work and how big agencies work and those sort of things. So that agency went really gangbusters. It was going really well for Colin. I left a little bit before COVID, but you can imagine when you're doing sponsorship for outdoor events and activations, what happens in COVID, James? There's no activations.
Community and Family Involvement
00:09:33
Speaker
No activations.
00:09:35
Speaker
The show shuts down. So Colin was in this position where Colin Taylor, for those, the big reveal will be that eventually he found Singletrack. um But the big reveal is that, you know, he goes through this scenario where he has to um basically let go 30 staff members, um close the offer, shut down the business essentially, and massive pivot from Singletrack. running activations for all of these lovely brands, having the Weet-Bix Kids Triathlon, which was like 20,000 kids across Australia doing triathlons, which again was a sport that Colin had grown up doing and enjoying to nothing.
00:10:17
Speaker
pretty much overnight and so um he took a big pivot from that and got into laundries of all things if you've ever been in bright you've ever been around the uh the bright laundry um that is one of um colin's businesses so that sort of laid the foundation for uh a lot of things there around um single track and the foundation of of single track. So that that brings us to about 2020, 2021. And ah so at this point, Colin's working in laundries, kind of thinking to himself, I don't want to work in laundries all all of my life
00:10:56
Speaker
um And just around Christmas time 2020, so we've just had this period of COVID, my brother calls and he's like, Colin and I are thinking of this event and um we'd like you to be involved as a race director. And I'm like, oh, what is this all about?
00:11:14
Speaker
And so this was Buffalo Stampede at this point was the main one we were talking about. So the previous owners, Mountain Sports, Sean and Mel Greenhill, they were selling it as a result basically of COVID um and wanted me to get involved.
00:11:30
Speaker
Before we go into the Buffalo side of things, if a few questions i want to touch on. First of all, as as we will get to, Colin is the owner of Single Track. He's an integral part of all of this. He also will flat out refuse to come on the podcast. So please do share his story at any point and you can twist it in whatever way you want because you have full control of it. That's nice. Thank you. Good license. Yeah. And if Colin is listening to this, if you want to tell your own story properly, you can you can let me know. um But going back...
00:11:57
Speaker
when did you personally start looking into into the trail running you talk about the cross-country scene you big on the road scene but yeah when did the trail come into there Yeah, so older olderder brother Luke, he's five years older than me. So in the early 2010s, he moved moved to Albury area, a bit of your hometown area, James, um and really started getting involved with the getting involved with the trail running scene there. So he...
00:12:28
Speaker
As he would say, he was doing they were doing training trips to Bright most weekends. He and the the crew, Timmy Goddard, a whole bunch of those guys traveling across to train and to train for Buffalo Stampede. So he definitely got in, got...
00:12:45
Speaker
had my awareness, you know, when your family's really motivated and spending hours um involved with this sport. So he was certainly involved with that. So, um and he he was not just doing Buffalo Stampede. um I did have to ask him, he did come second at the North Face 50, which is now the UTA in 2014. So, you know, he was very handy. Mm-hmm.
00:13:09
Speaker
also place getter at Buffalo Stampede, won the 26K at Buffalo Stampede, what used to be that. He travelled to Switzerland and New Zealand a little bit later in 2015. So he was definitely around it. And I think when you've got someone in your family who's got the trail running bug, you start to think, oh, this looks interesting. I could do this. Part of you thinking that, to be honest, other people are just thinking, you're running 100 kilometers? At this point, I'm doing half marathons. like I was really trying to get my half marathon time down.
00:13:43
Speaker
And I'm just thinking, man, I'm i'm totally cooked trying to run 21K in less than 70 minutes. And you're telling me about ah trying to run 100 kilometers. like How does this compute? But You later realise, right, it's quite different running, isn't Road running at half marathon pace versus 100 kilometres is quite different. So um certainly picked up a number of events and I enjoy... Like, I always...
00:14:09
Speaker
Enjoyed the Tour to Trail events, so Chris Ord, the the events that Chris puts on him here in Victoria, are always really well done. So Warburton, the Wild Mount Run, Gold Rush, some of those types of runs, always really good to get along, sort of understand the community a little bit more. And just enjoy a different type of running to road running. i think when you're really, even cross country in Victoria with the Athletics Victoria season that I do, it's it's very competitive in a sometimes overcooked way competitive. So, you know, trying to sort of be in that environment, the athletics Victoria environment, which I dearly love, like I've been doing it for 25 years and um I love our cross-country community, but the trail running experience is that the just the splits don't matter. The kilometre splits don't matter. Sometimes you're doing a sub four-minute kilometre, the next minute you're running, you're
00:15:12
Speaker
running or hiking up a thing and your watch is saying it's 18 minutes a kilometer and you just don't care, right? Yeah. So I enjoyed that change from those sorts of things. Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
One thing you might be able to answer, I was talking someone and they had the feeling that at some point there was a trail running event as part of the cross country series. Does that ring any bells to you? i haven't saying i haven't seen that really. There was one actually that Azvic supported at one time and it was it was alongside the series. So I don't think it was strictly part of the XCR ah series, but it was in there. And there was one actually in Brimbank, which was a sixteen k which was a little bit trail-like, if you like So it was mostly on grass, but there was a bit of a wooded section, which was quite fun in some mud.
00:16:06
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, that was good fun. But no, I i know, and there were there was also a point where they were offering discounted entries to a trail race um that was being co-hosted by AV.
00:16:18
Speaker
So if for an AV member over here, you could get like a super cheap entry over there. Any idea whatever happened to that event? I think it was run and done in a couple of years and it didn't quite convert. Maybe that's the next business model for me, James. Maybe that's it. as Well, it's ah part of a larger conversation we're having at the moment, specifically around getting younger runners into trail. how Because as I said, the cross-country scene is huge, especially in Victoria. How do we bridge that gap? How do we make trails seem cool? How do we make that seem like something that school-aged kids want to go and do, especially females?
Event Challenges and Growth
00:16:52
Speaker
Because when we've been looking at the national selection teams, we have a
00:16:56
Speaker
an okay size pool of boys that are under 18 but we have a very very limited size pool of of girls that are under 18 especially girls that actually want to do trail art not just like they've done one and because they've done one they're suddenly in the top 10 in the country That's right. And I think sometimes that's around the glorification of the 50K and the 100 miler and the 100K stuff. And, you know, speak to an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old and they don't want to run 100 miles.
00:17:23
Speaker
Or look, three or four of them do, but most of the kids that are at our local training track on Tuesday nights, they're they're daunted by running 12k cross-country because they, as I was saying before, they kind of relate it to trying to run that fast half marathon on the road where it's more than the splits. They're like, what do you mean I've got to run 2,000 meters of elevation and um break myself? So, yeah, i I put that partly down to a bit of that glorification of like the 100-kilometer distance. Yeah.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah. well We'll touch on that one a bit later because i I do want to have that conversation. The other thing that I thought was interesting is where did the drive to want to get into events and then sponsorship come from for you?
00:18:08
Speaker
I have always been really interested in what's that experience for people? What's the experience going there? I think I've just actually been wired into when you get to an event, like what's the sense of welcome? What's the sense of the experience? Those sort of things. And also, whilst my dad was always at athletics, country athletics on the afternoon,
00:18:32
Speaker
My mum was always involved with every committee under the sun. So like the parents committee and the church committee and all the tennis committee. And so she would drag us along to volunteer. um We're not on a podcast, but I'm doing the quotation thing about it. she would drag us along to do catering or do the serving or do these different things. So whilst I got the running side more from my dad, I got a bit of this events focus from my mum where you just pitch in and get involved and,
00:19:05
Speaker
ah People, if they've ever been to the Buffalo Stampede or roller coaster, you would have been served something by my parents at the finish line because they chop up the fruit and hand out the lollies and serve the Coke at the Coca-Cola um at the finish line.
00:19:19
Speaker
um And so I think I've got that from them. But also it was from the Energy Breakthrough event where I'd been involved in it and then I just wanted to...
00:19:30
Speaker
continue on being involved. And then I turned up and I just saw all of these needs that were being met, number one. But also I could see that this event for young people was being run by older people.
00:19:46
Speaker
And what one thing I really love about Singletrack is that, ah you know, Colin, although triathlete, now turning into trail running, but Colin colin was doing an Ironman at 16 years of age. Like, he he is an athlete at heart. And my brother, I mentioned that he um he was the other um co-founder, Anthony. He was a trail runner at heart and I come from ah a somewhat of a running background. And so one thing that I've really enjoyed is that we can put ourselves a little bit in the runner's shoes and think about that. And I think if you look at most race directors, they've come from that background as well. But, ah you know, some sort of experience and and sort of putting themselves in the shoes of the athletes. And you mentioned an energy break for now few times. You're now and ah very involved in that before we kind of focus on the trail side, where did your other events fit in to this that you're now or organizing or or part of?
00:20:44
Speaker
Yep. So, ah energy breakthrough. So that is, an ongoing contract throughout the year that I am involved with, uh, single track, um, race director with, uh, single track for a number of events. And then in Bendigo, Bendigo Fun Run, um, we've, uh, which is a fundraiser for the local hospital.
00:21:03
Speaker
ah so that's in March. Um, uh, Puffing Billy Running Festival is also under the single track um label as well or organisation. So these things all fit in as as best we can.
00:21:16
Speaker
Probably to your quip at the start of the show, James, it's not a very lucrative career to go into events. um But also, I actually really like the different experiences. I find that that gives you a ah rich level of experience and and ideas working with different people. So you can kind of take ideas from over there and bring them in and take take them over to the other place and share them around.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So Christmas 2020, your brother gives you a call. Colin and him are thinking about Buffalo. it sounds like essentially from January 21 to it would have been April 2021 was when, when Buffalo was on you guys inherited, um,
00:22:03
Speaker
what's the best way to put this, a bit of a mess. um And there are complications in there that I don't think most people will understand. ah What was it like starting Singletrack with also working closely with your brother, with Colin, you've got four months to get this thing up off the ground.
00:22:20
Speaker
And it's not like you just starting something from new with no baggage. It's this is an existing and very well founded event that you've got to take over and and do your own way, but also keep people try to happy from the past so yeah take us through that that initial experience so yeah i do remember it as well we were setting up the website around australia day of that year as you said for an event in in april or march so i think we had about 12 weeks from go to woe
00:22:51
Speaker
which does make things very efficient because you've just got to get stuff done at that point. ah But yes, so Buffalo Stampede, it had been started in 2014 by Mel and Sean of Mountain Sports. COVID came along. um They essentially shut down the business and people had registered for the event in 2020, but because of COVID, they No one received a refund. So we bought the business out of that. And as you alluded to, we went back out to the market and said, Buffalo Stampede going to happen.
00:23:29
Speaker
And so one of the things that we decided upon was that ah we would offer to people who would had entered the previous year. We couldn't give them a refund because we didn't have that money, but we did offer them discounted entries. I seem to recall it was about $50 or something for an entry, which for a 75K is ah a pretty good deal.
00:23:53
Speaker
But I also acknowledge that some people were just like, hang on, where is my money? And we're saying, well, we didn't take your money. That money went somewhere else. So that wasn't a great start. And we got about 600 people there, um which given that we were in and out of COVID, 600 was was not ah not a bad outcome. And particularly at that point, people were really telling us like, it's really hard to train for a marathon marathon.
00:24:18
Speaker
at Mount Buffalo or a 75k in an ultra because a lot of people in Melbourne have been in lockdown or we'd had 5k rule for those of people who had lived through COVID in Victoria. There was a lot a lot going on. So yeah, we bought Buffalo and we bought roller coaster as our first two, but it was definitely a very rapid learning curve.
00:24:38
Speaker
In our Active Edge days, so Colin and I had worked together, Colin, Luke and I had worked together. So in terms of that sense of things, um it that gelled really quickly um and we brought in another um another guy, Nick Hall, who had been working with us at Active Edge. He's now working at Ironman Group, um but he helped with the ah the operations and things like that. But it was you know it was pretty raw, first first one out, I won't lie, but people had a great time and off we went.
00:25:09
Speaker
what was i feel like for a lot of people starting up an event obviously you already had the active edge i'm assuming colin still had some of the resources from there that he could bring across across but getting getting an event like buffalo essentially up and running again like how much goes into that from a financial aspect to actually build like have the capacity to put an event the size of buffalo on Yes, a lot of time and energy and finances. So, yes, we did have a bit of resources from Active Edge, which was helpful. We also had a bit of gear that we had acquired from Mountain Sports as part of the sale of um the races. So that was your your water drums, your tables, some tents, some of the hard assets. And then ah we begged and borrowed from other people for the first one.
00:25:58
Speaker
I think newer listeners or newer people on the trail run might think of Stampede as it is now, but then we're talking 600 people in the Bright Brewery paddock, very different operation. Like there was 75 people in the 75K, 79 people, something like that in the last year,
00:26:22
Speaker
or this last addition, we had 600 people in the 100K. So organising an event or a trail aid station where you're servicing 70 people is a very different setup than servicing 600 people. um And so that's, you know, it was it was, it grew with the right pace that we were at at the time. But definitely um ah borrowing on lots of things, different vehicles, different trailers, mad hours.
Future Expansion Plans
00:26:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was pretty wild, definitely, but good.
00:26:59
Speaker
What were you feeling after that first Buffalo? Did did you guys know that you had something here? I think we knew it was a good event. we um We had to put more money into the business after that point. We definitely lost considerable money on the first few.
00:27:19
Speaker
ah But I think we thought that it was good enough, that people had a good enough time and fundamentally we loved bright enough um to want to keep doing it Yeah.
00:27:30
Speaker
When you did get a first call from Luke and you start up with Colin, was there an initial, we want to build X in five, 10 years time? Or was it just a simple like Buffalo's up for sale and roller coaster?
00:27:47
Speaker
It sounds fun. Let's do it. It was, ah we knew there was something in this trail running space and definitely Colin is ah is a visionary. He's got big vision. he He spotted and, well, we all basically spotted because we'd watched triathlon, that triathlon had gone through a boom phase in the late ninety s ninety s early 2000s had gone through a boom phase and you could already see it, the ripples happening in trail.
00:28:19
Speaker
So it felt like a really good time to come in. Did we think that five years down the track we would have 13 events? No, but we at least knew that with this Buffalo Stampede thing,
00:28:31
Speaker
Luke was obviously super familiar with it. He trained there every weekend. Colin now owns a laundry there. um I know my way around events enough and and event experience to work at work everything out. We sort of knew there was something in it. um And we just sort of kept thinking about, well, what's the next step and what's the next step? And certainly focusing on...
00:28:56
Speaker
having a great participant experience, having a great volunteer experience and just having great trails. Like when you've got great trails, you can have real confidence and pride in that. And I think we knew that that was there in in Bright.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. 21 and 22, if I'm wrong, it was just Buffalo and Rollercoaster? Yes, just Buffalo and Roller Coaster. Yep, so Roller Coaster is in the Dandenongs, Mount Dandenong, and ah yeah, Buffalo,
00:29:27
Speaker
Fun course, 12K, and then the 46, and the 46 does the 23 in reverse the second time around, which was, that was started by Rowan Day of Two Bays fame.
00:29:42
Speaker
So, um yeah, and then Rowan passed it on to Mel and Sean, and then Mel and Sean passed it on to us. So, yeah, great event with some great legacy there. But, yes, the first few years was just those ones. And then Hounslow came up after that. So i remember having that call with with Colin at the time. i was actually organising another fun run in Heathcote and I think I was bumping in and we decided we were going to... so I was in Heathcote and we're talking about Hounslow and yeah, we decided we would buy that one as well in in the Grosse Valley in the Blue Mountains. So that joined after that.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah. As you're going through those first couple of years, and I'm sure learning a lot, you're not putting on frequent events, but they're both pretty big events. Like roller coaster has always been in that sort of 600 to 1000 range from from memory. um And Buffalo obviously has grown into a much bigger beast now. But it the second year, do you remember the numbers for Buffalo?
00:30:44
Speaker
it It more or less got up to 1,200 or 1,400, and then about 3,500 now. sort of went to two thousand went to two and a half thousand three thousand and then we're at about three and a half thousand now so it it has steadily grown over the time. Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker
So you have those two events, you see the growth there. I'm assuming you're getting exposed a lot more now to the trail running community. You are seeing the potential demand here, the growth rate of it. Still, though, to decide to go, OK, we're going to buy Hounslow, which is in a completely different geographical area for you guys. It's not it's not close to it. what It's kind of close to the column, but it's not close to where all your events are set up. That's to me, and then what would happen later in 2023 with GPT, that that signifies that you guys are going, okay, we're we're really going to head down this path, fully commit, grow, expand.
00:31:32
Speaker
Was there much of a conversation between you and Colin at this point? because i think Luke had stepped back by... Yeah, Luke had stepped back. Joe Dorf had come in to the business. So Joe helped us helped us with Buffalo change it from a 75K long course, which it had previously been, to 100K. And Joe, being a bright local, is able to really help us out out with that. So, yeah, it was really Joe, Colin, and I talking about that. um we ah We really knew there was something about Hounslow that was...
00:32:05
Speaker
ah so ah Similar in a way to the roller coaster in style in that a relatively simple event weekend, one beautiful location at all view escapes in the Gross Valley, stunning views, stunning course, still quite brutal um to to actually run, get to run through the Grand Canyon.
00:32:25
Speaker
ah You know, and there was some appeal around that in terms of the national parks there have quite a firm ceiling on how many entries we can run on that course. And so by design, it it has been since we've run it, um a fairly low scale event and that's actually really cool to have uh cool to be like well we're not trying to sell the lights out here we can scale our effort to this number so certainly had a feeling that yep this is good and then from there on you're sort of looking for well we've got all this gear we've got these people that we want to keep engaged how can we keep doing more what's what's coming i suppose yeah
00:33:08
Speaker
And so with Hounslow, was that kind of the inflection point of you guys going, we're really going to push the foot down? Because you said you've now got 13 events. Or is that something that's just happened more more organically?
00:33:22
Speaker
It's been more organic than that. So after Hounslow, it was GPT was the next one. And so that was one that we'd been looking at, certainly been looking at for a long time. And so having ah having the trail built, so rewinding back to my tourism industry days, um seeing that Parks Victoria had built this 100 mile trail We were certainly looking at it and interested in it.
00:33:52
Speaker
Interesting speaking to the person at who was head of Parks Victoria at the time. I'd previously worked with them at, they used to be head of Phillip Island Nature Parks, the Penguin Parade.
00:34:03
Speaker
And also the commercial head, i used to work with them because they were head of the, previously head of the Flemington Racecourse or the the racing club. So, um, so it was interesting going into these conversations at parks and being like, Oh, I know you guys from other places.
00:34:21
Speaker
Um, let's talk about this. And, you know, having them actually say, quote, you know, we built it a hundred miles because we were aware around the world that there were a hundred mile races and we thought this might possibility. And Colin and I are just like, Oh, okay, this is on here. um Clearly, then there were other people that had the same idea. So they did put ah an eoi out, they put a request for quote out. And so we had to hustle around the concept of we we better we've asked for this, so we better put our best foot forward in there. So, you know, getting the support letters, talking to all the different councils, talking to the tourism board. And hopefully I knew the people at the tourism board um from previous work as well um and able to just build on some of those foundations. And so it's been really nice in some ways that some of those things that have happened five, 10 years before, you can build on them ah at a later point, build on those connections. And so, yeah, I remember i remember the the process that we had like a two-week window to get this in and then we found out like the week before Christmas,
00:35:27
Speaker
basically, yep, you've got the gig. And then it was a bit of a change from, oh we've got the gig to like, oh no, now we've kind got the gig. yeah You know, that classic sort of win the win the job and then got to deliver the job kind of cycle. I think it's been interesting to people because I i doubt there's that many other events, and and you may know this, I definitely don't, where a specific trail has been constructed and they've set out an EOI, an expression of interest for an event director or event organization to come and run an event on there. So for people listening, that's probably a bit of a novelty. They might have just assumed that that you just started the event.
00:36:04
Speaker
No, no, it was it it is virtually all Parks Victoria land except for the two spots where we go into um the Halls Gap Visitor Centre in Halls Gap, which is the Northern Grampians and then the Dunkeld Visitor Centre, which is in Southern Grampians. The rest is Parks Victoria land. And so I suppose that gave them some remit as well to say, hey, we've got an asset here.
00:36:30
Speaker
um how we going to decide this? But also we've got three or four different interested parties. Well, they told us they had three or four interested parties. Might have just been us.
00:36:41
Speaker
How are they going to decide? Like how, you know, what's their commercial, what's their, I guess, comfort because they do have this asset that they've they've been able to spend millions of dollars on. How do they make sure the business that does do it does a good job? And I suppose that was part of that request for quote sort of period or or tender submission process that we went
Market Potential and Strategies
00:37:05
Speaker
through. Yeah.
00:37:06
Speaker
In your conversation since with people at parks that you know, do you know what it was about your submission that made them think that you guys would be the right organiser? Because even if there wasn't another organisation trying to battle against you, they still have to trust that you're going to do it correctly and take it in the direction that they want, which is to be, I'm assuming, one of the world's premier trails.
00:37:26
Speaker
I think that the feedback was around certainly the thoroughness of the submission. It was ah it was a chunky submission in terms of the locations. We thought about the aid stations. We thought about the timing. We thought about the time of year.
00:37:40
Speaker
We'd already had conversations with them around suitable times of year to avoid total fire ban days, to avoid burn-offs, to avoid snow or wet weather, to avoid peak you know peak shoulder or shoulder periods of tourism. so yeah it i so I think the comprehensive nature of the event, of the submission, um the plan, it was very ready to go in their words. um So it wasn't, ah you know, that that had a lot of confidence. Yep, next November.
00:38:13
Speaker
there there can be an event here, not after this, there'll be some more conversations, number one. And also number two, ah we had some good runs on the board in terms of Dandenong Ranges with the local rangers there and also Buffalo Stampede with the rangers out there as well. So I think that it helped in terms of some of that work as well as the other work we'd done. But again,
00:38:39
Speaker
we didn't get a lot on that and there was a lot of work in the first year around trying to make sure that we were being as sensitive to the environment as possible and not trying to not try to make the gpt into something it's not and to make it really respect the environment and the area out there As Singletrack Events is building in these first three years, as you've already mentioned, Tour de Trails has been around for ages, Rapid Ascent as well. They're probably two of the bigger businesses in Victoria from a trail running perspective.
00:39:13
Speaker
What's the perception and and the um how well is Singletrack being received by other events and during this time? Especially because of now where you've but where you've got to.
00:39:24
Speaker
Yeah, good question. I'm not sure. You'd probably have to ask them, but maybe that's a podcast for next week. No, um look, ah I've always tried to keep a good relationship going with Chris Ord. I think that Chris is amazing and i love his events. I think there was certainly a period there with...
00:39:46
Speaker
With Buffalo and with Rollercoaster, probably my sense was, oh, great, that's fine. They've just continued on doing what they've always done. That's fine. Hounslow, well, that's not really in our patch. Excuse me.
00:39:58
Speaker
Whereas I think when we started GPT, that that ruffled some feathers because of the timing of the year. And I know there was not just from other race directors, but just from the community, why do we need another miler in November?
00:40:13
Speaker
Totally appreciate that viewpoint. Not just us, but Cozzy was just starting up around a similar time or maybe... Cozzy was 21. 21, yeah. Yeah, so it's sort of around that time. If it wasn't in December, it was late November.
00:40:28
Speaker
um But as I just mentioned before, when we went through that process with Parks Vic and the other stakeholders, the only time we could run this race was basically in November. We had three weekends and... ah they ended up being the first two were on the same weekend as Energy Breakthrough. So I was involved with all the planning and everything and I didn't even go to the event. And ah they're sort of saying, you know, that I could see the Facebook pages. We could see that people were like, oh, these dates are really inconvenient. And I'm like, yeah, no kidding. It's inconvenient for me too. I can't even go So um that that was pretty awkward kind of even being in all the planning meetings with everyone and then telling people like, oh, by the way, I'm not actually going to be there.
00:41:12
Speaker
They're like, what are you doing? It's like, oh I've got this other other event that I work on. So, um yeah, ah that's all I can sort of see. I think we've, um I'd like to think we've tried to stay in our lanes a little bit, but, you know, we've all got to pay the bills at the end of the day, don't we?
00:41:32
Speaker
For sure. And I think that, again, there's a bigger conversation here and and actually may as well have it. My perception at the moment is that the trail running event space is at that brink of saturation where in some cases, at some distances and in some locations, I do think that we we maybe have too many. But I also think that you're going to see that the people, the the event organizers that put the best experience on are the ones that are going to keep getting supported.
00:41:59
Speaker
Um, because ultimately we can go and run the trails whenever we want. A hundred miler is a bit different because doing that supported going from A to B is is tricky, but going running a 20 K most people that are running these trails can go and do that on a Saturday or Sunday. So you're paying for the experience, paying for the atmosphere, the event, the race, et cetera.
00:42:16
Speaker
What's your opinion on the, how many races exist within, um, we'll focus on the Victorian in new South Wales side of things. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Look, I've been thinking about another event, adding another event, and I'm stuck a little bit because I can't really find a clear weekend. So I i concur, it is really busy um I think what the GPT experience and and scheduling that taught me was that what is happening in another part of the state is completely like the park ranges there um and the planning and the timing is completely separate to what's happening in another national park and in another part of the state. So even if you've got something happening over here,
00:43:06
Speaker
um in the grampians and you've got something in the alpine area and you've got something in the dandenongs you got something in gippsland like they're completely the parks are completely separate yeah um i am interested looking at the numbers who were doing let's take melbourne marathon for instance what are they clocking 30 000 40 000 athletes i think it's about about there yeah Let's spitball and say there's 40,000 athletes. And then UTA is the next ah utah is the biggest trail running event in Oceania at about 8,000. So that's telling me that there's 32,000 people out there who like running enough to enter and pay money for a race but aren't doing a trail run. So...
00:43:49
Speaker
Yes, there is saturation, but on the flip side where there's a whole other market out there that's not converting from road to trail and that's a big market opportunity out there or a big opportunity full stop um for people to come across and... um Yeah, ah most fun runs most fun runs I see in towns and communities are generally around that 1,000, 1,500 people mark, where there seems to be a lot of trail runs that are 500, 600, 1,000. know Run the Gap was at 1,500 a couple of weeks ago in in Halls Gap, and that had 1,500, and they were like, that's record numbers. I was like, that's actually quite awesome.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah. But, you know, there are other fun runs pretty nearby that are doing a couple of thousand people. So I think that it's in some ways, yep, on one hand, the weekends are busy because we can be seen as trying to all get in the same market. Mm-hmm.
00:44:54
Speaker
But on the other hand, maybe we just need to work together to grow the market. Yeah. I think one thing that I've observed with Buffalo in the time that I've been involved in Buffalo is that back when my brother was doing it in kind of 2014, 2015, it was niche. Like people who were in the trail scene, and you and I have spoken about this before, you and i we'd heard of it.
00:45:16
Speaker
But we're into trail running, so we knew about it. But what I've noticed in the last couple of years is that people would be like saying to me, hey, I'm going to Bright. Are you going to Bright for Buffalo Stampede? And I'd be like, yeah, I kind of have to. I'm working there.
00:45:29
Speaker
like They're talking to me about it or people are saying, oh, you know, can you believe Bill's going to go and run 42K in Buffalo? what like what ah We've broken out of the niche into the mainstream with that particular event. um And so I feel like there is...
00:45:46
Speaker
I feel like there is room to grow. I don't i don't think we're probably in ah in a world where we can say to people, hey, James, don't run these events, please, in November or, hey, Nigel, don't run these events in October. I just don't know if that's necessarily going to happen.
00:46:01
Speaker
Okay, so that's i I really appreciate that view you because it makes me rethink what I just said about the saturation. Because you're right, if we can get the people, then we probably need more events because there's always going to be a capacity limit. like There's only so many people you want to have on a trail at one time. um If Buffalo has recently been able to break out of that niche, and I know this is a conversation you also have around roller coaster given its proximity to Melbourne. Yeah.
00:46:25
Speaker
What do we need to do as a sport? What do event organizers need to do to also break out of the niche of hardcore trail running fans and attract those 32,000 people that are doing Melbourne that potentially haven't come across? Yeah, I think part of it is not glorifying the long distances. You know, there's not that many people out there who want to go and sign up for 100K or they think it's, um you know, too hard for them.
00:46:53
Speaker
um Part of the challenge in the 20K, like the 20K at Buffalo Stampede is a really hard twenty k um But it's it's an awesome challenge. It's a really awesome challenge to do. So I think we need to be clearer with that message and that option. um I think we need to really communicate that it's not about the splits. you know It's not about the times.
00:47:17
Speaker
ah And I think we need to think about what are our 20-year-olds doing because there is a massive gap. Like we are really big gaps for our 20-year-olds to our 40-year-olds in terms of trail running.
00:47:29
Speaker
said Off the top of your head, do do you know roughly what that gap is? or what what the percentage gap is. Yeah. Yeah, it tends to be off the of my head, it's like 15% of the audience is in that 20 to 40-year age group. And then after that, it goes higher. And wow partly that's because the races are expensive, the place, you know, relative to young run, like, you know, you can go and do your 5K fun run for $25 or something like that. Mm-hmm. But also, is that can be you need a lot of time to train is probably the big one. Like people who are working in a nine to five and have two kids or, ah you know, ah struggling to make ends meet, find it hard to take 10 or 20 hours a week to go training. So I think that's some of the factors that... knock out that 20 to 30 age group. And then after that, they're like, oh, well i've got I'm an empty nester now, so I took up ultra running and see you in the hills. So,
Importance of Partnerships
00:48:29
Speaker
yeah, like it's... and And you've got to afford all of the gear, you all the mandatory kit. it's it's not um It's not as cheap as we would like. And so that's probably another thing. Like if we could get better at communicating around like a 20-kilometer race and say you don't need all of the mandatory gear under the sun,
00:48:49
Speaker
it's going to be a great experience and you'll see some great views when you get to the top then i think that's a spot to sell and mandatory gear is always an interesting one because the roller coaster i'd guess it's mobile phone a flask maybe and that's kind of it it's really minimal minimal but then buffalo you're in a different terrain different environment has to be a bit a bit more involved into that um When you get people that turning up, like do do they have an option to buy this stuff? Because I feel like one of the one of the barriers, people just don't know, or they wouldn't even pay attention to the messaging to be like, what's mandatory gear? Why do I need to carry this?
00:49:26
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we do now. And partly that's been something we've been building up on time in time, but also we've more recently partnered with Paddy Pallon. And so part of that partnership with them, which is really smart, is that they sell all of the gear that people will need. So um if they want to, they're at all of our races now. So people, you know, they come and they don't have the right jacket or they don't have a flask or they don't have whatever they can get it there so that's definitely something we weren't doing in year one in year one it was like not try the bright pharmacy um for a snake bandage so yeah yeah they've sold out of snake bandages pretty quickly pretty quickly um you mentioning paddy palance you were
00:50:07
Speaker
brought up something that you said in another podcast that I remember. And it was talking about the partners being a way to establish ah authority in the market, essentially, and how that early days when you were starting at Buffalo, you weren't getting much from, i think back then it was like Hocker and Fix. um yeah but But it established that authority within the community community. As we build to kind of where we've where we've got to at GPT kicking off for the first year,
00:50:35
Speaker
how big has that partnership element played a role in the growth of Singletrack? Yeah, it's been really significant for us, definitely. And also not just, I think the credibility piece is there, but then it helps us, you know, someone like a Paddy Pallon, it then helps us to talk into different stores and talk into different audiences as well. Certainly having, ah so we've got Pure on board now and they've been really fantastic. And um not only that, but ah we quite like their, their,
00:51:08
Speaker
product So that's good. It's a good thing. Yeah. And then getting you getting alongside ASICS. We've been with ASICS for a number of years as well, um with particularly Buffalo Stampede and GPT. And that was really helpful. And that also set the case up to get state government funding to help um us also get across the line in terms of the World Trail Majors ah piece with GPT. So there was a lot of steps to that ladder.
00:51:36
Speaker
yeah Interesting. Okay. i I always find interesting. As someone that thought they understood it, like even just the the the gateway into the state government funding, like I wouldn't have thought that that would have A would have led to B in that sense. So GPT, you get given the or like the green light for it. Yeah.
00:51:53
Speaker
At this point, you have changed Buffalo from 75 to 100K, but it's still the cutoff of Buffalo 100K. do you do you know the time of top of your head? That it was or it is now?
00:52:05
Speaker
Let's go was. Yeah, I think it was 24 hours at the time. Yeah, so 6 till 6. So 24 hours and I'm pretty sure the first cutoff for GPT, it might still be the same, was 52 hours. Yes.
00:52:19
Speaker
That's a significant jump in the amount of time that you have to staff, like you have to get the supplies, you have to get the volunteers out there, you have to get... as someone that was the person that was doing it all the you were doing it James yeah yeah there's a significant jump that putting on 100 mile even over 100k does make for the business so you guys actually going like no we wish we want to to go for this start 100 mile and then now you've inherited Alpine challenge you've had 100 mile as well like there's you're kind of got to them now they take a lot out of you so was there ever consideration of like do we really want to be taking on this do we want to make this step forward
00:52:55
Speaker
ah I don't think we were ever going to step back from the fight. Often at at look at 3am in the morning, I often question my um my sanity around these sort of things. damn, if only we'd change the cutoff. But you've hit the nail on the head and I i don't think that many people who are involved um on the participant side, and and why would you? You don't really need to know how the sausage is made. You just want to eat the sausage. um would realize that that is like four shifts of people. Like there's the the Friday morning shift, the Friday night shift, the Saturday shift, the Saturday night shift, and then the Sunday shift to kind of get it going. you've got people cycling through. So it ah explodes the number of people you need, something like GPT where there is
00:53:48
Speaker
11 on-course aid stations and a start and a finish that explodes the number of materials and gear and vans and trailers and drivers have said things that you need and it becomes very expensive very quickly to do that or to do that well um versus ah the alternative which I suppose is yeah pack all your stuff and we will will give you water at the spots we have always tried to do really high service aid stations and that does come back through in our feedback surveys people really love our aid stations and just having things that they need having volunteers who are really proactive so
00:54:27
Speaker
that's how we wanted to do this GPT, as you know, because you were driving a van at 2 in the morning um at one point. So that's really been something. But that was a big jump. And I think then once we'd made that jump, we then, you know, very quickly the eyes were open of, oh, yeah, milers are a different beast, particularly point-to-point milers.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. With so many aid stations, which is a byproduct of the experiences. It's even though GPT, you have the minimum requirements, it's quite accessible because you have such frequent aid stations and so many of them can be crewed as well, like at the end of each stage. So it does really open that experience up and it is nice to see, and and you guys aren't aren't the only ones, but to have those longer cutoffs that do allow people, um like I think I was, I was at one of the aid stations, uh, about think it was Jimmy Creek from memory. Yeah, I'm gap anyway, towards the end and people that are coming through towards the towards those cutoffs and and they're they've been out there already at this point for 45 hours or so, but they are just so grateful for the opportunity to be out there to do this because if the cutoff was 48, they would never have invented because they knew they weren't going to make it. And I think it really does...
Role of Volunteers
00:55:38
Speaker
It comes at a cost because you have to do the logistics, you have to staff that, but it does also open up that that gateway. So i'm and I'm assuming that was part of the consideration when you did decide this is what the customer's going to be.
00:55:49
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. One thing is ah that, so Joe Dorff is part of our team and um Western States finisher, um as well as past Buffalo Stampede winner. So when he won Buffalo Stampede in 2021, we, um you know, pulled his collar and said, Hey, can you come and do some work with us?
00:56:10
Speaker
And Joe ah is amazing at course design. He's also really amazing at calculating the running splits for runners. You know, secret stealth ability of Joe to be able to be like, he will tell you where the fastest runner is and the slowest runner is going to be within a few minutes.
00:56:32
Speaker
Admittedly, Caleb Olson at last year's, we went out the water a bit, but we were sort of following it. Oh, they're half an hour ahead of schedule. They're an hour ahead of schedule, sort of thing down the run.
00:56:44
Speaker
But you know he can just work, he has got that ability um to work that out. And so Colin set the big picture. I'm doing all the permits and the paperwork and the the race direction and Joe doing course design and calculations.
00:56:59
Speaker
That's generally how the split of the different things have been. But I agree. I think people do really appreciate that. And one thing we also want to do, it's a day of stewardism, but celebrate the reverse champions.
00:57:11
Speaker
So really be there until the last person and make sure the PA is still on and make sure the signage is still up and those sort of things. And, I have heard not so much from trail, maybe from other sports or other fun runs where, you know, the last runners are coming through and they're already packing back up, packing down the fences and they've just got a little timing map for you to run across and it's, there's nothing there. And, you know, people, people get offended by that stuff. And so I pick that up over time to try to make it so that everyone's experience is, is valued. Yeah. yeah As you would do, you've worked your,
00:57:45
Speaker
ass off to get to the finish line and essentially they've said well you've taken so long that we've dismantled it because we don't really care about you it's not going to exactly leave a ah positive experience as we walk away and and we're seeing it the golden um western states with their golden hour is like the time when everybody descends it sometimes appears that there's more people at track then than there is for the first finisher no co-cadona and a lot of the 200 miles off they're really celebrating dfl the dead swear word last freaking last uh so like there is there is a real don't know hype and buzz around celebrating the entire pack which i think is is awesome and i think it's yeah creating and again when we come back to that experience that i think is going to make events stand out from the rest it's it's not just the experience for the elites or even the mid pack it's the experience for the backpack um that are getting the most out of it in in some ways speaking to the volunteer side and this is something that i was really opened up to when i did the work with you guys is how integral volunteers are and also how it there's almost like there's a core group of volunteers that just do like every event or that same event every year and you have your real leaders um that that do help organize it but i
00:58:56
Speaker
I feel like it's easy to, and I definitely do lose sight of how events won't happen without the volunteers. Because if you had to if you had to pay a full wage to every person that was on course helping out, it can never, ever work.
00:59:10
Speaker
So yeah, vo whatever you feel like is is relevant for here, like how important are volunteers to you and and like how how much does that mean the events can actually go ahead? Yeah, so we've had Julie as a party from Dandenong Trail Runners. She's been our volunteer coordinator for a couple of years now. So I remember we got through a roller coaster run and she'd come and volunteered with us there because it's in her home patch. And I just put a couple of posts on my Facebook and I think we put it out to some of the volunteers and said, hey, we need a volunteer coordinator because, you know, as the events are growing, we need more people. We need someone to sort of coordinate all of this. So it's been about five years she's been doing that. Yeah, she was involved before I was. so it's Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and she's about to take up a ah bigger role with us as well, which is exciting. But ah totally 100%, you know, if you were to charge pay everyone, if they charged us all rates, then, you know, the events would go ahead, but it would cost people $10,000 to invest. And it would be crazy. But it's really rewarding for us. We get to, you know, g gleam some of these different experience for people. um i i hope it's generally rewarding for the volunteers because they get to, you know, play a little role in the person's weekend and helping them get to the finish line. Yeah. I have always enjoyed that we give people race credits, we give them T-shirts, even if some of the T-shirts are a bit ugly, but we give them to them anyway, um hats, that sort of stuff, just to make them feel valued as a volunteer.
01:00:50
Speaker
um I know other events do that too, and I just think that's really important. And just having that experience and that opportunity. And I can think of you know times that I've volunteered for other events and I find can find it really refreshing that I'm not in charge, if that makes sense. Like I can go and I can just stand on an aid station or stand on a corner in somewhere and just say, hey, James, you got to run that way. Or, you know, I read numbers ah names off the bib and just cheer. I can find it really refreshing. And I wonder if that's reflected for other people as well, that they don't have any sense of responsibility or pressure.
01:01:27
Speaker
They can just come and be a part of people's weekends and and fill up their cup and in participating. And we have people who are injured who come and participate as a volunteer, all sorts of different things. And sometimes people, um you know, they don't want to be involved for the 10 months leading up, but they really want to be a part of it at the weekend. So it's really cool. We do have a really good core of regular volunteers who are with us all the time, which are just great.
01:01:57
Speaker
Great. I think what you touched on towards the end there is it's a great way to stay connected to the community if you're unable to run for whatever reason. like And I think it it can be easy to think that you've lost the ability to be part of an event when you have your hamstrings gone or whatever whatever the the
Trail Team and Elite Engagement
01:02:13
Speaker
issue is. But it is it gives back in a way that event organizers are so grateful for and and it's such a cool experience especially if you're normally towards the middle of the back and you get to actually watch what happens at the front or if you're normally at the front and you actually get to see what the people at the middle of the back are are going through like it's it's a great way to get perspective of the whole of the trail running community which is yeah to me is a pretty awesome way to see it
01:02:36
Speaker
Absolutely. And our trail team. So a couple of years in, we created ah a trail team. So a non-elite trail team for people who are in the trail community to, they get some race entries, they get some kit, they get some gear. We we do some training.
01:02:54
Speaker
you know, activities and some learning and development and things like that with them. But that's an aside. Part of what their commitment is as being part of this trail team is that they do some volunteering with us and sometimes that's sweeping, sometimes that's on the aid stations and some of them are really great runners and hearing from them exactly what you said, James, is that they will be like, oh, wow, the people, the midfielders, they're having a great time or, you know, these kind of relationships and things that are built up. It can be really eye-opening for people.
01:03:24
Speaker
to see other people. And I suppose when you're in a race, you're only getting your own experience and you're only seeing what you're seeing on the field at that time and being able to stop and watch and and be in a different position, you get a a broader perspective, suppose.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. Siobhan sheron an I were at the bottom of, is it Dodd's track roller coaster? Yeah. We were at the bottom of that for the 12K last year and it was hilarious. The amount of swear words that were coming out and it did get progressively worse as we kind of got through the pack. Uh, and yeah, it just, i know. We were just brought to this point of like the community is just so cool and it's like people out there doing stuff that really challenges them.
01:04:03
Speaker
And that they can throw out quite a few negative words at it, but every single one just turned left and went up the hill. Yeah, that's right. And we're still doing it. Yeah, it is cool, isn't it? Yeah.
01:04:16
Speaker
Since you've mentioned the the the trail team, i was trying a work out in my head which one came first, the trail team or the World Trail Majors. But we regardless, that start let's start on the on the trail team. So I think that there's potentially a misconception that it's meant to be this sub-elite team that Singletrack is trying to support to kind of bridge the gap to become an actual sponsored athlete. but from what I understand and what I've heard you say is that that's not the purpose of it yes you have some good runners on there like you this year you've got like Pat Clark for example the youth sky running championship last year you had the Barnett brothers um but you've kind of got the whole spectrum of people in the community so when you guys were envisioning the trail team why like what was the purpose purpose of it what what was the goal you're trying to achieve with it
01:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, so we do have prize money for elites. And so that's definitely one side covered. ah We could see that there are a lot of athletes out there who aren't getting sponsored, who maybe would like to be sponsored.
01:05:15
Speaker
But fundamentally, what it comes back to with the trail team is that it's not those things. So it's not for the elites elite elites who are necessarily going to be winning the prize money every week. And it's not for those who are in a stepping stone for brand sponsorship, although some of those people might be in there. It's actually part of our way of having a community within the big, big community of trail running. And so we um have tried to put together here a mixture of younger people who are coming into the sport and then older people who are experienced in the sport, um not necessarily even experienced by age, sometimes just knowledge and experience.
01:06:01
Speaker
And so trying to do a few things, trying to tell stories more authentically. So that was one thing um because it is so easy in a comms point of view to be just telling stories of the elites of the podiums. And one thing we really wanted to do here was start to tell stories of people all through the pack, all through the bunches. We wanted to encourage women and girls in trail running equally. So there's equal number of men and women in the trail team as well.
01:06:34
Speaker
And we also wanted to really, as we spoke about before, there's this big gap of people aged adults. really 18 to 40 in the sport. So this can be a way for some of those athletes that you mentioned before, the Barnetts, Pat Clark.
01:06:52
Speaker
There's some others who I can't remember off the top it. Yeah, we were talking to – we had Bridget Lahn on the main show this week. Yeah, cool. Perfect example of, you know, let's give them a platform to perform and support them and tell their stories, really get around them and – participate alongside them and say, yep, these are free entries to all of our single track events. We will find accommodation if we can for you as well. And we will connect you with some more experienced athletes that can provide some mentoring or can provide some ideas and some tips and things like that and a community, you know, within and then hopefully those people stay in the sport into the future. So there are a few of the things that we've tried to do with the trail team um as as well.
01:07:39
Speaker
So we're into the second year of the trail team. Now they launched 2025, Buffalo 2025 was like the the big reveal essentially of the first team. What did you learn in 2025? What have you implemented in 2026? And is there anything you see that you want to be developing with this team into the future?
01:07:57
Speaker
So one thing that we one thing that we learn is that if you give people a platform to tell stories, they'll tell stories. So that's one thing we learned the first year around. Second thing is that people in all sports but also in trail are craving community but sometimes don't necessarily know how to build that. you know How do we do that as individuals? But if you can form a collective, you know they were really great at doing They were really, really great at forming bonds with one another or travelling or volunteering or doing different things. So that was really good. um Kate Avery, um and who some listeners will know, she is the queen of the trail team. So she helps pick...
01:08:43
Speaker
the um trail team members along with Joe and some others in the team. And so one of the things that we're looking to work on this year is more opportunities for ah them to do some learning about either trail technique or equipment or dinners together or strength and conditioning. So some more of that learning opportunities for people.
01:09:07
Speaker
guest speakers those sort of ah opportunities and ideas uh and also now we now have um more events so they can participate in more events as well so that that's part of it i i think that without doing anything else we now have um them to now come and either be a part of these other events that we've just taken on or they can volunteer at these events as well so yeah so i think from memory the initial ah agreement was they had to be at three events whether racing or volunteering is that still the same but now you just have 13 to choose from not four pretty much yeah i think that we uh we might have made it four events or something like that um but really you know it's not uh you know don't tell them but we're not going to kick them out of the team you know if they don't break their arm and they don't listen you know But, you know, that's an expectation that you can't just join this tail trail team and then not show up. You know, you need to do something for your free ASIC shoes and your free ASIC kit, you know, and your free entries. yeah um So they need to do something in terms of that. But... Yeah, so that has broadened things out and I think, you know, I so ah last saw them at Wilson's Prom. It was the first time a lot of them went to the Wilson's Prom 100 and, you know, they were raving about the the experience at the prom. So I think it was a clear winner for them.
01:10:32
Speaker
Yeah. Before, as we were introducing that, you also mentioned the elite side of of the sport in the sense of you guys are, and as I said right in the intro, We, we almost feel Brody and I were always talking at the start of the year, like, okay, we, which events do we think we're going to be previewing because they're going to draw enough of a. Enough depth, at least in one distance to be worth more than just a main show.
01:10:54
Speaker
And it is UTA it's cozy. And then it's just literally like the marquee single track events. And then we're always keeping an eye on some of the other events like KMR transcend, um, diverge this year.
01:11:06
Speaker
which ironically just said again, do they're both Lincoln events and then then transcend on the side. But like there's, yeah, there's a few marquee ones, but we're talking specifically on the competitive side at the front end.
01:11:17
Speaker
For that to be the case, you guys must be putting a focus to a degree on developing the front side of the field as you are with putting prize money there. So what is the incentive to an event organizer to actually celebrate and to provide prize money that's got to come from somewhere else?
01:11:31
Speaker
And also how does that impact the rest of the field? Good questions. We have had lots of discussions around price money, particularly in early years. Well, every year when you know you're not making a lot of money out of events, and that's one thing where you think, oh, you look at all the costs and all of the mandatories, your medical, your traffic, your closures, your permits, all of those sort of things.
01:12:01
Speaker
um And then you get down to u the money that we gave away to the people that won. Interesting. But I think that it's about um encouraging. It is about encouraging that top end of the field and making a platform for them to come, number one. um So we will have a reach out program or we do have a reach out program and Joe generally looks after that. Colin looks connects with a lot of athletes as well to speak with different athletes about who's coming. i think it does from our point of view and remembering that we have racer background or competitive background, even though I'm not very competitive anymore, I'm putting my hand up. um
01:12:45
Speaker
You know, I just think that's something that gives the event some credibility around when you look at a podium and I look at podiums and I think, oh, well, like you've made it on the podium, but there was probably only like a couple of decent people there, if I'm brutally honest. But if you look at a podium and you're like, oh, man, that race was 10 or 12 deep, like, oh, that's exciting, really. That's exciting. And also from a popcorn racer point of view, like sometimes when you see some of these athletes come together on course and they're running down the big walk together at Buffalo or coming through the lap at roller coaster together and you're just thinking, how is this going to play out? I don't know who's going to play.
01:13:25
Speaker
That's so... compelling from our point of view from actually watching and and enjoying the race point of view and I think that prize money helps you know from a from a genuine point of view people are um giving up time and work and employment opportunities to train for these races so I think that's really important to do. So we do have prize money at our marquee races, our marquee races being Buffalo Stampede, Hounslow, Rollercoaster and GPT.
01:13:54
Speaker
And at our other events, it's generally prize gear from sponsors, which tends to be shoes and product and those sort of things. And that's not saying that as part of that outreach program that we have, we still offer free entries, complimentary entries to athletes of elite nature, um you know, depending on, and Joe's such a good sport watcher. He generally will know, or Colin and I will know their position in the field. So, yeah, I think it's, I think you do want part of that top end experience, particularly for people to be racing one another.
01:14:30
Speaker
You mentioned the credibility that it can bring to sort of that that top end, but to me, and this probably brings us nicely into live stream conversation, but when you have known names, like let's just say Kate, for example,
01:14:47
Speaker
When you have athletes like Kate on the start list and on the finish list, does that bring any more sponsorship dollars or any other interest into the event that could then impact the middle to the back of the field? Is there anything else we might not be thinking about? Generally, no, there's not more sponsorship dollars there. Although um if they are a ASIC sponsored athlete, then that is always good from a marketing and PR and just passing back to that sponsor.
01:15:18
Speaker
I think for ah for some people that is of interest having an elite there, but Fundamentally for the 80% of the field, um they're not swayed either way by having that athlete there. I don't i don't believe they are. um I don't think necessarily our names our names in Australia are necessarily big enough to know. um So, example, Caleb Olsen at GPT last year, like most punters down the street don't know who Caleb Olsen is, you know, even though he's...
01:15:55
Speaker
amazing you know and i like gpt as well dan jones from new zealand you know i was looking after the stage race last year so i'm giving him a lift back to halls gap and um you know with my wife and uh you know drop him off and she's like oh he was really nice i'm like yeah he's like in the top five in the world and yeah she doesn't know but um yeah it's interesting that elite factor but If we go back to, I suppose, where we started in terms of um our background in the sport, we feel like people should be rewarded for their efforts. And so that's part of the prize money piece for us. yeah that you know
01:16:35
Speaker
yeah If the shoe was on the other foot, if we were quality enough to be pushing for those positions, then we we think we would want to win some money. It sounds like essentially the end of the day, it just comes down to your values that you want to support this side of the sport. So you, to a degree, go out of your way to do so.
01:16:54
Speaker
Oh, 100%. hundred percent Yeah. And we we don't have to yeah but we want to. Yeah. And obviously, from our perspective on the podcast, we're incredibly invested in that side of the sport and wanting to see it grow both in competitiveness domestically, but also internationally. And one of the things that Single Track has also done, and I would, again, with the outside of the UTMB group, but they're obviously an international organization, is that you guys have been seen to bring internationals in by far the most. So what's the consideration with bringing athletes in, especially not outside of GPT, which is a World Trail Major, but something like Buffalo where we where we saw Esther Chilag and Fu Zhao this year. yeah
01:17:35
Speaker
Yeah. How does that all come into the pot? It's a good question. So ah with World Trail Majors, so a couple of years ago, GPT 100 joined the World Trail Majors series, which was – ah not necessarily part of our intention from day one, but as soon as we had seen that the World Trail Majors was coming together, we were very keen to make that happen. And then from there, Colin's really driven a lot of those international conversations with different athletes. Joe has as well. And we just think it adds so much to the races to have international participation there. And certainly when Esther won at Buffalo, like that was such a demonstration. Like it was just amazing. And we try not always work, but 90% of the time we try to tie that in for those people having a great experience. So with a little bit of a tourism lens, the people will generally come with their family, do some touring, go to some different places, visit some different locations while they're here.
01:18:47
Speaker
ah either hosted by us or some other tourism providers as well. So they're going and visiting some different things. Like, you know, I'm pretty sure Esther went to Ballarat and met up with Monaghetti, had coffee with Monners and stuff. So it's not just um it's not just us doing our thing. We try to tie in other ones of those things as well. And that's a linking in with part of that tourism experience as well is going, well, if they're going to come, let's make sure they have a good time while they're here. So again, i think it just really adds some great colour to the events as well. um Not cheap, I won't lie, but adds a lot of colour.
01:19:27
Speaker
But also it can, if there's points on the line, ITRA points, and I listened to your ITRA conversation the other day with Nicole Patton, if there's ITRA points, it can be in their interest to come out and run a Buffalo and score really well.
01:19:41
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah. Well, if we have time, we'll we'll come to the ITRA indexing. Let's talk about the intro. Okay. We'll leave that You'll have already nodded off by now, I'm sure. this but yeah i don't think I think people will find this really interesting because you are really pulling back the curtain on it. And I have a tendency to kind of go off on a few tangents, which would be definitely done, but it is,
01:20:06
Speaker
Most of the time I find that if I'm finding it interesting, our audience is is doing doing the same. At least that's the feedback we we've got. And I think it is fascinating to see how you go from this inception of a phone call and an idea of kind of bringing the team back together, but in a brand new sport, to the point where you are getting the likes of Esther Chilag and Caleb Olson and you're becoming a World Trail measure and you're creating ah a own team. You've got 13 events. like For that all to happen in essentially five years, it's a lot. It's a lot. And we've been talking for 18 minutes so far. And all I'm thinking to myself is like, we haven't even spoken about the Running Wild of events. We haven't spoken about Wonderland. We haven't really spoken about World Trail Mages. And I don't feel like we've wasted time. So there's just there's a lot that's happened in this time period that's kind of got single track to where it is. There is, that's right. And if anyone knows Colin Taylor, ah he will know, you know, you'll know that we don't stand still for very long.
01:20:56
Speaker
But I think also once we got that foundation around Stampede and Roller Coaster sort of set, I think we just felt like, okay, we can build on this foundation now.
01:21:07
Speaker
um And away we go. So yeah, running wild, we... um picked that up at the end of last year, end of 2025. So Paul Ashton, who was the founder and creator of all things Running Wilds here in Victoria, so not the New South Wales version to your interstate listeners. um So, yeah, he had six races and wanted to retire. And so we, um yeah, single track took them over from him and that's been a blast running those the last six, eight months. Exactly.
01:21:39
Speaker
A long-term conversation or was this more Paul going, I'm ready to move on, here go? Idea planted a long time ago, then wrapped up quite quickly in the end.
01:21:50
Speaker
Okay. And going from four events plus Puffing Billy, was like an adjacent, to then suddenly swallowing up another six, and and not really getting any time to work out what that's like. Like what what has this last six months been putting all that together?
Expansion and Adaptation
01:22:08
Speaker
It's been hectic. Yeah, it's been hectic. But it's also been really good in that ah from a staffing point of view and a people point of view that ah you know, we've got TIFF on board, TIFF looks after our medals and our merch,
01:22:25
Speaker
Susie looks after our customer service. Mark Dunstan looks after our socials. Ivan's joined us. He's now looking after our warehouse and all our transport. You know, with four events, three events, it's really difficult to keep people engaged. It's really difficult to have enough work, even on part-time. None of those people basically are on full-time, by the way. every Everyone's part-time and in different locations. It's really, really hard with for events to make it meaningful for people financially or even time-wise. So what it's meant having six more events is that, oh, now we can really get our teeth into this. This is really, we can keep people engaged and with us in a much more significant way, which has been really cool. So it has been a little bit of...
01:23:14
Speaker
relearning lots of things or maybe not relearning lots of things but just learning the different environments and the different locations um bulla bau bau wilson's prom kilcunda falls creek uh all really different locations um and razorback um mind you most people are relatively familiar with razorback it was probably the one that required the least um exploration, but um you know, that's different ranges, that's different local communities, that's different weather, that's different terrain, lots of different things. So similar template, but different locations. Yeah.
01:23:54
Speaker
I think a lot of people listening will be very intrigued because I know that this first year was pool like a handover period. Pool's still involved. You're very much taking it over and entries were already open. Everything's going on. And it's it's felt from the outside. and It might be just the way that the events have fallen with the exception of Alpine Challenge because you guys were dealing with ah horrendous conditions i was able i was entered in the twenty five k and i was like nap there's no way i'm going up there to do that but it it has felt like the momentum has built through those last five six months to the point where wilson's prom that one seemed to have it well it captured my attention as somebody that's never really looked at it for an event to do and now i'm like that looks really sick i kind of want to go do that and it probably was a testament to paul's social media side was never ah a big focus and it felt like a big focus and so you guys are putting much more emphasis on that um
01:24:43
Speaker
But the question is going to be what's what's running wild going to be in 2020? Well, starting back in this year, but 2027, you've now added Wonderland run at the end of August, which is kind of plugged a little bit of a hole for you guys as well from a time time perspective. um What is the plan with running wild? How does it fit the single track model?
01:25:01
Speaker
Yeah, it will feel very similar to what it has in the past ah year in terms of what Wilson's Prom looked like. So very much our team running ah running the event, think of it as a more stripped back, more raw wild experience, um not the what I would call the marquee event of of a stampede.
01:25:26
Speaker
So we are looking with Running Wilds to keeping it very similar to what the first season has been in terms of distances and dates and all of those sorts of bits and pieces. And yeah, we we love those sort of events. um They are very manageable for us compared to most other ones, which are a lot more involved in sorting to deliver. But Generally speaking, they're fantastic entry races.
01:25:52
Speaker
um On one hand, they're fantastic entry races. On the other hand, they're just really great races for experienced trail runners who want to really test themselves an environment where they've got to carry a lot of gear.
01:26:06
Speaker
So from our point of view, there's very minimal aid station support compared to what we're doing at our marquee races. And that means that you as the runner have to carry a lot more stuff and be a lot more prepared for that. So I think that's a really great stripped back raw experience. Like there's a safety net around you if things really go south, but generally speaking, you're out there in the wilderness having a run you're If I'm putting my own hat on and I'm thinking about what's my kind of ideal experience for enjoying some of these things, and that is kind of what it's like. Like I've never been to Baw Baw. I didn't go to this year's race. Joe did that one.
01:26:45
Speaker
I've never been to Bor-Bor, but if I was going to run there, I'd want to do it maybe as part of these races because I know there's a safety net around me if things go south, but also it's not it's it's not going to be all of the music and the bells and whistles and the PA announcements and the kind of the full intensity of the spotlight of a marquee race um and the big build-up. You can just go and just do them and enjoy it and enjoy.
01:27:10
Speaker
have a good time and get back to a bit of that um true nature of being in the wilderness, I think. So that's what people can definitely expect, similar um similar courses and similar things to this year with a little bit more refinement and a little bit more lead up. I think we took it over like start of November No, we announced it at GPT, the week of GPT, which was start of November.
01:27:37
Speaker
And our first race was first week of December. So as you sort of alluded to, there wasn't a lot of run up in terms of that. So where we started planning this week on those and we'll be opening entries pretty soon.
01:27:50
Speaker
Other there that that you can talk about now, are there any notable na date changes or distance changes, anything getting deleted, anything getting added that you can think of?
01:28:03
Speaker
At the moment, it's all as is, ah with the exception of Wilson's Prom. ah People who are familiar with Wilson's Prom, and I appreciate interstate or international listeners don't even know where that is. But if you've ever been down to Wilson's Prom, you'll know that Sealers Cove has been closed um or the track to Sealers Cove been closed about five, six years.
01:28:26
Speaker
I think Paul might have even told me like nine years. i don't know. It's a long time. Anyway, that's due to be reopened really soon. So there is consideration there with Wilson's Prom around reintroducing that. That used to be part of the courses.
01:28:41
Speaker
um That's probably the only change we're looking at. And that could turn it into a 60 year, There could be an 80. There could be some variation there. But watch this space. We really have to nut out with Parks Victoria when that gets open and then what that looks like. so But everything else, similar dates, similar distances, different. Yeah, we we really felt like, okay, we got the first season done, if you like.
01:29:08
Speaker
ah let's Let's run that again and see how the audience responds. And as a coach, the people I've had going to them, the experiences have been really positive, which... right i think it's been a nice addition to the trail running event space um and you now have as someone that lives on the northeast of of vic and access to that high country with razorback and with alpine challenge and i'm like just speaking to those you now have two of the most spectacular places to run an event and and and and then an event with a lot of heritage that dates back to the early 2000s for both of them yeah so
01:29:45
Speaker
I think there's a lot of people that are probably concerned it's going to go the way of a buffalo which has a very different feel which it sounds like it's not going to do that but also excitement that maybe there's uh any a new enthusiasm that's going to be put into these events and maybe we'll can see like a bit more that come comes of it because yeah ah the high country up here especially is pretty spectacular so all all four more more
International Ambitions and Challenges
01:30:07
Speaker
events and if you want to put another 100k on in the high country at any point we would really appreciate that where We're significant. Share love around, James. Yeah. yeah
01:30:16
Speaker
Yeah. it's It's tricky though. um I've got multiple athletes at the moment that are trying to find 100K in back end of the year that want to go to the high country. that They don't want to do the sort of Surf Coast, Great Ocean Trail Ultra or Black Hole, Black Hole.
01:30:31
Speaker
but they don't enjoy the atmosphere of UTMB events. It's too big. Buffalo would be the same thing for them. It's just a bit too big. And so they want the low key smaller race, but they want to be up in the mountains, but that you're only, you can only run an event there safely November through to March, April.
01:30:48
Speaker
Yeah. As you guys experience in April. So it does really close. it closes the window off, but I, put and I granted I'm seeing a small snapshot of it, but I would, would love another opportunity for it. Um, but that's just there.
01:31:01
Speaker
a little hint just put that in the suggestions box the podcast suggestion box for for any other audience listening they're like oh yeah we've been thinking about this like i am i am fully fully game for it um i am conscious of time nige but there's a couple of quick questions i want to finish off all areas uh we've spoken the world trail majors a little bit but the decision to pursue the world trail majors for gpt what was the impetus behind that who So we really wanted to elevate this race at in the Grampians beyond ah an Australian or audience miler.
01:31:41
Speaker
And in doing that, organizing and hosting milers is quite expensive. Mm-hmm. If we were just looking at the Australian audience around how many people in Australia are going to want to do a miler in November each year, um it probably isn't going to not be enough to be financially sustainable in the long term.
01:32:05
Speaker
So where are those going to people going to come from? They're probably going to come from overseas, i.e. they're probably going to come from your Chinas, um Japan, Vietnam, um France, some of these places that are within the World Trail Major network as well.
01:32:23
Speaker
And that is appealing to us. We really love having international athletes coming out here. We also, um that's also really appealing appealing to Visit Victoria as this is now something they can sell for international visitors to come to Victoria, to Australia as part of this. So that's the initial pitch around that, but that's part of our appeal, but also looking at those other races that are part of that World Trail Majors Series, there's some pretty awesome races in there. And so, linking up with them, being able to share ideas with them, being able to understand how they do things as other event race operators is actually really great for us as well. That's a bit of a great byproduct. And Colin's been able to go to a number of the other races.
01:33:12
Speaker
um Joe's been to Hong Kong. I've been to the Hong Kong race. um So having those different experiences as well is really great for us to learn, actually be like, okay, well, we have a bit of a sense of what's happening in Australia, but what's happening overseas.
01:33:28
Speaker
um And certainly trail running is is booming in China. And so being able to start looking at how do we bring some of those athletes, how do we compel some of those athletes to come out here?
01:33:40
Speaker
ah to Australia, to Victoria, to the GPT, this is the best model and method we can do with that. And so, yeah, I think it's been really fantastic for us in terms of a whole other story that we can talk about about this race's position in the world stage.
01:34:01
Speaker
One of the aspects that comes with a lot of the World Trail majors is the live stream. i know this is something that you are exploring. You were definitely exploring last last year, but the cost is significant.
01:34:13
Speaker
where is Where are you at with live streaming GPT or maybe Buffalo to the research you've done? Like what is the cost of putting this sort of thing on? and And yeah, are we anywhere near having a live stream for these sort of events? You would be frothing, James. I reckon you would love Live stream watch parties. They'd be happening everywhere.
01:34:33
Speaker
Look, we we would really love to do this. i I won't lie. We've been looking into it further. i um I literally, just while we spoke, I got a text message from someone saying, hey, can we talk about live streams your event? um I spoke to someone else on the phone last week about it. So okay um it's definitely in the pipelines and something that we have been looking into.
01:34:57
Speaker
There are some... really fundamental drawbacks or challenges, should I say, in the Grampians in terms of reception. yeah um People who have run there, people who have run in the Grampians will know that a large, large part of the course doesn't have ah very good reception, mobile reception. um And so then doing Starlinks and minis and different setups is really challenging, plus runners, plus a broadcast booth, all those sorts of things. So are we looking into it? Yes. Is anything confirmed for this year? No. Are we still looking into things? Yes. So yeah.
01:35:39
Speaker
If we want to do it, we want to do it really well. And so that is part of our consideration is that we know there could be a a shortcut solution to what we want to do, but we don't really want to do the shortcut solution, basically.
01:35:56
Speaker
In a dream state, something like at Buffalo with a bunch of bikes and a bunch of runners would be really cool to watch. You've got really good phone reception. You've got really good views. You've got really manageable course in terms of distance. And it's like in a two-hour to a two-hour 30 package. Yeah.
01:36:20
Speaker
Very compelling viewing. I think it could be really cool. Or the big, you know, the 42K coming down the big walk, you know, it's all there. It's something we'd like to do. i think at this point in time, we are really mindful that we haven't quite bitten it all off in terms of what we need to do to do it to the way that we want to do it.
01:36:39
Speaker
Yeah. The, when we were talking about the elite side of the sport, something that you had this year at Buffalo for the hundred K was the national championships oh as an organizer. And to to a degree, this ties into the prize money that ties into the live stream. What excitement, what reason do you have for trying to become a national championship event?
01:36:58
Speaker
And is there like, how do I put this? Is it something that you see the the the value in hosting? Like, is there enough hype behind that to make it worthwhile? no I despite their recent challenges and I'll speak for myself but I really admire what Autra is doing in terms of trying to um trying to unify the sport trying to promote the schmo sport trying to encourage the sport or people into the sport so in terms of that opportunity that is something we won't
01:37:32
Speaker
you know, we want to be a part of. We won't shy away from wanting to have a national championships. You know, there might be a world where all of the national championships are at Buffalo.
01:37:43
Speaker
um You know, we have the 100K, we have the marathon, we have a 20K championship there ah in the future. And I just think that is something that, is credible and is going to happen. If it's not going to happen at our events, then it will happen somewhere else. So from our building credibility foundations, if we want to have a deep competitive field, then we would want to strive to have the national championships at our event or at least put in a bid and say we are we are wanting to host host it And then it's up to Autra to accept that acknowledgement or
Prize Money and Youth Engagement
01:38:17
Speaker
not. But I know that at GPT last year, so that was the 100-mile Australian Championship as well. And, you know, even though the two winners, um even though the two Australian winners were beaten by internationals, man, they were so chuffed to be the Australian final champion. Like they were so chuffed. I was there doing the presentations and they were really chuffed to get those prizes. So I think particularly when you've got a race where there's internationals in it as well,
01:38:49
Speaker
for us to say yep these were the internationals and you know the aussies were nipping at their heels or maybe ahead of them um and this is a different podium i think that's a really great thing to do i think that orchard's got a a whole other swag of challenges to kind of overcome um which you know i've listened to the other podcasts about that um look back in the library if people want to dear listener if you want to listen to that but um Yeah, I think we just want to support what they're doing. I think also when we're talking to different funding bodies and organisations and councils for us to say, and this doubles as a national championship, well, that is also something for them to look at in terms of are they to support us or not.
01:39:33
Speaker
Yeah. For Buffalo, how would you do the uphill? How would we do the uphill? True question. Maybe up the big walk. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That could be cool because, yeah, I always think like you could go the steep way up to Port Punker, which is a completely different site, go back to the days. Yeah. But – Yeah, there's lots you could do there. Port Punker, we've been thinking about that site a little bit as well. Yeah, yeah there's there's options. There's yeah things. Yeah.
01:39:58
Speaker
The distance selection that you have at events, let's use Buffalo, 10, 20, 40, 200 K. There's obviously, there's a lot of consideration. you see in, I've been listening to the Centurion podcast with James Elson, the South Downs Way race director, one of the world trail majors. And a lot of their events are like single distance, like they're the South Downs Way 50. Then later they come back for the one hundred. Uh,
01:40:20
Speaker
at ah at all of your events you have multiple distances you've just in uh added on the 30k ish to gpt yep we were talking before about the the use side and then the um the prize money you have these you've made the decision to add these all these distances in but yet say for buffalo the 10k doesn't get any prize money yeah But we want to encourage youth side of the sport, which means we want to support the short distances. And so like as an race organizer, why don't you put any prize money down to that 10K and kind of celebrate those shorter distances a bit more?
01:40:55
Speaker
Yeah, true. Good question. I think there's probably still that point where the 10K and the 12K distances, ah you know, I don't know if prize money would quite match the depth of the sport. I guess it's chicken and egg, isn't it? I was going to say like you put in the You put in the prize money and then you come back with it as well. I think we've had to choose. We've had to be a little bit selective in what we can support. I think we'd like to...
01:41:22
Speaker
support a 10k as well if we could even with something and i want to think off the top of my head roller coaster might get something for the 12 but i can't remember off the top of my head but yeah i think it's definitely something for us to really think about like how we backing that in and how we're doing that um and how we're promoting that but at this stage we're just not there yet yeah It's an interesting thought process that if you were to say remove the prize money for the 100k and give it to the 10k, I'm sure that would ruffle a lot of feathers. Yeah. Well, did see the prize money at UTA just recently, the prize money for the 50k was the same as the 100? And I thought of dear friend Mike Dunstan from the Singletrack, our social media guy, and I was like, wow, Dan Jones earned the same amount as Mike, but Mike ran twice as far.
01:42:13
Speaker
um interesting that is saying that running further is harder but it's not yeah that's true if we if we have that mindset which is a historic mindset it's nothing against you like this is the trap that we're all falling into is that just because you run further you deserve to get more for it but why like yeah as somebody that prefers longer distances it would you'd have to pay me more to race the 10k in a marathon um so like i do i do think that that it's an it's it's an interesting thought process of of like why why haven't we and and i do think that having had the conversations if you were to
01:42:49
Speaker
even if you had let's say you had a 10 grand prize purse it's probably less than that but let's just say 10 grand and you split it across three at the moment if you split it across the four evenly but a bit less i don't think anyone would be mad and maybe this is an open question yeah it yeah it's like would would you care if you got a hundred dollars less for winning if that then supported the 10k that might bring some some younger athletes in because then they're like oh cool Yeah, that's right. and And I think we've just had to make a selection around well what are our premier events here versus yeah diluting the field. And I think you're right. And I think you're you're right about the glorification of the longer distances. And certainly winning that 50k UTA, there was a good field there as well. There was a good field in 100. But, you know, like they've had to run they've had to run hard to do that.
Innovation and Feedback
01:43:39
Speaker
And the same question is with the UTA 20K. There's significant prize money in the 50, 100, 100 mile, but there's jackal and They don't even get entries.
01:43:49
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. So it's a more of a state of the sport side of things, but um just an interesting thought. Nigel, I've got... A bunch more that I could could go on to, but i think I feel like this is where we should wrap up today. Is there anything we haven't touched on from a single track perspective or a state of the sport perspective or a Nigel perspective that you'd like to finish off on?
01:44:11
Speaker
Oh, wow. Broad question. There you Look, no, I think it's been a hell of a ride for us, like five years. I don't think we ever set out at the start when we took on Buffalo and Roller Coaster to do 13 events. um And, you know, but I think when you believe in what you're offering, i think that goes a long way. And I think that we have...
01:44:37
Speaker
try to stay curious but also not wander too much. So try to be curious about different events, try to explore different ideas, go to other races ourselves, participate in different things and try to learn and observe learn Sometimes we've tried a lot of stuff that hasn't stuck necessarily, like different, when we launched GPT, we did a postal campaign. We got everyone on our database and I think we posted out 8,000 flyers to people um doing a promotion. And, you know, would we do that again? Maybe not, but we tried it and it was great. You know, we just tried it and and people are sort of saying, oh, postal campaigns are dead. But when you've got a new race and you want to try something in terms of getting people's attention, getting a slip in the post that says, um you know, we're doing a spring campaign and something big is coming. um it's a cool way to kind of get people's attention. And yeah I think we've just had a lot of those things across the time where we've just tried things and if they haven't worked, then we've sort of buried them and moved on and that's fine and you can keep keep being curious about things. And um that's one thing I've definitely enjoyed as being a a race director and then also just meeting people all through the field, you know, from the... the pointy end right to the the reverse champions.
01:46:01
Speaker
um You know, the it's it's really great to just see people finding their own story or their own reason for running. And that might be for fitness or it might be for mental health, like i run for that.
01:46:16
Speaker
It might be for the community. Some people don't want to talk to anyone. yeah They don't the anti-community. yeah It's all different reasons. And I think if you're trying to hold that tension of going, we've got a whole lot of people here or sometimes we've got a handful of people here and they're all here for a different reason, um it keeps you on your toes because you're never sure what people are going to tell you, you know, do they? You're sort of going, oh, I didn't expect them to.
01:46:44
Speaker
Maybe not complain, but I didn't expect them to raise that as an issue. So you've got to be kind of open to that, those different ideas and things. So, yeah, we'll see where we'll see where single track goes in the future. Watch this space. so It's exciting. It's good for the sport.
01:46:59
Speaker
Definitely. i think that. having a having event organizers like yourself in the sport and that there are others out there as well which we'll talk to on the podcast in and time but it's it's it makes following the sport being part of the sport exciting and it also creates opportunities as a coach I wouldn't exist if there weren't races so it's uh it's it's a good community to be be a part of i really appreciate your time in the conversation and being open uh to to kind of pull back the curtain as we said earlier uh I'm sure we'll we' catch up at an event soon Hopefully see you on the start line. Good luck, James.
01:47:31
Speaker
Thanks, Nigel. All right. So that was Nigel from Singletrack Events. And again, Nigel, thank you so much for coming on. i really appreciate it. And I hope everyone listening does too. Obviously, as I said in the episode, I have a behind the scenes of Singletrack, but in events in general, I think it's easy for us as racers, competitors, as participants to turn up put a bib on go for a run, take gels from aid stations, and then head home without fully appreciating just how much sits behind the scenes to make these events happen.
01:47:59
Speaker
So again, a massive thanks to Nige for being so open with this conversation and for pulling back the curse single track, race directing, volunteers, the elites, of event growth, and where the sport might be heading. Now, I genuinely love to hear people's thoughts on this one as well.
01:48:12
Speaker
Whether you're at the front, middle, back of the pack, a volunteer, a coach, race director, someone new to trail running or someone who's been in the sport for years, what did you take from this conversation? Send us a message on Instagram, comment in the episode post wherever you're listening or let us know the next time you see us at a race. These are the types of conversations that really shape the sport and I think it's worth hearing from as many different corners of the community as possible. The sport is in a real growth phase in Australia and I want to help everybody share their voice with conversations like these.
01:48:42
Speaker
And on that, there's anyone that you want to hear from, whether it is a race director or any other person in our community, do let us know. I'm always happy to hear suggestions. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a mate. That really makes a difference to helping us grow and to reach more corners and make these conversations have even more purpose. Leave a rating or review and make sure you follow the podcast so you don't miss the next one.
01:49:04
Speaker
Thanks for listening and we'll see you out on trails.