Trail Run Conference: The Directors’ Cut

By TrailRunMag

What is the collective noun for a gathering of trail running race directors? Is it a mob? A gaggle? A herd? A gang? A horde? A rabble? A misery? Dan Lewis looks for the answer as trail race directors from across Australia and New Zealand congregated at day one of the first National Trail Running Conference being held in the Blue Mountains this week in conjunction with The North Face 100.

Whatever the collective noun of trail run race directors is (and we would love to hear your suggestions), there was one in Katoomba this week for the opening of the first ever Australian National Trail Running Conference.

The conference is part of the week-long festival of trail running associated with this weekend’s staging of the iconic The North Face 100 across the stunning Blue Mountains landscape.
It is the creation of Blue Mountains adventurer and TNF100 safety director Lucas Trihey along with emergency medicine and outdoor event safety expert Dr Ursula King.

Day one was Race Director’s Day and it attracted race directors from across Australia and New Zealand to discuss the issues surrounding their roles.

Conference speakers included TNF100 race director Tom Landon-Smith and US endurance event medical expert Dr Marty Hoffman. Delegates discussed everything from trail marking, mandatory gear and using volunteers to the planning needed to make a trail running race successful and safe.

Trihey, who provides the safety services on a number of trail running events, told delegates that trail running was booming across the globe, but not every event was booming because some were struggling to adapt to change and growing complexities and regulations.
“It’s a shake-out period as well as a period of growth,” Trihey said.

From fewer than 200 runners when it started in 2008 to more than 2000 at this year’s North Face weekend, Landon-Smith said it was vital to assemble a great team if the directors of big races were to avoid burning out.

Back in 2008 he and partner Alina did nearly everything themselves – “it was madness and I can’t do that now” – but in 2015 just marking the course will employ four people for about six days to get it done properly, Landon-Smith said.

Blue Mountains-based race director Sean Greenhill of Mountain Sports, which puts on races like the Glow Worm Tunnel Trail Marathon and the Buffalo Stampede, said the secrets to a successful trail running event included a “superstar finish” that left people energised and talking long afterwards (think Jenolan Caves at the end of the Six Foot Track Marathon), a location within three hours of a major population centre (think TNF100, two hours from Sydney), or at an established tourist destination (think Rotorua in NZ).

Greenhill also said race directors should adopt tactics like limiting the number of landholders they have to deal with to save time and money with negotiations and access fees.

There was also debate about medical exclusions and making people do qualifiers to obtain race entry.

Some race directors said they relied on the “scare factor” to discourage unprepared people from entering their events while others at the conference said they didn’t like to see any limits on public participation in trail running events. It was so important for the health of society generally to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to engage in the sport, they said.

There were also plenty of laughs at the conference as delegates recalled the many crazy things that inevitably happen at trail running races, like runners going missing despite supposedly bomb-proof course marking and marshalling.

Andy Hewat, race director of the unmarked Bogong to Hotham trail run, said he would like to see a grading system so runners knew what level of trail marking they could expect at different races.

Trihey said the one thing all race directors needed to remember when course marking is that “runners lose a lot of brain function”.

They are “tired, oxygen-deprived, brain-addled”, he said, and “you have got to expect that they are going to be stupid. Flagging tape is cheap and there’s no such thing as too much course marking.”

Tomorrow at the conference is Runner’s Day and will feature talks from the likes of elite athletes Hanny Allston, Brendan Davies and Jo Brischetto.

POSTSCRIPT: The National Trail Running Conference is set to become an annual feature of the North Face trail running festival in the Blue Mountains each year. And if you are already in the Blue Mountains for TNF100 this week don’t miss the Banff Film Festival of outdoor adventure flicks on in Katoomba over the next two nights plus the Trails in Motion trail running film festival screening on Thursday night.

Adventurer launches new trail conference

By TrailRunMag

Already one of Australia’s foremost adventurers and remote area outdoor event safety experts, Lucas Trihey is now staging the first National Trail Running Conference in May in the Blue Mountains. Trail Run Mag quizzed him about his latest big adventure. Interview: Dan Lewis.

SO TELL US, WHO IS LUCAS TRIHEY?
I’ve spent 30 years working in adventure. I’ve worked as a climbing and expedition guide and spent six years editing and publishing outdoor and adventure magazines. I’ve climbed new routes on cliffs and mountains all around the world and in 2004 I changed tack to explore Australia’s deserts and lead expeditions and small groups in the arid parts of Australia.

Lucas on one of his many epic adventures.

TELL US ABOUT SOME OF YOUR GREATEST ADVENTURES
My most precious memories are the more unusual and remote expeditions.
The Mt Chongtar expedition in 1994 in the Himalayas was as part of a team of just three climbers without sherpas or porters. We had good conditions and weather and pulled off the first ascent of the massive mountain – at 7400m it was the highest unclimbed mountain on earth at the time. My favourites was my 17-day, 400km solo trek across the SImpson Desert in 2006. I pulled a cart that weighed 160kg and I loved the solitude, the desert sky, the vastness of the landscape and not seeing any sign of other humans for so long. Being alone is a rare experience these days. I feel very priveledged to have had 17 days in such a wild place.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MOST EXTREME WILDERNESS SURVIVAL SITUATION?
In January 2000 I pioneered a 30-pitch rock and ice climb on Mt Scott North in Antarctica. This was a beautiful and technical climb and it almost became my tombstone. Half way up my climbing partner dislodged a small loose rock that knocked into a bigger rock, and then due to a nasty chain of collisions an even bigger rock was heading straight at me. I was tied to a belay ledge and couldn’t move as this wheely-bin-sized boulder hurtled straight at me. With nowhere to go I pressed against the rock and waited for the killer blow. Amid a thundering of rocks, sparks and dust I was pummelled and battered leading to a cracked helmet, a bloodied finger and cut ropes but miraculously alive. Smaller rocks had hit me but the bigger evil one must have bounced right over me. We carried on up the climb chastened and wary. The steep ice pitches near the top were some of the most beautiful climbing I’ve ever done but I had a deep weariness from the near-death experience lower down and I was relieved to be finally on top.

WHAT HAVE YOUR ADVENTURES TAUGHT YOU ABOUT OUTDOOR SURVIVAL?
To be humble. Nature is so much more powerful than us puny humans. We venture out there for fun and to learn about ourselves but never to conquer. Nature can swot us down like a fly if she cares to.

HOW DID YOUR ADVENTURING EVOLVE INTO A CAREER IN OUTDOOR EVENT MANAGMENT AND SAFETY?
My personal climbs and expeditions led me into guiding and adventure photo-journalism. This led to a bit of a profile in the adventure world that then took me into support work for other people’s expeditions and working with film crews in wild places. And that in turn introduced me to adventure racing. In 1997 I was asked to form the Australian climbing and safety team for the Australian Eco-Challenge in Cairns. This massive event was a real eye-opener with internatonal crew and teams, millions spent on logistics, vehicles, film crews and all the rest. That experience then led to enquiry for support services for other events. At Eco-Challenge I also met Tom Landon-Smith and Alina McMaster for the first time and years later that led to our relationship working together at The North Face 100.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, EVENT SAFETY SEVICES
I had been trading for 15 years supporting events under my own name and lots of clients would say “what’s your business name” and I’d say I just trade under my own name. Finally Sean and Mel from Mountain Sports told me I had to get my act together and formalise the business so I came up with the name and haven’t looked back since (thanks guys!). It was a surprise to me how much of a difference it made to have a business identifty and how it led to other work and more job offers. So here we are with an awesome little team working for me now and more interesting jobs coming in all the time as we meet more event organisers. And the business is expanding to cover mapping (paper and electronic), risk management consulting and the safety plans that have become a critical part of how event organisers plan to keep the runners safe and well. I love the challenges of helping event organisers to stage events in wild places. It’s a fun business.

HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN TRAIL RUNNING EVENTS?
It started when I worked on the Eco-Challenge in 1997 in Cairns and gradually morphed into a lot of my work supporting trail events. The big year for trail events was 2008 when both Wild Endurance and The North Face 100 started up and my business did the first aid and safety for both events. After that more and more trail events popped up and we started working on a few of them.

WHAT ARE THE TRAIL RUNNING EVENTS YOU HAVE BEEN INVOLVED WITH?
Wild Endurance, The North Face 100, Glow Worm Tunnel Marathon, Buffalo Stampede, the Running Wild NSW series, Sydney Trail Series, Kanangra Classic, Coastrek and a few smaller events. We are also helping plan some new events this year including the Hounslow Classic and the Mt Barney Sky Runs. I also work on the Big Red Run, a six-day, 250km stage race in the Simpson Desert and the Burke and Wills Trek, an 11-day trek that covers 330km of remote outback.

WITH A MAJOR EVENT LIKE THE NORTH FACE 100, WHAT ARE YOUR MAJOR CHALLNGES AND GOALS?
We are very focussed on looking after the runners. With race Director Tom Landon Smith we spend a lot of time planning preventative measures, fine tuning the route, reviewing the mandatory gear and planning in detail the medical teams. As TNF100 has grown it’s brought its own challenges. It seems to be attracting a slightly less experienced group of runners and some years we see of lot of unnecesary illness caused by rookie mistakes with nutrition, hydration. We also see a lot of runners not understanding their limits and pushing to exhaustion and collapse. Our focus has been to both educate them (and Tom has been very supportive) and to monitor runners at the checkpoints so we can catch the really sick ones before they head into the Kedumba Valley, which is cold, dark and hard to get out of.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN DANGERS RUNNERS FACE AND WHAT DO YOU DO AS SAFETY DIRECTOR TO MINIMISE THOSE DANGERS?
Over-hydration is consistently a problem and in recent years we’ve seen way too many runners falling ill with it. Typically we see about eight times as many runners get sick due to over-hydrating compared to a dehydration. At events overseas runners are dying from over-hydration and I think it’s important that we send strong message to runners, especially new runners, that they should only drink if they are thirsty. In an average year just at the events I work on we send 10 to 15 people to hospital with moderate to serious hyponatraemia caused by drinking too much.
The other things at races that are a serious danger to runners are heart issues and this is a bit more of a lottery. If runners haven’t been ill most won’t have done an ECG test so if they have a heart condition it may remain undiagnosed until they push hard on a big race. There’s nothing much we can do about those except to have defibs around the course and to have staff who can do good CPR.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR MOST MEMORABLE INCIDENTS AT TRAIL RUNNING EVENTS
The most special things I see at trail events is when me and my staff help someone to achieve a special goal. While it’s always eye opening to see the performances that the elites pull off (watching North Face winners over the years has been amazing!) it’s powerful and emotional to watch some of the middle-of-the-pack runners to pull off a lifetime dream. We’ve had some pretty ill people at Checkpoint 5 at North Face who we’ve nursed back to reasonable health who have finished in good style.

YOU HAVE ORGANISED THE FIRST EVER AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL TRAIL RUNNING CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS THIS MAY, JUST PRIOR TO TNF100. WHAT INSPIRED IT?
I’ve seen so many events now and tens of thousands of runners that I’m starting to get a feel for what they want to know and what they like about running trails. So the motivation for NTRC was really to stage something to help people realise their dreams. Let’s expose them to some inspiring elite athletes and coaches, give them good quality information and well researched and sound guidance on nutrition, hydration, training, the mental aspects of trail runs and how to get the best from their body and mind to help them perform.

TELL US ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
We are so lucky that we have access to so many elite athletes and coaches that the line-up is stunning. Dr Marty Hoffman from the USA is the world’s leading authority on the health aspects of ultras while Brendan Davies and Hanny Allston are both solid, world-class athletes. They are also great communicators. Andy DuBois is a massively respected coach, Jo Brischetto is an amazing athlete who came out of nowhere a few years ago to become a dominant athlete. Jo’s great passion goes beyond her own running – she’s an active leader in the trail running community, started Summit Sisters and Trail Kids and is an inspiration to many runners. We also have some “wise elders” in the mix including Sean Greenhill who was involved in the early days of Fatass, Running Wild and 16 Six Foot Tracks! Andy Hewat is race director for Bogong to Hotham and we have Alina McMaster and Tom Landon-Smith from AROC with a lifetime of podiums in adventure Racing, Rogaining and staging successful North Face 100s since 2008.

WHO IS THE CONFERENCE FOR?
The Conference is for all trail runners. There’s a mix of information for entry level runners as well as lots of more advanced sessions for more experienced runners. The structure is a mix of short presentatons by our experts followed by discussion and Q&A sessions to share ideas and knowledge. There are also some very experienced runners among the delegates which will lead to some great exchanges.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE IT WILL ACHIEVE?
I’m hoping we’ll energise the trail community through a spirit of sharing of information and experiences. My co-organiser Dr Ursula King is experienced with staging conferences and in presenting information in a way that stays with the audience so I’m confident the sessions will be stimulating and helpful.

DO YOU HOPE THE CONFERENCE WILL BECOME A REGULAR EVENT?
Yes, we’ll be putting it on every year in the week before The North Face 100.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE WAY THE TRAIL RUNNING SCENE IN GENERAL HANDLES SAFETY AND MEDICAL CARE? ARE RACE DIRECTORS KNOWLEDGABLE ENOUGH? ARE THEY DOING THE RIGHTS THINGS WHEN IT COMES TO MEDICAL SUPPORT?
I’m seeing a genuine desire among race directors to move with the times and keep improving the organisation at trail runs. I’m seeing more and more events every year which have made it a priority to invest in improving systems for things like runner tracking, medical and first aid services, better maps and safety planning.

Trail running is similar to a lot of developing sports in that there’s a mix of people organising events. While there are lots of experienced organisers there are also less experienced organisers but a common thread among all the events I see is that everyone seems keen to develop and improve. The trail community is very vibrant and active. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising when so many of the people organising events are passionate runners themselves.

ARE THERE ANY THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE CHANGE IN THE TRAIL RUNNING SCENE?
The things that sometimes worry me are mostly educational issues (like so many runners getting ill due to hyponatraemia or taking too many tablets) and the word is getting out so as long as the opinion leaders help us to get good information out there I’m confident we’ll see a better understanding of these health issues over the next couple of years. Hopfeully the conference can help a little with this as well.

TELL US ABOUT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN OUTDOOR EVENT SAFETY AND ENDURANCE MEDICINE
The “industry best” standards in the outdoor industry (guiding etc) have a lot of promise to help the fledgling trail running community. Some of these include good expedition planning documents that serve the same function as running event safety plans. Events with hundreds of runners need good plans to avoid messing up, losing runners or to respond when a runner gets sick. Running events also need to collect medical background questions for all runners and I see this happening at most of the events I work on now. It’s relatively easy to collect this data as part of the registration process, which is a good development. That information is gold if a runner gets sick and I’ve seen with my own eyes how such information can save lives due to quicker and more appropriate medical responses to peculiar ailments.

YOU HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS SYSTEM THAT YOU HOPE TO TRIAL AT TNF100. WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Paper based systems have major limitations – mostly to do with it being difficult to share with other members of the event medical and first aid staff. So if a runner sees our medics at an early Checkpoint it’s time-consuming to get the details in front of the doctor at the finish. Our electronic system means any data entered into a patient’s record anywhere on the course is automatically live for all users across the event. We can also take photos and insert them into the runner’s record so for example a doctor might be able to give the medics on the scene better advice to cope with something unusual.

A big advantage of our electronic system is the the medical background data is available (behind a secure password-protected gateway) to the medics in the field. So if they find a sick runner they can immediately look up and check for allergies, previous illness, medications etc.

FOR A RUNNER ENTERING TNF100, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR KEY TIPS TO HELP THEM SAFELY COMPLETE THEIR 100KM RUN THROUGH THE BUE MOUNTAINS?
Preparation. Know your body, know your limits, don’t try new stuff on race day. Trial and test your nutrition, hydration and gear. Get advice from experienced coaches about a race plan.

WHAT ARE THE BEST AND WORST THINGS ABOUT BEING THE SAFETY/MEDICAL DIRECTOR AT A TRAIL RUNNING EVENT?

BEST: Seeing the inspiring performances by all the runners – the elites because they are so incredible and the rest because they are out there testing themselves to the limit, learning about themselvs and achieving things. They are all amazing.

WORST: Seeing too much unnecessary illness caused by poor planning and poor advice. Don’t pre-load with fluids or drink to a schedule – you’ll make yourself sick. Only drink if you are thirsty. Don’t take preventative anti-inflamatories, they will make you sick and there’s not even good medical evidence they help with pain or inflamation.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR LUCAS TRIHEY, EVENT SAFETY SERVICES AND TRAIL RUNNING?
I’m employing new staff as we take on more events and that’s exciting. My staff bring their own enthusiasm, specialties, interests and experience and it makes for a stimulating work environment to be constantly trying to improve our service and to help event organisers keep improving the events. Trail running is booming and I love to see that so many runners are being exposed to the beautiful natural places that I’ve been working in all my life.

HAVE YOU GOT ANY MORE EPIC ADVENTURES PLANNED?
The conference in May is my current “big adventure” – it has lots of challenges and excitement and the only thing wrong is that it requires too much office time for my liking. But hopefully like lots of challenges it will all be worthwhile on the day when we see all the delegates walk in and we get to meet them, talk with them and hear their own running stories.
Aside from that I’m trying to organise a summer trip to the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts in northern WA. There are some extremely remote waterholes out there surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of sand and gibber plains. It will be really hot but I love the heat and it means we won’t be bothered by other travellers. And always in the back of my mind is another desert crossing on foot. The nights spent under the desert stars in 2006 in the Simpson are some of my most treasured memories … something to dream about.

BOOK YOUR SPOT AT THE CONFERENCE NOW: www.austntrc.org

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Safety first: new tech keeps runners on trail

By TrailRunMag

Blue Mountains adventurer Lucas Trihey has developed new software that will help keep competitors safer in trail running events the likes of The North Face 100, of which he is the safety director.

TNF100 sees runners push their bodies to the limit over 100km of the Blue Mountains’ most rugged and spectacular terrain and the new electronic medical data base will enable race organisers to better monitor the health of runners as they pass each check point.

Among his many achievements, Trihey has been a pioneering rock climber in the Blue Mountains and famously became the first man to walk unassisted across the Simpson Desert in 2006. His business Event Safety Services provides the medical care on TNF100 and a host of other outdoor adventure events in remote environments.

Lucas on one of his many epic adventures.

Until now it has relied on a traditional paper-based system to record information on the health of runners and then communicate it via phone or radio when necessary.

The new system will enable first aiders at every check point to put medical information on runners they are concerned about directly into digital form and transmit it to their colleagues at other check points instantly via their phone, tablet or laptop so they know which runners to check on.

ESS hopes the new system will make its debut at this year’s TNF100 in May in tandem with the paper-based system as the electronic version is thoroughly tested.

The new system, developed with the help of Blue Mountains IT expert Lloyd Sharp, was shown off to TNF100 first aiders recently at a Blue Mountains training day held to improve their understanding of medical issues that arise at endurance events, learn new skills to cope with these issues, practice their existing skills and learn to work better as a team.

They practiced basic skills such as taking blood pressure and resuscitating a runner whose heart and breathing have stopped using CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) plus defibrillators and oxygen.

The first aiders also heard about identifying and treating lesser known conditions such as hyponatraemia – illness caused by drinking too much water.

“People die from drinking too much water at endurance events,” Trihey warned the first aiders.

When runners drink too much water they flush from their bodies too much of “the good stuff” that their bodies also need, particularly sodium.

Dehydration caused by insufficient water has traditionally been a major concern for endurance event first aiders but at TNF100, Trihey said, eight times as many runners became sick from over hydration.

“When runners came into the first aid tent we used to automatically offer them a drink but that doesn’t happen anymore. Now we only give people a drink if they feel thirsty.”

In the week leading up to TNF100, Trihey is also hosting the Australian National Trail Running Conference in the Blue Mountains.

It will be the first major gathering for runners and race directors to discuss their shared passion, with guest speakers including race directors Tom Landon-Smith, Andy Hewat and Sean Greenhill, runners Brendan Davies and Hanny Alston and international authority on endurance event medicine Dr Marty Hoffman from the USA.

The event will feature lectures, forums and workshops on trail and ultra topics, and will be held in the Blue Mountains, NSW, from 12-13 May 2015, in the lead-up to The North Face 100.

Send an email to register@austntcr.org to take part.

More information the inagural AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL TRAIL RUNNERS CONFERENCE at www.austntrc.org.

Trail Run Mag is proud to be a media partner of the Australian National Trail Running Conference.

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