Meghan Hicks | IRunFar, Trail Running Media, Western States 100, Hardrock 100 Reflections

Finn (00:00.874)
Megan Hicks, it's great to have you on the Singletrack Podcast.

Meghan (00:05.751)
Finn, I've been following your podcast for a while. We've met each other at a couple races now, so it's an honor to be here as well. Thanks for choosing me.

Finn (00:14.222)
I appreciate it and I'd love to start the conversation if you find it interesting at all by sort of comparing and contrasting maybe both the Western States 100 and the Hard Rock 100 because they're top of mind where they are in this current moment in 2023 versus maybe where they were from a coverage standpoint, spectator standpoint, et cetera, a decade ago in 2013 because if I understand correctly,

You've been on the ground on the scene at both of these marquee US events for much of the last decade. So is there any, any interesting, any market changes you've seen on the ground in those events over the course of the last five to 10 years?

Meghan (00:56.115)
Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I'm not sure that I'm gonna have the, you know, the 2020 hindsight perspective of hard rock that we might want for this conversation because you and I, I think we were just there a few days ago. We still have the brain fuzz from staying up overnight. And yeah, like that we're still, I don't know, I feel in the thick of hard rock right now. So I'm not sure my hindsight perspective will be great on that yet.

Finn (01:10.295)
Yeah.

Meghan (01:24.375)
The evolution of Western states through time, though, I think that's kind of a fun trajectory to sort of track back and look at. At least the way that I see it is that things have, things in ultra running and trail running seem to generally progress like fairly even keel year to year, but then there's always like.

a few little touch points in time that get everybody going or that, you know, change things more significantly. Like, you know, aid stations have evolved, sort of the number of volunteers that the event has had has grown slowly through time, the way that the finish line looks, the way that the event has altered its logo, all of those things are very like.

slow progress, slow evolution, unless you're a super fan really paying attention, you might not notice the nuanced evolution. I do think that at least in the modern era there was a quite a touch point in 2017.

That was the year that Jim Walmsley ran his incredible race, but then took a wrong turn. And that was the year that he took a wrong turn, right?

Finn (02:42.903)
2016, yeah.

Meghan (02:44.155)
Yeah, and it I think that what that changed was people's interest in being at the race. I think a lot more people wanted to come out and see the race unfold for themselves as opposed to you know following it online and there was a really marked increase in the number of fans at the finish line the number of fans at places like Robins and Robins and flat and Forest Hill and

Meghan (03:13.747)
I think, of course, COVID is an inflection point in the other direction for all of the races and I think there, since COVID, it's been more of a steady increase back up again with a marked blip this year. I don't think we fully have a perspective on what...

how this year is gonna compare to a year like the changes we saw in 2018 and at Western States. But there was a definite blip up in the number of people hanging out at Forest Hill, for example, this year, compared to 2021, the year after COVID. Yeah, so that's Western States.

Finn (03:53.094)
One thing that I found interesting, and I'm totally new to the scene, I'm very green, I'm tiptoeing at all these aid stations, kind of making sure I'm not stepping on any toes, but one thing I noticed, and this was both at Western States and Hard Rock, was just how much of a swarm there is around all of these individual athletes when they come in. And I was definitely contributing to the problem, but I felt so bad, for example, for Dylan Bowman, who at U-Ray was just having a moment, needed to regroup, needed to come out of that aid station feeling strong. But.

He was just swarmed by people like myself with like GoPro in hand and wanted to get a great shot, wanted to get great audio. Has that always been the case at these races in the last 10 years or can you pinpoint a time where maybe for four or five years, it was just, for example, you and Brian there capturing the moment and then all of a sudden kind of like a switch, all of these amateurs like myself come out of the woodwork and start bombarding these runners as well.

Meghan (04:50.579)
not amateurs at all. I do think that like the media presence at races like Hard Rock and I mean, Hard Rock has its own inflection points. I think when, for instance, when Anna Frost and Killy and Jornette started running Hard Rock, I think it was 2014, 2015, that era, that really was an inflection point in terms of getting more media to be at the events and at the event and to have more fans

in person as opposed to following from their homes. I think those are, that example that you share is an issue that a few of the big American ultras are dealing with right now. And that like, that's a place where the European ultras they've already crossed that threshold and they've created these very strict rules and boundaries of.

the degree or rather not degree to which media can interact with the runners during the event so as to you know protect the runners access to their to their crews to getting refueled to doing what they need to do before they go back out on course and I think that's there's been a slow evolution in like the rules that the races are you know giving to us as media in terms of trying to respect

Meghan (06:13.733)
continue to be an increase of rules on where we can go and what we can do so as to protect the runners' experiences.

Finn (06:23.85)
I want to go back in time a little bit. I'm somewhat familiar with Brian's story of at one point being a practicing lawyer and then buying this iRunfar domain and ultimately creeping towards this jump where he did it full time, I think in the late 20, 2009, 2010 range. But I'm not as familiar with, with your story and how you ultimately decided to go full time on iRunfar. So what is that story? How did you make the decision to make the leap?

Meghan (06:54.419)
So, Brian and I met each other in 2008 at a race at the Trans Rockies Run. We were living cross country from each other. He was a lawyer in Washington, DC. I was an educator in national parks in the West. And so as, at the same time that Brian chose to make the leap in quitting his job as a lawyer and going full time with iRunfar.

and I were actually making a relationship leap to where he moved from the East Coast to the West Coast and so we could like merge our lives and be together. I had absolutely no plans to work in Iron Far at that time. We like to joke that I'm the Lydite, like the technological Lydite of the family and um like

Yeah, I was working in Yosemite National Park when he and I were getting to know each other and he was like, you know, in the technological, you know, one of the tech capitals of America in Washington, DC, and he brought this thing called like an iPhone to...

Finn (07:55.147)
Ha ha ha!

Meghan (07:56.987)
to Yosemite and he was just appalled that there was no cell phone service to check his iPhone and I couldn't believe that there was a cell phone in a national park like that just didn't exist yet and so we were two very different people and Living two like very different careers. I don't think at that time I ever would have projected being a part of

I run far, I was very keen to like, you know, keep my job to help support Brian and support like the growth of I run far, I kind of felt like, you know, I was like the financier of the family at that point, trying to help this little baby operation get going. But it, I think it grew faster than he or I ever predicted. And I was like the cheap labor around the house.

Meghan (08:47.717)
part of it, a little bit more of a part of it until I think full time. I joined iRunfar in 2013, so what is that, four years after he started it. After he started it, I became full-time, but it was just a slow increase in helping him out through time there.

Finn (09:07.942)
And when you reflect back on making the jump, obviously over the last 10 years, you've developed this awesome reputation of, you know, being an editor of the outlet, doing a lot of great on the ground interviews, the aid station to aid station, up to date coverage. Is that what you, if you could have decided, is this what you imagine doing? Like, do you feel like you're leveraging your skillsets the best in this particular part of the business?

Meghan (09:33.463)
Well, if you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I was a little kid, there were two things that came up. One was being a ballet dancer. I'm really glad I never pursued that. And two, I wanted to be a writer for National Geographic. Like I was addicted to that magazine as a kid. We subscribed, we kept all the issues. That's how I put myself to bed at night was reading National Geographic. And I thought the people who created that content were...

Finn (09:42.21)
Ha ha.

Meghan (10:03.135)
like had to be amazing human beings having amazing experiences. So while I don't write about like wild animals and exotic cultures around the world, I'd say that ultra runners and trail runners are pretty wild. So I guess I'm a modern version of a National Geographic journalist.

Finn (10:07.413)
Mm.

Finn (10:21.95)
And that's something I wanted to ask you about because I was listening to your conversation with Dylan on free trail and he brought up one of the great articles you wrote on that platform. I think it's called sharing the load. It's about the history of hard rock and the mining history in the San Juans. I don't want to put you on the spot, but are there any other articles that you've written or that you've overseen in the last five to 10 years that you put a lot of heart and soul into at the very least, or you're proud of and

Meghan (10:33.932)
Mm.

Finn (10:51.166)
it'd be interesting to resurrect in the show notes of this episode.

Meghan (10:55.02)
Mm.

Yeah, I was, that was really thrilling that Dylan brought that up. And just because, you know, you're, you're constantly creating material for the website and those stuff exists out there and you know, when you're looking at Google Analytics that people read it, you do feel like things of the past can get lost in the archive. So it was thrilling that Dylan had found that and brought that back up to the surface. I wrote an article that I was really proud of early in 2023.

three that was about like the development of trail running as a mechanism for environmentalism in Bhutan, I got to go to Bhutan last fall and learn about that country as a, as a player in like the environmental advocacy sphere and, and just learn how the story of running is becoming a part of their sort of international messaging on environmental advocacy. And so

We put together a feature story about Bhutan and about a race that's really trying to walk that walk. A lot of work went into it by a lot of people and that's another thing I'm super proud of. Those stories are a large number of resources go into that.

in terms of like what comes out of it at the end, those articles. You never know how well they're going to be trafficked, like how well people will read them until they're out in the world. You can't predict it. And so you have to, you're creating those things on the premise that this is the right thing to do, that this is a good story and no matter how it turns out in the end, it's the right thing to have on the website. So that was really fun for me to do recently.

Finn (12:44.778)
Was that the snowman race in Bhutan? In terms of difficulty that does that race challenge hard rock like you're going above 14 15 16,000 feet of elevation right?

Meghan (12:46.471)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oops.

Meghan (12:57.951)
Yeah, I think we topped out at just under 18,000 feet. It was a five day stage race. So it was running somewhere between like 20 and 30 miles a day. I think maybe the longest day was 32 or 34 miles, something like that. We camped out at these high altitude campsites at night and then ran again the next day and repeated that for five days. I always think stage races are like functionally easier than a hundred mile race or a 200 mile race.

the distances add up to the same at the end because you have this recovery time in between. The recovery was muted at the snowman race because we were sleeping at altitudes of 14 to 16,000 feet and there's just no way unless that's where you live that you recover properly. It was certainly like, you know, hard rock is a really wild, wild place. Like there's...

you get any wilder of terrain in North America and you get into national parks or wilderness areas or places where it's prohibited to have a trail race. So like hard rock is as wild as it gets that I've seen in racing and Bhutan was way wilder. So in terms of like, you know, remoteness, like, you know, don't fall and break your leg type of like, you know, keep risk management really low. Like that was that was further out there than something like hard rock, but

Finn (13:58.752)
Yeah.

Meghan (14:21.719)
day-to-day difficulty, like, I don't know, piling up 100 miles at hard rock is really, really hard.

Finn (14:29.842)
And with this snowman race, and I just find this so fascinating, is this the Bhutan government, like is it a monarchy like the king of Bhutan? Is this their government taking an active interest in environmental activism and maybe to some extent showcasing like the natural beauty of the country? Or what's the, cause I did see something in your reporting earlier this year or last year about the origins of the race. Can you speak to that?

Meghan (14:52.379)
Yeah, so Bhutan is fascinating. It's like one of a couple carbon negative countries where they, you know, they capture or prevent like the use of more carbon than they use and not and that's like a government, you know, like the other countries that are carbon negative countries are countries that just use fewer resources just because they're countries that are developing or less developed.

their current state. But Bhutan could be very carbon positive, but they choose by government policy to be carbon negative, and they choose to spend tons of money government-wise, communicating that forth to especially other nations that surround them in Asia, trying to grow that message and grow the importance of that.

like in Himalayan communities and they're trying to get out past that and now they're trying to message beyond Asia to places like Europe and us here in the US that coming at this from a government policy type standpoint is part of the future, part of a cleaner future environmentally, right?

Finn (16:08.706)
Fascinating. Well, on the topic of races, this is a question that I've always wanted to ask you and Brian, because I know Western states, Hard Rock, UTMB, those have been staples of your coverage annually over the greater portion of the last decade plus, but I've always been curious to know what goes into planning an annual race coverage schedule? How do you decide what gets put in, what gets left out, and especially going beyond those three core races?

How do you choose something like, you know, I mean, when it was still around with the TNF 50 in San Francisco, or, you know, going out off the coast of Madagascar and doing some, you know, wild hundred mile race out there, or this snowman race, like talk about some of the strategy or the interest that goes into that selection.

Meghan (16:56.467)
Yeah, so I think the driver for what races we go to do in depth coverage of has always been like the term that we use is competitive storyline. And there's like two prongs to that, right? There's competitive depth. I mean, it's always fun, like a runaway race that you know, oh, so and so won this race by two hours, and they set an enormous course record. But realistically, like that's not like the most amazing storyline in the world. It's a very

complex or, you know, simple storyline. So competitive depth is part of what we're looking for when we go to a race. There just needs to be.

a goodly number of people who are probably going to be close to each other, you know, all the way towards the end of the race. And then the storyline, like in what we do, everything comes down to the story and how to make that story compelling to other people and a race, an event where the story continues and has plot twists, like very similar things to what

Meghan (18:09.353)
documentary is like, if there's a good plot twist in a movie, like if there's a paralleled metaphor for that in an ultra running race, that's a story that's going to capture people's attention. And so, you know, races where things aren't decided until the end, where there's people, you know, passing each other, where there's these come from behind heroes who you didn't think were going to be the hero, like that storyline is what really captures followers' attention.

Yeah, the competitive storyline and it being both the depth of the competition and the enduring nature of it, that it's going to be a fascinating story with lots of twists all the way through.

Finn (18:52.334)
In terms of capturing fan attention, have there been any struggles that you've noticed over the years in terms of covering, for example, an international race, perhaps one in Europe or in Asia where there's equally, if not better athletes competing, but maybe language barriers at play and or a lack of familiarity among your, you know, I'm assuming primarily American audience, given your roots here.

Has that been a challenge? And if so, have there been ways that you've found to overcome it and educate the audience? Stuff like that.

Meghan (19:27.123)
Yeah, totally. I think the major barrier to in-depth race coverage are time zones. Like the majority of iRun Far's readers are in Europe and the Americas. So for instance, we went to the Trail World Championships in Asia last fall, which was, I can't remember how far off the time zones were, but it was like...

when the runners were competing, everybody in both Europe and America were sleeping. And that's just really tricky in terms of how to tell a story when your audience isn't readily available. We always know that when we're going to cover situations like that, like we had that experience. We covered Grand Raid Reunion out on Reunion Island. And I think that's like 10 hours time difference too. But the field that...

Finn (20:14.314)
Yeah, I remember that.

Meghan (20:21.575)
Was going that year was like, you know The the most competitive that Grand Raid reunion had seen in its history and so for us it was the right call like, you know it's You know, it was the Trail World Championships one of the top ten most competitive races last year. Yes So therefore it's the right race to go in cover Even if like at the end of the day your numbers don't quite match

the other races that you cover because it's in like a crazy time zone from all of your followers.

Finn (20:55.298)
How about in terms of like connecting the dots of an ongoing narrative? So one thing I think about a lot is we have this new UTMB World Series. There's all sorts of satellite races that, you know, elite athletes race and try to podium at or top 10 in order to get to Chamonix in August. Do you feel any pressure or do you feel compelled to be at as many of those races as possible because that helps ultimately tell the final story in Chamonix or at the end of the day, because there's so many

Meghan (21:22.837)
Hmm.

Finn (21:25.506)
Um, because the media portion of our sport is still relatively small. You have to be strategic about where to go. Cause that's something like I'm thinking about speed goat, for example, this weekend, the 50 K we're recording this on Wednesday, July 19th. I would love to be at speed goat this weekend, but I'm not sure if it's the best allocation of resources because any race requires a lot to cover and it's like, how do you pick and choose? So what are your thoughts there?

Meghan (21:49.855)
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think, you know, what I run far has chosen to do is to pick the races that it's going to cover as the independent unit itself. Does this race standalone in its competitive depth and its interesting storyline? Like, if you're looking at Speed Goat and you know it

you know, that's a what is it a five hour long race, like that's enough that it's going to have like really cool stories in terms of like, who passes who and who's really good on the uphills and then who like really hammers the downhills. Like there's lots of great stories there. And so if there's the competitive depth there, yeah, it sits in the in like that UTMB World Series progression, but

Finn (22:20.909)
Yeah.

Meghan (22:42.299)
I personally, and I think like, you know, how we choose as I run fire would be like, is that as a, as an independent unit, is that gonna be a good story there? If so, send the resources, right?

Finn (22:56.646)
No, that makes sense. I think the other question that I wanted to ask you in this arena has to come, it comes down to sort of like a constellation of factors. Like you mentioned how for you, priority number one is the competitive depth of the field and how many storylines you can pull out of that cohort of runners. And that makes total sense to me. I'm sure like to some extent, you know, personal interest in the race matters too. Another part I have to imagine is brand investment. And this hits home with me personally because, you know,

We're single track. It's a much less mature outlet than I run far, very much less strength and reputation. We're kind of like fighting tooth and nail to make it work on our end. But it seems to us that like when we take interest in a race and think about covering it, one of the first things top of mind is, is it possible to fundraise for this race? Like for example, I would love to go to the Madeira Island Ultra Trail because there's amazing geography, still some really cool runners there.

and it's got history and you could pull all sorts of storylines from it. But does it fit into like ongoing campaigns that, you know, brands like Hoka or Salomon have, and can you prove ROI in that sense? And there's all sorts of other competing factors at play. So is that something that iRunfar has to reckon with in this process as well? What are your thoughts there?

Meghan (24:16.467)
Yeah, I think that's a really good question in terms of like, you know, us all trying to figure out how to do the business of trail running. I think the overarching long term answer that I run far would give is that

brand investment in the specific coverage is not a reason to cover it or not cover it. I mean overall at the end of the day you need to make the money for your entire business that supports your enterprise but that the money can come from different like outlets like you know you can make money doing another thing that then you use to you know cover a race because you think

is more is popular. I think it's great when say iRunfar can sell sponsorship for race coverage and we're able to pay for it that way. But I think at this point and you know in our history we've always covered the races that we think are the right races in terms of like long distance trail running and ultra running that gather the most competitive people and are going to have like a good story.

far into the race. If we can sell sponsorship for it, perfect. That's like the first thing we do. If we can't, we'll allocate resources from another aspect of I Run Far to pay for it because it's an important enough part of our sport that we feel we need to be there.

Finn (25:49.75)
That's really cool. And I do want to come back at some point in the conversation to just the different ways that I run far provides value to the community outside of race coverage. But I did want to ask you first about just like the history of interviews you've done over the years. This is another question I've always wanted to ask you and Brian like you've done hundreds, it could even be into the thousands of pre and post race interviews at this point. Are there any that come to mind?

right now in terms of either how entertaining or insightful they were. And like for me, for example, like one of my favorite interviews of all time was when Brian interviewed Jim Walmsley before the 2017 Western States 100. Like I think it was right in the like standing in the water there at Lake Tahoe.

Meghan (26:29.507)
Standing in the water, Jim was a couple beers in.

Finn (26:34.014)
amazing, iconic interview. And so are there any, and I'm sure it's hard to compete with like the entertainment value in that moment, but are there any other interviews you can point to where like, you know, you stopped the record button, you're like, that was awesome. I cannot wait to upload that to YouTube or podcast players.

Meghan (26:51.335)
Yeah, I feel like there's, um, you know, maybe what is it like one in 100 interviews or something? And you're like, Oh my God, that was awesome. And you're like, I can't believe that was as cool as it was. And as you know, it's a working dynamic between interviewer and the person being interviewed, like what leads to it. Occasionally it's like totally random stuff. That's I'm like not controllable. You can't make it up.

like the things that happen that are just hilarious or insightful or whatever, but it's, yeah, that type of stuff is infrequent, but amazing. I think a couple of my favorite interviews through time have been, I think it was last year at Western States, I was interviewing Marianne Hogan, who was on the women's podium, and she nearly fainted during the interview.

Finn (27:49.567)
Yes.

Meghan (27:49.871)
Um, she, uh, I mean, this year at Western States was glorious for doing interviews, but it can be downright like challenging for a runner who ran a hundred miles yesterday and is out in a hundred degree heat, you know, getting their buckle and doing interviews. And

Mary Ann, she's just such a hard charger in everything she does and she really tried to do the interview, but it was really hot and she nearly fainted in the middle of it and everything turned out just fine. But it was, you can't predict that situation and it was quite entertaining when it was all over and she was fine.

Finn (28:30.122)
We did an interview, this was over in Innsbruck this past May with Drew Holman who is famous for just, as you know, truly leaving everything out there on the course and getting the absolute best out of himself, especially at races like Western States. And mid interview, this was one of those mixed zone, just point iPhone in their face interviews. And he actually had to stop midway through and throw up on the side, over the wall, and then resume. And he's such a polite person too.

Similar to we got footage, you know, this weekend of Courtney at array, like she was struggling. And I think she had to throw up a little bit, but then she had the presence of mind to take her water bottle and like clean off the throw up on the ground. Like just that Midwestern politeness. And anyways, I'm going off on a tangent, but, um, you're, you're totally right about like the Mary and when that was a great one, um, in general, what do you find makes for a good interview? Like when you're looking at all the athletes that are, uh, out there lining up for the race or.

Meghan (29:15.028)
it.

Finn (29:27.494)
athletes to recap with post race, what do you look for in terms of like, stuff they have to say about their training or racing or just commenting on the sport stuff like

Meghan (29:38.011)
Yeah, there was another cool interview from a few years ago now that I think demonstrates like kind of like the qualities of a really good interview as opposed to like the random stuff that just occurs once in a while. Casey Licktide and Magda Boulet tied for I believe it was either second place or third place at Lake Sonoma one year and those are you know just

personalities of our sport who are just, you know, they're just such good community supporters in addition to being like crazy runners. And so they, of course, like the goodness people of the good end up tying at the end of the race. And so we do a group interview with them. And it was it was just glorious, like, you know, and just in terms of

they didn't talk that much about the competition and how it played out, but you could feel the energy between them and you could feel why they chose to tie, you know, because there's a lot of talk about like, should you run it out and, you know, sprint it out? Should you tie? And for them, that was absolutely the right choice. And by the end of the interview, like even if you didn't, if you don't agree with tying at the end of a running race, you could like feel in your heart why they did and why that

was important to them and that was just that's just one of those examples of like you where

the dynamic of the interviewees and the dynamic of the interviewer and the scene and the feelings that they can sort of like conjure up with their language and their dialogue, like that's just the ideal situation for a really great interview is where everybody feels comfortable, everything's organic, nothing is staged. And it's just people feel comfortable being who they are and sharing of themselves, right?

Finn (31:36.702)
Another question I wanted to ask you just relates to like the long-term trajectory of iron far. I know that anytime anyone starts a company, you know, progress happens, but it's not always necessarily linear and there's high highs and low lows. Two years ago, you know, huge congratulations, by the way, you know, iron far made the sale to Lola digital. And it made me wonder like, especially in the 10 years that you've been with the company, have there been any other pivotal

interesting moments to be in this arena. So for example, maybe, you know, in the early 2010s, like when the sport was growing and you guys are doing great work and there was like a tie to your riding or maybe other lows or I don't know, like where does your mind go when you think about other kind of like landmark moments for I run far in addition to that Lola sale, but you could talk about Lola too, if you wanted.

Meghan (32:26.707)
Yeah, sure. I think there's probably...

You know, every everything has their inflection points of highs and lows. And I think that the high inflection points of I run far have been, you know, when Brian chose to go full time with it in 2009, he couldn't have really predicted it at the time, but that was also the time in which like Born to Run was published and there was a huge, there was when he went full time, there was about to be a massive increase in the number of people becoming trail runners

runners and like that was just luck that he decided to invest resources at the same time that the community was about to really grow significantly so part of that is intention that inflection point is part intention and part luck but it turned out really well for iRUNFAR. Another inflection point was like 2014-2015 was a time where we intentionally

tried to grow quite significantly in a short period of time. Like we, you know, the model through time has always been like slow, sustainable growth. And we chose to do an experiment in that time where.

to grow quicker than we had chosen to grow before, just to see what happened. Would we get the return on the investment that we were putting into things? And the answer was no, in some respects, in that we found it, at least in the storytelling of trail running and ultra running, that...

Meghan (34:04.143)
Like quick growth, it was impossible to capture the same amount of quality and the same amount of like if you're pumping out lots more interviews than you have in the past and you've only, you know, increase the number of people who are interviewing by a small amount like quality is just going to go down. If you're trying to publish more resources really quickly.

with a limited number of people, like the quality is just going to go down. And it was a wonderful experiment. I have no regrets. It was like a tire sometime, like really trying to work a lot in a short period of time, but it was a great learning experience that we learned and we decided for iRunFAR that, quick unsustainable growth isn't the path for...

for success in terms of the people creating it and the end product. So yeah, if you go back to like the archives of 2014 and 2015, there's a freaking lot there. And some of it is like, oh, it's like a little cringy, like, oh, I'm sorry we did that.

Finn (35:14.118)
I think the hallmark of any, if nothing else interesting business though, is repeated experiments and being okay with the failure and certainly things will stick. I think on that thread, another question I wanted to ask you is just around adding more figurative cooks to the kitchen or just contributors. It started with Brian and then you were there and I'm sure at that point it's relatively easy or somewhat easy to have two different personalities.

Meghan (35:23.019)
Totally.

Finn (35:43.394)
visions working towards an end goal, but when you start to bring on more voices, more people, I'm sure there are challenges. Some people are better than others at empowering people in the group to contribute to the vision. But has that been something that iRunfar has embraced bringing more people on and spreading out responsibility? Or has it been tough? Because I'm sure at some points it's like...

I wouldn't have written that way or I wouldn't have covered it that way. What are your thoughts there?

Meghan (36:15.899)
Yeah, I think a hallmark of I Run Far that came from the very start that I think is really important, the thread goes all the way through today, is that really I Run Far is the product of a lot of different voices.

Um, you know, the, the leader, I get the leadership, like that's a, I don't know, not like the right exact word, like the editors of the, of the publication have largely stayed the same through time. Um, it's only been the last two and a half years that we've had different editors besides Brian and I, um, but the voices that create the content, the, you know, all the daily stuff.

those have been community members and they write about what they want to write about. And, you know, we only ask them that if they're, you know, going to write about something that's going to be controversial or is debative to present their argument in the way that they would like to be responded to, you know, like, present your argument constructively. And then we ask the community to respond back constructively. So that's like, like that literally is the only editorial requisite.

of I run far and there's I don't know how often it is maybe like once a month somebody will write something that I'll be like I wouldn't have said it like that but they're not incorrect that's just another way of saying it and that voice that voice is important so that's um

Finn (37:43.308)
Yeah.

Meghan (37:50.919)
Yeah, like that is that was something Brian very early integrated into I run far that's been who we are all the way and I hope that's who we continue to be because I mean ultra running and trail running is community creation and so in our opinion, thus the media covering it should be the same.

Finn (38:12.598)
I didn't realize that there was so much experimentation in sort of a sprint going on in 2014, 15. So maybe that adds some excitement to this question. But like, if you look back in time to that era and the plans that you had for Iron Far and imagining what the vision could be, where the company could end up, especially like in this decade in the 2020s, what's ultimately been expected versus unexpected in this current moment? Like, did you imagine in 2014 and 15 that, you know,

You'd be here today in this position with the company, for example, where it's been sold to Lola digital. Maybe there's more resources available, stuff like that. Like talk about expectation versus reality.

Meghan (38:53.911)
Yeah, I think what I would have envisioned, if you would have asked me eight or 10 years ago, what's Iron Farg gonna be in eight or 10 years, I would have said, like it's unpredictable. Like what we're going to be, I have no idea because things are gonna change so quick and so fast.

I don't think we ever envisioned that we were still going to be doing race coverage a decade later. For instance, we thought, you know, races would develop their own race coverage and

you know, would leave like the race coverage I run far was doing irrelevant. And then we would be doing something else. But as we have learned, the community has responded most strongly to I run far, like slow change, slow growth, like being.

Finn (39:31.202)
out.

Meghan (39:53.939)
you know, like the tree in the forest that doesn't bend quite as much in the storm that

is like the ship that like, you know, stays more solid as the seas are rocking. Like, we receive a lot of positive feedback on like staying the course and slow change, slow growth, slow evolution. And, you know, that's what people tell us. And that's also what the numbers show us is that continuing on our paths and evolving in slow ways that you might not notice unless you're like paying a really nuanced attention to what's happening.

what we're doing is what has yielded the most success for iRUNFAR through time.

Finn (40:35.862)
That is so fascinating that at one point in time, the prediction was a lot of these races, perhaps Western States, UTMB are going to bring coverage in-house. Are there any predictions you have right now for how this all could shape out in a similar time span? 10 years from now, we're like, huh, maybe I run far. We'll have to pivot a little bit because XYZ restrictions now exist or ABC companies have actually fulfilled that.

that expectation of like, you know, creating their own operation standalone.

Meghan (41:09.535)
Yeah, all these races, almost every race we go to has its own in house coverage of its race and that has done nothing.

that has not affected the way that people follow iRUNfar. In fact, probably their growth of people following on their platforms has led more people to iRUNfar and vice versa. Far and away, the most Yeah, the most read, the most interacted with content.

on iRunfar is our race coverage and it matters not, it has mattered not so far what else who else out there and what else out there is doing are doing similar things. So I don't I it's hard to foresee that changing. I mean certainly the way that we do it like you know every race is evolving in terms of media access in the race and stuff like that so certainly the way that we do it is going

continue to evolve through time, but I don't first see us not covering races. You know, if I go 10 years in the future, I, yeah, like I can't see why that would go away at this point. I've learned a heavy lesson there.

Finn (42:31.87)
And that's how I think about it in the sense that I run far has undoubtedly solved a version of coverage that will endure. I think we're starting to see these live streams solve another avenue of coverage that will endure. And the big question for me is, are there any other versions of coverage that could have an audience that remain to be solved? And what are they? And to me that...

That's my prediction that in the next five to 10 years, there will be another way of consuming these races that is compatible with everything that's preexisting and that will just be solved in a similar way. And it could be our end far. It could be these existing, uh, races pulling it in. It could be another company. Um, that's something I'm excited about. I think another question I wanted to ask you is, um, just similar expectations around the growth of the sport. So like you talked about how.

When Brian got into the business, it was fortuitous that Born to Run was being published and that brought a whole wave of people in. Did you think that the sport would be where it is today? Did you think it would be in a more regressive state, in a more progressive state, like even more resources, more fans? Talk about those expectations versus reality too.

Meghan (43:51.331)
Those were two very different questions. How we see race coverage evolving and the growth of the sport. I think as the current, like let's say the last.

Finn (43:56.034)
I know.

Meghan (44:08.167)
know, 18 months have shown there are lots more stories to be told about race, you know, races, and there's lots more ways and there's currently the fans of trail running are in a high consumption rate like they, they'll consume like every source at this point in terms of like being

Like discerning is the wrong word because that conjures up like that the followers aren't discerning, but they're in this state of where they want to experience as much as they can. If they're not there in person, they want to consume as much as they can to feel like they're there. And I think those are the ways that like those are the ways of

currently of like creating race coverage that's really compelling and meaningful to the, to the user is what we're doing that makes them feel like they're with us, even though they're 2000 or 4,000 miles away or whatever. And I mean that we have other, like I, I very intentionally look at what other sports are doing for goods and bads in terms of like, you know, what we could or should do.

Like I think there's other sports out there that are doing things that we could do and maybe shouldn't do. And then there's things out there that like other sports are doing that we probably should be doing that we're not doing. And so I think there's plenty of room for creating more vibrant storytelling, more complete storytelling, more

Yeah, more storytelling that brings the remote consumer, you know, with us, they're with us, I think. That's what I see is the, yeah, the future of race coverage right now.

Finn (45:54.198)
What are some things that...

Finn (45:58.987)
What are some of the things that you're liking that you're seeing in other sports right now? What immediately comes to mind?

Meghan (46:05.171)
Um, that I really like there is becoming a man. This is a really different thing, a difficult thing to promulgate into our sport because the logistics are insane. Um, but I think like, for instance, in track and field running, they're really figuring out how to, um, cover the race without intruding upon the runner's experiences. Like, I think we're at it. We're at a point now where.

you know, the runners who experience media at the race are, at races are feeling the pressure and the influence of the media. And like in your example that like it can, you almost feel like you're in the way sometimes. And so, you know, they're like, they're figuring out in track and field how to get like really good cameras.

Finn (46:50.634)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Meghan (46:58.499)
to follow the action, but not in a way that's intrusive. Like these are cameras in the air that the runners never see, or you only see them out of the corner of their eyes, but yet they're giving the viewer an experience that like can't really, like you can't even be replicated by somebody sitting in the stands. It's a much more intimate experience. And so like that, for me, that's like it's.

The live coverage of races is really cool, but I think our more mature version of doing it is how can we do it in a way that preserves the competitive experience, preserves the natural experience that runners are looking for when they go out into a trail race and yeah, does no harm to the environment through which people are running. So that's exciting to me.

Finn (47:49.898)
The reason I ask this next question is because I saw an announcement you put out, I think it was before Hard Rock or Western, I can't remember where you said, go to Instagram or go to our website for updates to some extent because Twitter is gonna restrict some of our engagement and if you've consumed X percentage of our content during the day, it's actually gonna limit our awareness, our exposure. And so the next question is based off that, it's given...

some of these things that are out of your control, in addition to like fan interest. How comfortable, how at peace do you feel with your current version of coverage on the sport versus thinking about reinventing some of the things you do and creating a program that is possibly most appropriate for like a 2023 world and beyond.

Meghan (48:42.803)
Yeah, I think, I mean, a lot of the language that I hear.

like applied to iRUNFAR coverage at this point is that it's old school or it's like old guard versus the newer forms of race coverage are the, you know, the new generation and the new, like the new and shiny thing. And like, I think those terms are only accurate to a point. I think the product that

I run far creates and the way that it serves is like highly useful in some context for consumers. Whereas like the 36 hours of live content on a YouTube page is a totally different product that's serving consumers in a totally different way. And at this point, it appears that...

people are using both forms of content at different points in a race. Like, you know, they may, you know, watch the start live and then they go out about on their day and they, you know, refresh live blogging.

And then they come back and they watch replays in the live stream and then they tune in for finishes and then they're like at that point consuming like every single resource they can to get like different perspectives on what's going on. And like there's nothing out there that is showing that what iRunfar does is not of use to consumers. Yeah. And so there's no

Finn (50:31.082)
resonating.

Meghan (50:34.911)
Like, yeah, like 10 years ago, I would have thought that at some point, like the live blogging format is going to be like people will consume things through more robust mechanisms like live streaming and stuff. But that

like user behavior is not reflecting that. Like they need or want the live blogging format, the short quips, the like, that you can get caught up really quickly. You can do your life while this event is happening and stay up to date on it. Like for some reason that is, that's still of use to them. And so it doesn't, and like, it's interesting to me that people call live blogging old school because it's still a mechanism of reporting,

in every other sport right now. Like on election night, for instance, live blogging is one of the most consumed ways to follow election night. It's a very popular mechanism in politics, in following concerts from afar, in other sports. And I guess like that, 10 years ago, I didn't

Finn (51:31.382)
Yeah.

Meghan (51:51.417)
to be like in the way people consume media and now I do understand that so that was a very long-winded answer but I think my point my point is that I think there's like what I run far as currently doing is

Finn (52:00.502)
No.

Meghan (52:08.939)
is seemingly quite requested by a lot of people. So we plan to keep doing it in this similar format. I mean, the way that we deliver it, like we're constantly trying to improve our quality just a little bit, capture a little bit more of the storyline that gets missed as like the races grow more competitive, like the storyline complexifies. So we're always trying to evolve, but in terms of that like quick quippy, like succinct delivery, like that's what people...

come to us for right now. So that's what we're gonna keep trying to deliver.

Finn (52:42.866)
I would totally corroborate most or all of that. I know in single tracks experience, for example, we had a vision at Western States this year to essentially cover each aid station in video format. And we were gonna upload essentially 4K clips of all of these top 10 male and female runners to Starlink. Pretty much live time. I mean, the lead time was gonna be like 10 or 15 minutes. And we had these real people that were just so super dialed. They could...

Meghan (53:01.007)
Oh wow, like live time? Yeah.

Finn (53:11.19)
churn out content in a matter of seconds. And we got hung up on a lot of the connectivity on the course and a lot of our content was even more delayed than we anticipated. Like it ended up being quote unquote super fast to get something out in like 60 to 90 minutes, sometimes longer. A lot of our content came out even after the race. And so I certainly have a deeper appreciation now for more update based content. And I think one of like, when we did a post-mortem on our coverage,

One of the insights was like, I'm not sure next year at Western States or hard rock or UTMB, why we don't cover the entire event off of iPhones and like, you know, scrap all of these, you know, fancy cameras and, you know, just tell the story of the race on Instagram stories and Instagram reels with like, you know, iPhone video. Um, so I don't know. I think I corroborate a lot of what you say. Um, I know, I know we're coming up on an hour here and I really appreciated your time.

Meghan (53:57.859)
Hmm.

Finn (54:10.39)
I only have two more questions for you. And the first one I think relates back to the business model you talked earlier about how at certain times with I've run far, you've had the luxury to, I don't wanna say luxury, but just the opportunity to self fund races because there's been other parts of the business that have just been doing well enough to support that investment. And maybe in some ways, race coverage has been sort of like a loss leader.

Talk about that, because I think a lot of people might be surprised that iRunfar isn't only this race coverage based business. Talk about the other editors, the columnists, the gear reviews, stuff like that.

Meghan (54:49.851)
Yeah, I think, I mean, I run far started operationally to try to be a digital version of a print magazine, you know, to offer a feature article every now and then to offer a gear review pretty regularly, to offer like the advice of a physical therapist or a coach or like, you know, some sort of information that's useful to a person's training or, you know, their annual injury trajectory or whatever.

So that's how like Brian's vision for iRUNFAR started. And that's how we still operate. Like we have, I believe it's 16 monthly columnists who are creating one to...

three or four articles per month. We publish every day at least one article, most days a couple articles. In those realms, we've also expanded like in recent years into like more newsy coverage, like of just.

you know, more breaking news and stuff that's going on in trail running and ultra running. Um, and then the, the race coverage thing for a while, we were attempting to cover a race once per month. Um,

but we found that was like not quite sustainable for a couple of reasons. So now we aim to get to the five to eight most competitive longer trail races or ultra marathons a year. And so in the end, like, you know, volume of content wise it all sort of balances out that race coverage content is about equal to like, you know, service content in terms of like coaching and physical therapy. And

Meghan (56:41.996)
nutrition and that kind of stuff and is roughly equal to like editorialization, like the people who write opinion pieces and thought pieces and stuff like that, that the content roughly balances out over the course of a year.

Finn (56:56.514)
Have there been any types of content or just like editorial directives that have become more important post, you know, sale to Lola Digital? Like do they, are there things that have become more prioritized for example?

Meghan (57:10.855)
Yeah, you know, there's like, I mean, this is getting into the, you know, the business of being media now, but there's, you know, there's the front facing work that you do to be a business. And then there's the backend work that you do to be a business and the stuff that people don't see in terms of like optimizing the speed of a website, optimizing how things, you know, perform in, in Google rankings, optimizing like the degree to which.

like the digital community, like the other humans in the digital community like see iRUNFAR is like an important resource to go to, to like start getting a knowledge base on something. And so like we've always, like through time, we've historically tried to balance our efforts in terms of like, let's put, you know.

half of our work into front-facing and half of our work into back-end and being a part of the all gear sphere has brought us under the umbrella of a lot more resources to do some of the stuff that like yeah there's been more resources to increase front-facing work stuff that readers see and experience but there's also a lot more resources to work on the website optimization and how we get it to perform well.

yeah, just out in the digital world. And that's been awesome. And I don't like the people who do that work are like, they're just saints because they don't, they don't ever get to see the light of day. They don't get like, nobody's telling them good job, but it helps I run far be better. So.

Finn (58:55.774)
Awesome. Well, Megan, I mean, it's been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for sharing the story of iron far and what you're up to these days. I think the last few questions I have for you just are based around updates that you can share. So for example, what is the rest of 2023 look like? Are there any interesting ongoing campaigns or initiatives that you want to link listeners and viewers into? Yeah, you have the final word here. So what do you want to what do you want to leave us with?

Meghan (59:24.703)
Well, first of all, I want to say thanks for having me. Like it's been fun to watch single track grow and evolve so quickly through time. And yeah, just hear your voice. It's like relevance and its importance grow so quickly in trail running and ultra running. It's been fun to follow and very nice of you to invite me to be a part of it. So thank you for that. Yeah, we'll plan to be at UTMB as we always have in about six weeks time.

Finn (59:47.406)
Thank you.

Meghan (59:54.357)
quite a run in the last like five weeks, we covered three races in three different locations in five weeks. So right, right now our team is the front end team and the back end team, we're all tired. And so just as you do after racing an ultra marathon, we're going to have a period of like quietness and recovery so that our team can rant ramp up and like have a really awesome experience like creating material at UTMB and for the fall beyond. So we'll get a little quiet right now as we as we

Finn (59:59.402)
Yes.

Meghan (01:00:24.679)
recover and then we'll be back for UTMB and back in the fall.