Stephanie Case Archives - ��ԹϺ�� Online

A Response from a Proud “Lazy Parasite” Trail Runner��

mmirhashem — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been for over a decade; I’ve participated in some of the most well-known and competitive ultras around the world, including the Barkley Marathons, the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc, and��the Western States Endurance Run.��

I’ve also been a human rights lawyer for about the same period of time, and I take a deep interest in how we in the trail and ultrarunning community contribute to broader society. I know I’m not alone in this—as trail runners, many of us��pride ourselves on being responsible stewards of our environment and contributing members in the outdoor sports community. We left behind on the trails by inconsiderate urbanites. We , and we know how deep a hole to dig to bury our own poop (minimum: six inches).��

We see ourselves as the “good ones”—runners who lightly tiptoe along mountain and forest paths, leaving no trace. Our intimate connection with the outdoors makes us protective of the wilderness that we enjoy, and that is something we hold tightly as part of our culture and identity as runners.
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Given all that, it’s no surprise that when ��ԹϺ�� published an article on May 22 calling trail runners “lazy parasites” and “deadbeats,” the reaction from the trail and ultrarunning community was swift and fierce. The writer, Marc Peruzzi, claimed that we simply aren’t pulling our weight when it comes to trail work. “When compared to mountain bikers and hikers, trail runners are the least likely to volunteer to build and maintain trails,” Peruzzi wrote. Leaning heavily on anecdotal evidence to back up his views, Peruzzi tried to hit us right where he knew it would hurt—and it did.

Candice Burt, an elite ultrarunner and the race director of the Triple Crown , wrote in that she was shocked when she read the article. “I have no issue with asking user groups to do more to give back,” she wrote. “However, this article was not so much a call to action as it was a full on insulting diatribe aimed at my community.” For her part, Burt wrote about how she organizes an annual volunteer work party to maintain trails that would otherwise cease to exist, and how her company donates over $20,000 to the Tahoe Rim Trail Association for building and maintaining trails. “Trail running and stewardship are my life,” she wrote, “[It] has always been an important part of the trail running culture.” Many others in the trail community echoed her reaction.��

This commitment extends far beyond Burt’s efforts—and it isn’t hard to find other examples of members of the trail running community pitching in and giving back. For instance, the in Maine requires trail work rather than fees to join. in Canada educates trail runners on safety, while organizing trail work days and fundraising for the local search and rescue services. , which hosts the in British Columbia, Canada, hosts a dozen trail work days every year for races and has trained and mentored volunteers on special trail projects. (“Considering the thousands of hours we have put in since 2009, to say I was offended by [Peruzzi’s] article is putting it mildly,” a representative of Mountain Madness wrote on Facebook.)

Rather than engage in a pissing contest with our fellow athletes over who is doing more to protect our common lands, I’d prefer to join forces to make us all more effective.

A number of prominent ultramarathon races in North America��in addition to Fat Dog and Burt’s 200 mile race series,��require volunteer service from entrants, typically in the form of eight hours of trail maintenance. (Peruzzi briefly acknowledged this in his story.) These races include the , the , , and the . Some, such as the Mogollon Monster 100, accept other kinds of volunteerism, such as working with youth running programs or adaptive sports programs. And this link between racing and volunteering is far from new: according to John Trent, a former president of Western States, the race’s lottery was created in the early 2000s with the specific purpose of generating funds for trail work. When the Wasatch 100 began gaining popularity in the early 1990s, the race directors thinking it would help to slow demand (it didn’t). This year, over 400 entrants are signed up, with each person required to volunteer eight hours of trail work. That’s 3,200 hours from one race in a single year.
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In short, we in the trail running community know that we aren’t the lazy parasites and deadbeats Peruzzi claims we are. So why does he have this impression? And are we taking his criticism so personally because there is a kernel of truth to it? Could we be doing more?
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The short answer is yes, we could be doing more. Adam Chase, the President of the American Trail Running Association (ATRA), responded to Peruzzi’s article on Facebook by saying: “I must confess. We are guilty as charged…we need [to do] more. A lot more.” Indeed, as trail running continues to increase in popularity, it will become even more important that we expand our volunteer and conservation efforts.��

Clare Gallagher, an elite ultrarunner and environmental activist, has not been shy in on this and urging us to do more, long before Peruzzi’s story was published. “If we are not engaging with the politics of public land protections, we are freeloading,” she wrote in September 2017. (Gallagher also wrote to Peruzzi’s article last week, taking it as an additional opportunity to put out a call to action.)

The truth is that while many of us are engaged on an individual level, we as a community have a lot to learn from the mountain biking community in terms of collective action. As Peruzzi pointed out, mountain bikers have historically had to fight for their place on the trails, which has inevitably pushed them to be more vocal about their sport and their efforts to preserve and maintain trails. Adversity has forced them to bond together to be their own advocates, with the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) leading advocacy efforts on access since its establishment in 1988. We in the trail running community, on the other hand, have not typically faced such restrictions, with the unfortunate side effect that we may simply be taking our access to trails for granted. In focusing on the debate over public lands, elite ultrarunner Mike Foote asked: “Could this lack of conflict be lulling us into complacency?”
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While I’m more than willing to admit that we need to do more as a community, I refuse to accept the suggestion that we are lazy deadbeats who “are the least likely to volunteer to build and maintain trails,” as Peruzzi claims. When Peruzzi found out that I was writing this piece, he challenged me to “come up with some numbers that show��how many hours runners log on our nation’s trails,” emphasizing the hundreds of thousands of work hours logged by IMBA annually. And I can’t do that, because as Peruzzi himself pointed out, the trail running community does not systematically organize and mobilize resources and methodically tally the result of our collective action.��

Does that mean that we aren’t deeply involved at a grassroots level or that we don’t care? Hell no. We may be a ragtag bunch, but we are compassionate and committed. From the moment I joined this community, I understood that the expectation was to give back, whether through trail work, guided running for visually impaired athletes, or simply picking up garbage left behind by others. Advertising these good deeds was certainly not required, and it was maybe even discouraged. Modesty has always been valued more in this sport than self-congratulation. Could this be hurting our reputation amongst the outdoor sports community? Perhaps.��

But rather than engage in a pissing contest with our fellow athletes over who is doing more to protect our common lands, I’d prefer to join forces to make us all more effective. (But if this were a pissing contest, Peruzzi himself seems to think we would win. As he wrote in his original story: “Hell, every time they take a leak—again, when multiplied by thousands—they’re killing native plants.”)

The definition of a parasite is something that exists by taking from or depending on something else. In that sense, I will happily embrace Peruzzi’s label. I am : I truly rely on the trails to exist. For that reason, I see it as my duty to ensure that the trails I run on—and all the ones I haven’t yet—are protected. I will do this by working alongside my trail running companions, and learning from my mountain biking colleagues. The only way to make progress on these issues is to band together, not drive each other apart. As for the rest of Peruzzi’s article? Well, it’s going in a six-inch hole, where it belongs. See you out on the trail.

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Western States Has New Rules for Transgender Athletes

mmirhashem — Wed, 08 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The Western States Endurance Run (WSER) is one of the most highly anticipated in the ultrarunning community. Every year in early December, runners from around the world hope to snag one of the 369 available spots in the historic California 100-miler. The race has a less than a 5 percent acceptance rate, so the entry process is heavily scrutinized.��The names of runners who have completed a qualifying race are listed for all to view in the weeks leading up to the draw. And from that list, WSER runners are selected by members of the audience at a public lottery draw, which is streamed live online.��

After the 2019 lottery, WSER race director Craig Thornley��learned that Grace Fisher,��a 38-year-old transgender woman, had been selected for the race. With a recent 100-mile win and a previous top-five race finish at the Vermont 100 Endurance Run under her belt, the WSER board of directors felt that Fisher��could earn a top-ten podium finish at the race. To preempt any possible controversy regarding her participation as a woman, the board decided to adopt . According to Diana��Fitzpatrick,��a member��of the board, the��motivations were twofold: “We��wanted to send a message of inclusivity to Grace and other trans runners��while also addressing any concerns about competitive fairness that might come up.”

In developing the specifics of the new policy, the board looked at those��of other relevant sports organizations for guidance. It��decided to follow the approach taken by USA Track and Field (USATF) and the Boston Marathon in allowing runners to compete as their self-identified gender, which would be taken “at face value” and protected from challenge unless an award was at stake. In those cases—which for Western States means top-ten male and female finishers and age-group winners—trans women could be required to show documentation certifying one year of hormone therapy (trans men may compete with no restrictions).��

The WSER board was careful, however, not to follow a cookie-cutter model.��There are no other prominent examples of similar policies in the ultrarunning community, so they had to assess whether certain rules from other sports organizations would make sense in the context of WSER. The Board��opted��not to impose the standard set by the (IOC), followed by many other sports organizations (including the USATF and Boston Marathon), that requires trans women to reach certain specified hormone levels in addition to the year of therapy. As Fitzpatrick explained, “We felt that this was overly intrusive and unnecessary for our event, and there’s a fair amount of controversy over what is the appropriate hormone level to require.”��

The response in the ultrarunning community to Western States’ announcement in February was largely positive, and both cisgender and transgender athletes expressed support for the organization’s inclusive approach. Perhaps inevitably��though, there was some online backlash, mainly in the comments on the race’s Facebook page. Some questioned the need for such a policy at all. “Born a guy, you are a guy. Born a girl you are a girl! Nothing else need be said!” one man, Ed Walsh, wrote. Another, Trey McCain, added: “I get what you’re trying to do but fair competition is competing with your natural body…��True sport and sportsmanship is using the body you were born with.”��The negative response was mainly directed at the participation of trans women in the race��and in competitive sports in general. A number of people—male and female—expressed concern that trans women would have an unfair advantage against cisgender women. Some online commenters even suggested that the WSER board had failed to spend adequate time and research��crafting the policy��and urged it to reconsider.

The response in the ultrarunning community to Western States’ announcement in February was largely positive, and both cisgender and transgender athletes expressed support for the organization’s inclusive approach.

But in reality, the committee��tasked with developing the WSER policy spent two months working on it, learning about the evolving science, medicine, and privacy issues its members needed to consider to create a fair set of rules. And as the committee discovered, there is that trans women have any advantage over cisgender women in sports. In fact, has shown that after a year of testosterone suppression, trans women lose strength, speed, and athletic ability. Fitzpatrick added,��“We felt there was sufficient medical and scientific research to support the standard of one year of continuous hormone therapy as sufficient to take away any competitive advantage that might otherwise exist for trans female athletes.”��

And before unveiling the new rules, the board asked medical physicist and ultrarunner to review the policy to ensure inclusivity. Harper, a trans woman herself, previously advised the IOC on its own transgender policy. (When Harper reviewed the WSER policy, she didn’t recommend any changes.)

Still, not everyone believes the WSER policy is perfect. “Any policy about trans people should start and end with accepting self-identification,” says Aurora Borin, a trans-rights activist.��In her view, having to provide documentation “tends to feel like a scarlet letter.” But Angela Quinton, a trans woman and ultrarunner,��disagrees.��“I don’t think that’s an unreasonable burden in the face of what elite cis athletes face,” she says in��reference to standard protocols like drug testing.��

Of course, transgender athletes are not new to the ultrarunning scene. But race directors have been slow to address their participation. As Quinton says,��“The lack of a visible policy is likely to be a huge source of anxiety for trans athletes. The mystery of whether I am welcome at a given event acts as a deterrent.” As one of the most prominent and well-respected races in the sport, Western States is raising the bar in ultrarunning—to a place where it should have been all along.��

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Op-Ed: We Need to Fix Ultrarunning’s Gender Problem

jversteegh — Fri, 25 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The starting line at an ultramarathon is one of the few places in the world where you can guarantee that the women’s bathroom line will be shorter than the men’s. Aside from that small perk, there’s no upside to the underrepresentation of women in ultrarunning, and it’s time that we take steps to address it.

I started off my racing season this year with the Transgrancanaria 125K ultramarathon in Spain, where, of 886 total runners, only 11 percent were women. Sadly, this is a pattern that persists across the sport, regardless of where you are in the world. While shorter ultras—50K or 50 miles—may see female participation rates up to (according to race data compiled by Ultrarunning), for longer ultramarathons above 100K, the female participation rate drops to 25 percent and below. For 100-mile races like the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc or Hardrock 100, which impose strict , the female percentage rarely makes it past 10 percent or 15 percent, respectively. Hardrock’s lottery system also favors veterans, which perpetuates the historic gender imbalance in the sport.

The lack of female participation in ultrarunning is no secret, but those with the ability to make a tangible difference (such as race directors) haven’t really done much to correct it. There has been plenty of talk about the importance of encouraging more female ambassadors in the sport, the need to provide equal media coverage for male and female athletes, and the importance of including women in positions of influence. But so far, we have only been paying lip service to these ideas without actually making any concrete policy changes.

In recent months, a handful of prominent figures in the sport have suggested that we should increase the number of spots for women in ultramarathons as a means of increasing overall female participation. In December, , who coaches several elite athletes in the United States, proposed reserving a percentage of lottery entries in premier races for women. In February, , a Team Great Britain athlete and coach, suggested women should get double the chances in lotteries for male-dominated races.

Let’s be clear: If we all had the same opportunities to get to the starting line, we wouldn’t need to take gender into account.

When I first read these arguments, I thought: Here are some concrete suggestions for making an immediate, quantifiable difference. I was ecstatic, until I read the online feedback from many in the ultrarunning community. (Never read the comments, as they say.) Some respondents on forums and social media recognized the gender imbalance but denied it was a problem. They argued that women were simply less interested in ultras, or worse, not as biologically inclined for such a competitive sport as men. “Endurance sports appeal more to men because of their more egocentric mindset,” said one male runner. “There just aren’t that many women who have the desire to do it,” chimed in a female runner. Still others strongly opposed the lottery proposal, arguing that it would unfairly discriminate against men and would let in unqualified female candidates. Female and male readers alike argued that “positive discrimination is still discrimination and unfair.” Even some women vehemently protested, insisting that they had made it on their own and that any “special treatment” was demeaning. “Don’t wait for some feminist to bang a drum for you,” one woman wrote. “I’m sick of people fighting for rights for me that I took for myself decades ago.”

Let’s be clear: If we all had the same opportunities to get to the starting line, we wouldn’t need to take gender into account. But the fact is that women face significant hurdles before even making it to the sign-up stage. Before we can develop solutions for addressing the problem, we first need to understand the extent of it.

Men have better chances to develop their interest and skills in sports than women do. From an early age, girls are , especially competitive ones. We’re taught to be careful, to look pretty in our dresses and stay safe in our castles, while boys are encouraged to be brave, to go into the wild and slay some dragons. Research by the has found that girls in the United States have 1.3 million fewer opportunities to play high school sports than boys. By age 14, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of their male classmates.

This trend continues into adulthood, particularly in strength and endurance sports. have consistently suggested that these sports are likely to be perceived as “masculine” activities. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—the more masculine a sport is perceived to be, the lower percentage of female participants you’ll find. While Kathrine Switzer shattered the misconception that women were too weak for marathons when she finished the Boston Marathon in 1967, that we are unable to withstand the same stresses as men. The opportunities for female athletes to compete at the highest level still lag behind: Women weren’t allowed to run the marathon in the Olympics until 1984, and women’s weightlifting wasn’t added to the Olympic program until 2000.

If women do overcome the barriers that prevent them from entering ultrarunning, they face additional challenges trying to stay in it. We hear these things a lot, but they are worth repeating: Women still of the majority of , including childcare, and are too often simply unable to commit the time necessary to train for long races. Those who choose to do so are at risk of being labeled as “irresponsible” or “selfish” for shirking their domestic duties. Women also often contend with different safety and security issues than men, as verbal (and physical) is all too common. Sometimes, even training in broad daylight can be taxing—every time a man catcalls a woman running by, it shrinks the space for women in this sport.

There is also evidence to support the idea that women are more self-selecting about the races they enter than men are. One suggested that men overestimate their marathon abilities compared to women. Which is to say, men are more likely to sign up for races when they are less prepared. This is reflected when you look at finishing rates for men and women: At the Boston Marathon this year, where competitors experienced some of the worst weather in decades, the dropout rate for men was than the year before, while women had just a 12 percent increase in nonfinishers. Looking at some of the major ultras, women often have a lower DNF rate. According to Martin Like, race director of the notoriously tough in the Canadian arctic, while women have made up just 15 percent of the race’s competitors over the past nine years, they represent 50 percent of all finishers. A woman, , also holds the course record for the 350-mile event.

Increasing women’s chances to enter races won’t solve the gender gap on its own, but it’s one concrete step to help address the imbalance while we wait for societal norms to catch up. If we truly want more women in this sport, rejecting gender-blind lotteries is an obvious next move. As Britton put it: “In life, us men have more tickets.” Personally, I can’t wait for the day when I have to wait in line for the toilet at the start of an ultra.

is a competitive ultrarunner, a human rights lawyer, and the president and founder of , a running charity that supports young women affected by conflict.

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Pregnant Runners Should Be Able to Defer Race Entries

jversteegh — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For many runners, the (UTMB) represents the pinnacle of mountain racing. Runners are required to circumnavigate Mont Blanc through three countries, covering 105 miles and 32,000 feet of elevation gain within a time limit of 46.5 hours. It takes years of training and competing to earn enough points from qualifying races to even enter the lottery, which offers approximately a one in four chance of earning a coveted spot.

When I ran UTMB in 2013, in a field of 2,500, I was one of only about 220 women. I was disappointed with the low numbers, and I worried it would take away from the experience. But the support from spectators was overwhelmingly positive. The crowds seemed to ring their cowbells a little harder and cheer a little louder whenever they saw a woman coming up the path. It made me feel like a complete badass. I came away from UTMB feeling supported and encouraged as a female ultrarunner, and I was optimistic that the number of female runners would continue to grow.

My outlook changed after talking to a friend who entered the UTMB lottery this year with the hope of finishing in the top ten. When she registered for the race, she was also trying for a baby. She got lucky twice—but when she asked the race directors for a one-year deferral because of her pregnancy, she was denied.

UTMB does have a deferral policy, but it’s only available to injured runners. Those who take advantage of the policy must qualify for the race again, but they can skip over the lottery once they qualify. As a UTMB representative explained over email, the policy was introduced to prevent injured runners from racing to the detriment of their health. The race directors understood that, for many, earning a spot at UTMB is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, which might push some injured runners to race out of fear that they would never get another chance. It’s absurd that pregnant women aren’t offered the same option.

With so few women in this sport, race directors ought to be doing whatever they can to encourage female participation.

Women are disproportionately underrepresented in this sport, but when it comes to races like UTMB, female participation is particularly abysmal. This has nothing to do with lack of ability or interest. Women still shoulder more of the household duties compared to men, which makes it more difficult to devote the necessary time to complete the qualifying races. Time constraints aside, it can be intimidating for many women to break into such a male-dominated sport. With so few women in ultrarunning, race directors ought to be doing whatever they can to encourage female participation. At the very minimum, they should be removing unnecessary obstacles that prevent them from participating.

Lizzy Hawker, a five-time female UTMB champion and now a of her own race, agrees that UTMB’s policies are unfair. “If we want to encourage women into the sport of endurance running, then accommodating the physical implications of pregnancy is important,” she told me over email. “It would be great to encourage someone to return to the sport instead of putting up more barriers.”

Some argue against deferrals for pregnancies because of the administrative burden it places on the race directors to review the medical documentation and keep track of the priority registrations from year to year. However, for races that already provide deferrals for injuries, this doesn’t carry a lot of weight. The number of female ultrarunners of childbearing age that might become pregnant between registration and race day is infinitesimally smaller than the number of male or female ultrarunners who become injured during that same period. Others suggest that if deferrals were allowed for pregnancy, then what about other reasons, like military service or a death in the family? They argue that making an exception for pregnancy could eventually make it impossible to draw the line. But unlike these other examples, pregnancy only affects women—how about drawing the line at gender discrimination?

I reached out to Catherine Poletti, one of the race directors of UTMB, to understand the reasoning behind the policy. According to Poletti, there is a major difference between runners who become injured and women who become pregnant. “When you wait for a baby, you choose it,” she said. “When you have an injury, there is no choice.” In Poletti’s view, the biological differences between men and women do not warrant special treatment. “We need to accept what we are,” she told me. Furthermore, she pointed out that the rules are and are clear. No one is obligated to register, and those who do must accept the guidelines.

Pregnancy is not a simple matter of choice.

Well, that solves it. I suppose all of us runners with uteruses should schedule our fertility in the off-season so it doesn’t affect our racing. Or maybe we should ask our partners to get pregnant instead. Failing that, perhaps we should just make sure to build our dreams around races with liberal deferral policies.

Pregnancy is not a simple matter of choice. All sorts of possibilities, including accidents and surprises, come into play. Even for couples who make a conscious decision to try for a baby, it isn’t something that can be scheduled—it can take years to get pregnant, and women cannot be expected to put their lives on hold in the meantime.

We need to go beyond equal treatment to arrive at true equality. Sometimes, groups of people must be treated differently to correct the unbalanced circumstances. In this case, the cowbells need to be rung a little bit harder, and the cheers need to be a little bit louder. To move closer toward equal participation for women in ultrarunning, race directors must��take into account the physical circumstances of pregnancy. UTMB, as one of the most preeminent and iconic races of the sport, should be setting a leading example. Women should not have to choose between being badass ultrarunners and badass mothers—they should just get to be badass.