Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and in this episode,

I chat with Fred Abramowitz, co-race director of the Run Rabbit Run series held every mid-September

in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I reached out to Fred after clicking a link in a recent Trailrunner

magazine article that sent me to a captivating document

titled A Blueprint for Sponsors of Ultraming. After reading, I realized Fred was the author,

so I reached out to see if he'd joined the podcast to riff on some of the ideas expressed

in said blueprint. If you've enjoyed our state of the sport type episodes in the past, you will

enjoy this one. I love forecasting. I love hypotheticals. I love imagining what could be in our

sport with guests of the show. And Fred was a fun partner in all of this. And he really struck me

throughout the conversation as someone who cares deeply about our sport and the people involved.

We talk about prize money.

We talk about why to make ultra running more interesting to the casual sports fan, the state of sponsorship, race directing issues, and more.

Couple things I want to share with you before we get started.

First, I wanted to give a shout out to friend of the podcast, Mason Boswell, who has started

a new project called Ultra Crew Hub, which is a community platform for runners and their crew

members looking for the best, most up-to-date information around the logistics of each race event in our sport.

Think about it like best places to eat, places to stay, where to get gear, how to travel

between aid stations most efficiently, stuff like that.

It is still in its early phases, but I'm really excited about it.

And one of the coolest aspects to me is its reliance on a lot of user-generated content,

meaning the platform grows stronger as runners and their crews contribute knowledge

and experience to each of the races that consumers can benefit from over time.

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