Welcome back or welcome to the Single Track Podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the latest

edition of our Sunday conversation. Today I'm talking with James Elson, the CEO of Centurion

running. James wears multiple hats in this community. He is an event director for many races in the

UK scene, including South Downs Way, which is part of the World Trail majors. He owns an online retail store,

a coaching business. He's an athlete himself. He's done many things in the scene ranging from

Western States to La Verado, even to Barclay. So he's just one of those people who deeply understands

the levers across our sport, across multiple subcategories. Anyways, wanted to have him on to make sense of what's happening over in the UK right now.

Many of you have already been briefed on what's happened at Snowdonia and with ARIA events.

We talk about both of those at greater length in more detail.

We also get into other trail event industry topics like market saturation at certain race

distances and formats, the cost structure of trail races in why high-end expedition events

like Dragonsback are so financially fragile, the increasing presence of UTMB on the UK

scene and the potential cannibalization of the same participant pool and volunteer pool across events, the squeezed middle, as we call it, and issues of safety, competency, and risk managed by event directors as increasing number of inexperienced folks enter the sport.

More than anything else, if you are someone looking to deeply understand

as many aspects of the sport as possible, basically if you're like me, I'm a student at this,

I hope this is a conversation that contributes to your understanding of how events work and trail,

or at least just gives you more stuff to think about. The Singles Track podcast is brought to you by

Norda, the official footwear partner of the show. And if you're getting ready for a race this spring or summer, I must recommend to you. There's zero zero five model. It's the lightest, fastest, most stable super shoe on the market right now. Alongside the 055, I'll be using it at key races all season long. Don't wait. go check it out, norda run.com.

Today's episode is also brought to you by precision, fuel, and hydration.

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