Top 10 Dead Giveaways Of a Shitty Ultra
Before, During & After You Sign Up
Plus, two bonus dead giveaways and a one-page corresponding checklist for your future use,
because at Epic Ultras we always give more than we promise!
By: Eric Steele
Why You Should Listen to Me
I ran my first ultramarathon in 1994. By 1995, I had not only started my first ultra event, but also founded a non-profit ultrarunning club. Since then, I’ve started close to a dozen different ultras, most of which are still alive and kicking today. I’ve volunteered, I’ve crewed, I’ve directed, I’ve raced, I’ve seen this sport from every single angle possible, and have stacked over thirty years of well-rounded, hard-core experience in every single aspect of this sport.
And here’s the bottom line, I express none of this to brag whatsoever, but simply stated there are damn few other individuals who’ve been this deep in the game, for this long, and from this many perspectives. That’s why you should not only read this report, but actually take heed to what you’re about to read, because it’s coming from someone who’s slogged through the mud, heat, cold, chaos, and inevitable shitshows of this sport for decades.
Running Credentials
• I ran my first ultramarathon in 1994, a 100K completed in 12 hours.
• I’ve logged over 70 ultramarathon finishes spanning distances from 50K to 146 miles.
• I’ve finished the Badwater 135 and then went on to summit Mt Whitney at 14,496 ft., total of 146 miles, one of the toughest footraces on Earth.
• I’ve completed the Leadville Trail 100, one of the sport’s most iconic high-altitude ultras.
• I’ve been running ultras for over 30 years and counting, still grinding, still pushing the edge.
• I’ve climbed nearly a dozen 14ers, including Pikes Peak eleven times, Mount Whitney three times, and Mount Elbert twice.
• I’ve completed five Grand Canyon crossings or trips, three South Rim to Phantom Ranch and back, one North Rim to South Rim, and one full South to North to South double crossing in under 15 hours.
Race Director and Organizer Credentials
• I organized and directed my first ultra in 1995, the FlatRock 50K, the oldest ultramarathon in Kansas, still going strong today.
• That same year, I founded the Kansas Ultrarunners Society KUS, a nonprofit dedicated to growing the state’s ultrarunning community.
• Under KUS, I helped create and grow more than half a dozen ultramarathons in just three years, including the Heartland 100, Kansas’s oldest 100-miler.
▪ My crew and I served as the backbone of that race for the first five years, setting up all six aid stations, working the turnaround, then sweeping the course and tearing and packing them all back down.
• In 2012, I founded Epic Ultras, launching five brand-new events in the first year.
• Our flagship, the FlatRock 50K, sold out 11 months in advance three years straight from 2013 to 2015.
• Our Prairie Spirit Trail 100 Mile also sold out three years in a row, six months ahead of race day.
• I’ve got over 30 years of hands-on ultramarathon event management experience, from gritty grassroots races to larger-scale, sellout endurance events.
• I created the legendary Knights of The FlatRock “Hall of Pain” and have served as it’s self-appointed King since it’s inception in 2004.
• I founded the Kansas Grand Slam of ultrarunning.
• I created the FlatRock Triple Crown.
Volunteering, Crewing and Pacing Experience
• I’ve put in thousands of volunteer hours over three decades, giving back to the sport that’s given me everything.
• The first three years I served as President of the Kansas Ultrarunners Society were completely non-profit, fueled by passion and volunteer work.
• Over 5,000 combined man-hours were spent maintaining and improving the Elk River Hiking Trail, home of the FlatRock 50K.
• I’ve crewed and paced at Badwater 135 twice, battling the heat of Death Valley to help runners finish one of the world’s toughest races.
• I’ve crewed and paced at Badwater Salton Sea twice, gaining deep experience across the desert and coastal extremes of the Badwater Series.
• I’ve crewed and paced at the Leadville Trail 100 Mile three times, supporting athletes in one of ultrarunning’s most brutal high-altitude tests.
• In 1995, I crewed Dr. David Horton for ten days across the state of Kansas during his legendary TransAmerica Run.
• I’ve served in nearly every volunteer role possible, from aid-station setup, turnaround management, course sweeping, finish-line logistics, and safety patrol, I’ve literally lived every angle of what it takes to make an ultra succeed.
Connections and Relationships in the Sport
• Over the years, I’ve become good friends with some of the most legendary figures in ultrarunning, not just people I’ve met or know of.
• I first met Dr. David Horton in 1995, when I crewed him for ten days across Kansas during his TransAmerica Run. We’ve stayed great friends ever since, and in 2014, I had him out to speak at my Prairie Spirit Trail 100 Miler in 2013.
• I became good friends with Marshall Ulrich just days after he completed his self-supported Badwater triple crossing in 2001, the only person in history to do it. We met while crewing and pacing for our mutual friend Theresa Daus-Weber, spending nearly three straight days together while trading Badwater stories, among many other gems. I later brought Marshall out to speak at the Prairie Spirit Trail 100 in 2015.
• I’m good friends with Pete Kostelnick, who’s run several of my races and set course records along the way. Our friendship has grown through years of shared respect and competition.
• I’m close friends with Marge Hickman, the first woman ever to complete ten Leadville Trail 100 Mile finishes, and Theresa Daus-Weber, the second woman ever to reach that milestone.
▪ Marshall and I crewed and paced Theresa during her tenth Leadville finish in 2001, which was an unforgettable milestone for all of us.
• Beyond the well-known names, I’ve built lasting friendships with hundreds, if not thousands, of ultrarunners, from first-timers chasing their first buckle to veterans who’ve helped define the sport itself.
Introduction
We’ve all been there. The hype looks slick, the website copy is polished, the photos are cherry-picked to make it look like the adventure of a lifetime, then you roll up and realize you just blew a couple hundred bucks to stand in a cow pasture with no porta-potty, no course markings, and an aid station that’s nothing more than a jug of lukewarm water and some stale pretzels.
That’s why I wrote this. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to tell you the truth so you can smell the garbage before you waste your money.
This list will show you,
• What to look for before you ever sign up.
• What to look for on race day.
• And as a bonus, what to notice after the race is over, because even the follow-up tells you whether an RD gives a damn about you or just wanted your entry fee.
This isn’t theory. This is three decades of scar tissue, laughter, disasters, and war stories. Read it, laugh, wince, and more importantly, let it save you money, frustration, and weekends you’ll never get back.
Part One, Before You Ever Sign Up
1. No Cap on Entrants
If a race director doesn’t cap the number of runners, that’s your first blazing red flag. No cap means no quality control. That’s a cash grab, not an event. Expect overcrowded trails, aid stations stripped bare, and back-of-the-packers treated like unwanted relatives at Thanksgiving. If they can’t even set a number, they’re not thinking about you, they’re thinking about their Venmo balance.
2. No Reasonable Cutoff for Registrations
Still accepting sign-ups at packet pickup, or worse, the morning of the race, that’s not runner-friendly, that’s laziness disguised as hustle. Imagine a surgeon letting people stroll in off the street mid-operation, same vibe. If they don’t have their logistics locked at least two weeks before, don’t expect anything but chaos on race day.
3. One Ultra Buried Under a Pile of Shorter Races
A 50K paired with a 25K is fine, but if your ultra is buried under a carnival of 5Ks, fun runs, and dog jogs, guess where the focus will be, not on you. You’ll be dodging strollers, tutu-wearing color dashers, and inflatable mascots while wondering why you spent $150 to run laps around a farmer’s market.
4. Vague or Missing Course Details
No legit course map, no aid station info, no cutoff times means laziness or worse, cluelessness. If the best they can offer is trust us, it’s scenic, run. That’s not confidence, that’s code for we got lost when we marked it too.
5. Inflated Entry Fees with Nothing to Show
If the fee looks like Coachella but the experience feels like a garage sale, you’ve been hustled. High entry fees should mean pro-level logistics, solid swag, and stocked aid stations, not a cotton T-shirt that shrinks in the wash and a medal that looks like it came from the dollar bin at Hobby Lobby.
6. Don’t Trust the Hype, Ultra Runners Lie
Every local has a legendary race they’ll swear by. Sometimes it’s true. But often it’s just a buddy system hyping up mediocrity. It’s just like Western States, no Brenda, it’s not. It’s a two-loop 50K through a landfill with a plastic table for aid. Do your own homework.
Part Two, When You’re At the Race
7. Last-Minute Entries That Blow Up the Start
If they’re still signing people up at the gun, that’s not inclusive, that’s greedy. You’ll be standing around while Cousin Eddie fills out his liability waiver in pencil. Then you all get shoved onto singletrack like cattle. Not fun.
8. Late Race Starts
First blood boiler. If the gun goes off 20 to 30 minutes late because the RD is still figuring things out, guess what, aid stations will also be late, cutoffs will be late, results will be late. Basically, the whole day is one long shrug emoji. Plus, it’s just damn disrespectful to all the runners who actually did prepare and show up on time.
9. Finish Line Torn Down Before the Final Runners Arrive
Very few things boil my blood more! Every single runner deserves the same finish line experience, whether they’re first or last. If you see volunteers/staff folding up banners and deflating arches while runners are still out grinding, you’re not at a race, you’re at a poorly planned group run with a price tag.
10. Empty Aid Stations or Food Gone
Front-runners get burritos, back-runners get a handful of melted M&Ms and a dixie cup of warm Gatorade. Unacceptable. If an RD can’t plan for the full field, they’re amateurs. Every single runner deserves fuel, not first come, first served. And the same applies to finish line food, it’s not a reward for speed, it’s part of the event. If your back-of-the-packers limp in to find nothing but a crusty crockpot of chili and some stale Fritos, you’ve failed the entire field. Aid stations and finish line spreads should be stocked and ready until the very last runner is home. Period.
11. No Respect for Runner Safety or Support
No medics, no sweeps, no contingency plan means reckless. Ultras already push people past their limits. Add in zero safety net and you’re just one twisted ankle away from a search and rescue headline.
Bonus 12, After the Race
No Post-Race Survey or Follow-Up
If you never hear from the RD again, that screams they don’t give a damn about your feedback or improving their event. Real race directors want to know what went wrong and how to do better. The pretenders, they vanish faster than your race photos.
Back in the mid-90s when I first started directing ultras, I was stuffing self-addressed stamped envelopes with paper feedback forms into packets. If I could buy a roll of stamps and chase down feedback 30 years ago, RD’s can sure as hell set up a simple online survey today that takes about thirty minutes to build online and can be completed by runners in about five minutes. No excuses, bottom line, it simply shows a blatant disregard for any quality control improvement measures moving forward.
Want the simplest litmus test, if they cared enough to take your $200, they should care enough to send a follow-up survey. If not, congratulations, you just paid for their next several weekend beer runs.
Closing
This sport deserves the best. That’s why Epic Ultras exists, not just to host races, but to raise the standard for every damn mile.
The guilty don’t need naming. If you’re an RD and any of this makes you cringe, that’s your red alert. You know where you’ve cut corners.
This isn’t about calling out people by name ever. It’s about calling out practices, and in this case shitty practices at that!
And here’s the kicker, this report/checklist isn’t me throwing rocks. This is the same list I’ve judged myself by as an RD since day one. It’s literally the major reason(s) that motivated me internally to become one in the first place.
I spent nearly the first 15 years of my working career in the food service and restaurant franchise industry at a management level through most of my 20’s and was absolutely appalled at what I witnessed at the customer service level at most of the early ultras I participated in. I immediately decided to do something about it…and now here we are, 30 years later. Thanks for taking the time to read my special report. I hope it’s been of some value to you…at least a good laugh or two anyway!
Use it, share it, pin it on your wall, laugh at it, rant about it. Most importantly, let it keep you from blowing time, money, and soul on another shitty ultra.
If you haven’t taken our Ultrarunners Survey yet, quit standing on the sidelines and hit the damn link. We’re not doing this for vanity metrics, we’re doing it to drag this sport forward with the force of a freight train, and your voice is part of that momentum whether you realize it or not. We dropped this full report today because the truth needed to be said, but the data behind it still matters just as much. We’re going to release the complete results publicly, but only when we’ve got the 1,000-plus runner sample size that actually means something. Right now we’re only a few hundred deep, which means your input doesn’t get lost in the crowd, it shifts the whole f**king picture! So if you haven’t filled it out yet, click the link below, step up, and make your mark, because silence doesn’t shape the future…the ones who speak up do!