Lately we have become interested in operating our company with transparency. There are many reasons why but the largest being that we operate this company out of a love for the trails and we want people to be able to look at what we do and understand that. We are not advocating for every company (or any) to operate like this but this is something we believe in and we hope it will allow some understanding to the process of race/event management.

 I have noticed on a lot of forums that people think races make a lot of money and should come with a lot of extras. These extras comes with a cost that either results in a rise of registration cost or a devaluation of the work put into an event on profit at the end.  

After each event we will post a similar report to clarify the cost of our events.

Trail Methods put on a great event yesterday. Run N Raft.

We had a 5 mile shuttle ride to our run start
Ran along the Many On The Genny route (St. Helena aid station to Lower Falls)
We rafted for 2 hours
We took a shuttle back to the start
Enjoyed a picnic with snacks and a few drinks.

The cost for runners: $45
26 runners
$1170 in

Price on rafting alone: $35/rafter**
26 rafters
$910 out
(We secured a price significantly lower than Adventure Calls individual raft price as we had a group and they are one of the sponsors of our event, Many On The Genny)

Food cost
199.76

Total out
$1110

Profit: $60.00

Add in rafting fee for Sheila and myself and our time spent prepping for the event and we end up up breaking even if not losing money on the event. In order to make this a “Sustainable business” event in the future we would need to 1. Cut cost on food and 2. Significantly raise the entrance fee.

Neither of these are options we like, so the event is put on for the love of the park, for the support of our sponsor and the spirit of adventure. Not all of our events can operate this way, and no one should expect any other event to operate this way.

Our next breakdown will come from our marquee event; Many On The Genny. We look forward to breaking down the cost of putting on an Ultra Marathon and sharing exactly where your entry fee money goes to on race day.