Eli is playing a road game for this episode, recording from his father's kitchen in Portland, Maine. He's there helping his dad out after a knee replacement surgery, which his (non-runner) dad had to have because (as Eli rants about a bit) running isn't actually any worse for you knees than any other activity! (And his dad's recovery is going well, thanks for asking.)
With prompting from Eli, Tony gives an update about how his new virtual event, the Texas Distance Challenge, is going (short version: really well!). Tony compares what he hopes to accomplish with TDC (as the cool kids call it) to eating healthy as opposed to dieting and also explains why distance challenges should lean into their storytelling and maybe rely a little less on leaderboards. After sticking his neck out to test his theories (that we've all heard him presenting on at industry conferences for the last few years) by rolling out this event, it's a good thing for Tony that TDC is going as well as it is! And if you're interested in licensing the idea for your market, he's open to it...
The co-hosts then dive into a big topic that Eli somehow overlooked while planning for this week's episode (although it's not always apparent, we actually prepare for our recording sessions!): Spartan's return to in-person racing. (The video of the Running USA webinar mentioned in this segment can be found here.) While Tony and Eli are both skeptical that any in-person event can be done perfectly safely, there are some good takeaways from what Spartan did that can be applied at any event.
Finally, Tony IDs three questions that every event that wants to emulate Spartan and return to in-person racing needs to ask itself before returning to in-person racing:
Eli then really strongly encourages everyone to build systems for their return to racing that don't just barely hit minimum standards but have enough slack in the system to deal with things not going exactly as planned. On another quixotic hashtag-pushing quest, he encourages everyone to build environmental safety and operations plans that are robust enough to #absorbtheassholes. (Tony wants to make 100% clear that he not only doesn't endorse this hashtag but that as his "risky click of the day" he also doesn't think you should use or search for it; the more-benign #returntoracing he is more tolerant towards.)
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