Why I'm not flying to St. Louis

“Ian, you should go to the Running USA conference. You’re a thoughtful person who would be awesome on panels speaking to our industry.”

A seasoned race director — someone who’s been in the endurance industry for decades — told me as we wrapped our call.

I’ve heard versions of this many times. And honestly, it’s tempting. I love conferences. Even as an introvert, I get energized talking to so many passionate people in one place.

But as the running industry descends on St. Louis, I won’t be there — even as my LinkedIn gets cluttered with invitations to “meet up”.

Here are 3 reasons why:

• From my experience, conferences are rarely when I do my most meaningful work. I always have plenty of great networking conversations. But my real progress has come from listening to race directors, being there on race day, watching how our software gets used and working behind the scenes to improve our technology.

• At Run The Day, we focus on races with fewer than 5,000 runners, which are often hosted by townships, schools, nonprofits, and volunteer-led groups. These races are underrepresented at conferences like Running USA, which naturally attracts the big marathons. In many cases, the people we serve don’t have time to attend a running conference, they’re balancing race planning alongside another full-time job and family commitments.

• Not attending the conference means I’m more available to our team and to our customers. It means more conversations with race directors, more time to improve our systems and a deeper focus on building technology that can make race day easier.

I’m glad Running USA exists and I hope everyone attending has a great experience. I just won’t be there this year.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be working to lift up the running industry. Of course I will. I just just won’t be doing it at a conference.

— Ian

Resources for Race Organizers

• Why do free race registration platforms exist?

• The #1 RunSignup Alternative

• Runner tracking with mobile apps