Daily News, Fri March 1

Start your engines. Registration opens for Waldo 100k and SOB 50k/M this morning at 7am PST. Each will sell out in a matter of hours or maybe minutes.

TO @ last year's Waldo 100k — TO @ last year’s Waldo 100k

What’s the best way to measure body fat? If my pants don’t fit me, I’m too fat. If I need to tighten my belt all the way, I’m too skinny.

…and the skinny on being skinny.

…and more on digesting fad diets.

To hell with it, here’s the kegmill.

Rules to run by.

One of my favorite outdoor/trail running photographers Matt Trappe has a brand new website. Check it out here.

Great News! We’ve identified the download problem, upgraded the servers, and all should be good by Monday. Thanks for sticking with us! Many more podcasts to come! This temporary upgrade cost mucho $$$ so we’re considering launching a kickstarter campaign to fund it for the future. Thoughts?

James and Candice turn in a killer run report with amazing pictures from their run on the Na Pali Coast in Hawaii.

Check out this neat video of Usain Bolt running in Slo-Mo. It’s tough to not be too cynical with these guys, but isn’t it just a matter of time until he sits down with Oprah?

This guy is going to take a stand up paddle board 300 miles down the Florida Everglades. Nowhere does the article mention…ya know…alligators.

Track and Field: Watching Nick Symonds come from behind is awesome, but I like him more for his true convictions and willingness to take on big issues: “If my sponsors pull all my funding, so be it,” Symmonds says. “Ultimately, all I need to run is a pair of shoes, a stopwatch and the support of this community.”

The Copper Canyon ultra is this weekend in Uribe, Mexico. It’s been almost a year since Caballo Blanco passed away. Seems longer.

Norcal Runners: If you’re interested in running ITR’s Knickerbocker Canyon trail race in Cool, use coupon code COOLKNICK13 for 10% off. Good thru next Wed.

NUC: I’m happy I didn’t read this before I went to bed last night.

Loving nowhere: The joys of adventure running.

TNF Gran Canaria starts tonight! Definitely a bucket list event for me.

More track: Paper does a pretty snarky piece on Mo Farah, his wife, and his desire to, ya know, earn a good living.

Introducing the hydrosleeve. Strange.

15 Responses to "Daily News, Fri March 1"

Steve P says:

March 1, 2013 at 6:50 am

Great that you found and solved the problem…kickstarter will work, but also just ask for donations through the donation aid station. I know I’d pay to listen to one of the best podcasts in our sport.
Thanks for this “free” service!

Reply
Nicole says:

March 1, 2013 at 7:00 am

I don’t know too much abt Kickstarter, but this seems like a great candidate: not a moneymaking venture, funds needed = ~the average fund request, lots of potential backers. Not sure about project category though. Anyway, I’d give if you guys went this route!

Reply
1. eric says:
  
  March 1, 2013 at 7:18 am
  
  Nicole-
  Project category is the big issue. We’re not “fiction”, we’re not authors, we’re not tech. If anyone can help figure this out, we’d be all ears! Thanks.
  
  Reply
  1. Nicole says:
    
    March 1, 2013 at 12:55 pm
    
    is there anything you will do with the add’l server space that you’re not able to do now? Also, I don’t know how wedded you are to using Kickstarter, but maybe another platform is more suitable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_crowd_funding_services
    
    Reply
    1. eric says:
      
      March 1, 2013 at 2:52 pm
      
      Nicole-
      We’re not wedded to KS, it just seems like the vehicle that would get the most publicity. If there’s a better alternative (like the recommendation below) please let us know!
      And no, there’s nothing else we’ll do…yet. We’ve maxed out the shared servers and are in the process of getting dedicated servers.
      
      Reply
John Bryant says:

March 1, 2013 at 7:11 am

Put on an ultrarunner podcast trail run with proceeds going to benefit the podcast, doesn’t have to be fancy; just pick a sweet location. People will come, people will come.

Reply
1. eric says:
  
  March 1, 2013 at 7:20 am
  
  Thanks for the advice John. A run would be fun to do, but most don’t make that much money and this needs to happen in the next two months. Ugh.
  Realistically we need about $5k for the dedicated servers.
  
  Reply
Tho Le says:

March 1, 2013 at 11:34 am

Indiegogo is another alternative to Kickstarter.

Not sure what the the technical requirements are for this site. Can you elaborate on that?
Seems like there could be a couple solutions that might be more cost efficient.

Cloud Base Hosting:
– Amazon EC2
– Microsoft Azure

Peer to Peer Distribution
– BitTorrent

Reply
1. eric says:
  
  March 1, 2013 at 3:00 pm
  
  Tho-
  We’re currently using almost 2 terabytes of bandwidth per month. More importantly, the servers freak out if more than 400 people are downloading at any given time. It’s hard to believe (this thing started as a little hobby), but that’s happening all the time now.
  
  We looked into AC for hosting, but that’s an expensive hit that we simply can’t take. Our traffic is really good–for an ultrarunning podcast–but in the grand scheme of things, Coca-Cola is not knocking on our door to pay us $10k a month for ads.
  
  P2P is an interesting idea.
  
  For now, we’ve got a 2-3 mo workaround, and hopefully in that time we can raise some money to cover a few years worth of cloud hosting.
  
  Sounds like you have some experience. Please feel free to email me directly if you’ve got some ideas for us. Thanks.
  
  Reply
Rosie says:

March 1, 2013 at 12:23 pm

I think most of us would be happy to give if you guys do a kickstarter. I also wouldn’t complain if you put ads either on the podcast or the website. Whatever needs to happen to keep URP alive…I’m in podcast withdrawal (or just listening to old ones)!

Reply
1. eric says:
  
  March 1, 2013 at 2:54 pm
  
  Thanks Rosie. We’re trying! Ads at either end will likely happen at some point, but despite our audience size, won’t cover all the costs. Thanks for the offer to help with KS. We’ll let you all know if/when a campaign starts.
  
  Reply
David says:

March 1, 2013 at 5:13 pm

I’d contribute if you did kickstarter or another crowd source campaign. Another idea is to do something like the site I use to track wine called CellarTracker. The site is free but there are suggested subscription levels and you get a couple added bonuses if you subscribe. Also, weatherunderground.com charges $5 per year to get no ads on the site. It’s like an old shareware model.

On a side note, I’m going to be driving up to SOB in July – I’m glad I registered today. Maybe I’ll make a stop in your neck of the woods and buy you guys a beer :-).

Good luck with the servers.

Reply
Wendy says:

March 2, 2013 at 2:24 am

I would definitely support a Kickstarter or similar campaign. You guys do a fantastic thing with the site and podcasts. We need you to keep going!

Reply
MJ says:

March 2, 2013 at 10:04 am

I’d contribute! (so loving the podcasts, you guys rock!) Don’t know what orgs might sponsor URP, assume you’re working on that also. Don’t love the idea of ads but understand the necessity and would continue to read/listen. Not sure if the advertisers would love the idea of people paying to not see ads – not sure which way I’d go (if the ads are good and UR-focused, might enjoy them, but I might pay not to see more general ads not of interest to me)

Can you set up recurring donation option through the aid station? ($x/month) I know some charities do that. Not an answer to your short-term needs maybe, but longer term could be a steadier source of funding if overhead not too much. People can say “well, I can support URP for the cost of a beer or a latte (or two) a month”, and once it’s set up as recurring, people don’t even notice the “loss”.

Another possible source of funds (don’t know anything about details) might be to become an Amazon affiliate – some of your podcast guests have written books, you could link to that, or to other products people mentioned. Definitely don’t want it to become a “plug your product here” site/podcast, but some URs are sponsored and they mention their sponsor, or mention a product so in those cases perhaps it’d be ok.

Definitely need to keep you guys going! In only a month or two, the podcasts and the site have become a huge source of info and enjoyment for me, and support for my runs.

Reply
Kellen McGee says:

April 7, 2013 at 2:45 pm

Thanks for the shout-out (link) to my JHU News-Letter article about digesting fad-diets. I am a runner myself with a couple of marathons under my belt and I like your page as it speaks to a lot of the things that are constantly on my runner’s mind.

Reply

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