Earth Week: Green Races

When you trail race, do you leave skid marks and a cloud of noxious fumes in your wake? This post, the second in iRunFar’s Earth Week series, considers the environmental effects of our racing and what can be done to lessen them. More specifically, the focus will be on ways race directors (RDs) have been consciously trying to incorporate green aspects into their races. Read on for examples of these changes.

With the exception of an urban trail race to which most runners can take public transit, run, bicycle, skateboard, kayak, etc, a trail races biggest environmental burden is likely to be its runners, volunteers, and fans traveling to and from a race. Some runners are lucky and can drive to many trail races within an hour of their home. For the rest of us who don’t live in Northern California we often have to drive at least a few hours to race on the trails. Living here in Northern Virginia, I’m fortunately enough to be able to drive to many races the night or morning of the race. However, even in my Prius, I still burn a significant amount of gas traveling to and from these races in central Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina.

While we trail runners must be conscientious of the effect of our own actions, at least one trail race I know of, the Uwharrie Mountain Run, has taken the step of offering carbon offsets to its participants. Yes, there is currently an active debate about the relative merit of carbon offsets and their brethren, the renewable energy credit, but I find it hard to believe that such actions do not have some positive effect. At the very least, the RDs offer to purchase such credits as part of the race application may spur participants to consider how and when they travel.

I would love to see RDs require mandatory carbon offsets for travel to and from the race just as they require volunteer work. Although an RD could calculate the carbon footprint of the event and purchase offsets for the entire race, a better way may be to require participants to pay a fee relative to how great an individual footprint they will have. Of course, RDs should active promote carpooling (or alternate transit if possible) to the race.

The complete post at iRunFar