Wyoming Range 100 - Update #5 (7/20)
Runners,
We were beyond thrilled to make a “go” decision on July 6th for the inaugural running of the Wyoming Range 100. We made that choice with the strong belief that we could host the race without compromising the well-being of our stakeholders and our long-term vision for the event.
But a lot has changed in the past two weeks. We are, now, officially cancelling the 2020 Wyoming Range 100.
Before explaining why, we want to extend our heartfelt and resounding “thanks” to everyone who has supported the Wyoming Range 100 and shared our vision of a new classic. When the time is right, we look forward to meeting all of you and celebrating together at the finish line.
We also want to apologize. We understand this news is disappointing and, yes, frustrating – we got your hopes up, only to knock them back down. For that, we are deeply sorry.
So, what changed in two weeks?
COVID-19 cases continued to climb in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah. While this isn’t exactly “new” news, the recent spike in close-by communities – principally, Sublette County – is. What’s more, nearly 40% of our entrants come from states that are experiencing recent and marked COVID-19 case increases.
The story is similar for our volunteers. When we started planning the Wyoming Range 100, we purposefully sought volunteers from running communities all over the country – CA, VA, CO and WA, to name some. It hardly came as a surprise, then, when a handful of key volunteers prudently and appropriately informed us that they needed to stay home. While the number of departures was small, the effect was outsized: these first-class volunteers brought to the table the idiosyncrasies of the trail-running communities from which they hailed. They were integral to the founding culture of the Wyoming Range 100.
Lastly – and perhaps most importantly – the composition of our entrants field changed quite a bit. Following our “go” decision, we received a materially disproportionate number of rollover/refund requests from women. If we ran the race today, we could no longer state we had a relatively high number of female runners. This is important to us: We want our race to reflect the trail-running community at its best.
What’s next?
We’d ask you to please send a separate email to hello@everlongendurance.com with two pieces of information:
Refund vs. Rollover: Let us know if you’d prefer a full $270 refund (we can’t refund UltraSignup’s processing fee) or a rollover to 2021. If you select the latter, we’ll roll over your volunteer service as well
Mailing Address: If you’d like a refund, please share your mailing address. If you registered more than 60-90 days ago, we may have to mail you a refund check
Also, if you’ll be in the area on what would have been race weekend, let us know. We’ll be covering some big miles.
We’ll close by, once again, offering our thanks and apologies. We hope to see you all in the Wyoming Range soon enough.
Denis & Colin