September 13, 2024 – Arvada, CO
Starting in the spring of 2023, The Human Potential Running Series (HPRS) has created and facilitated several focus groups that invited members of the HPRS community into the behind-the-scenes fold. Each focus group has been populated by active and engaged members of the HPRS running community who have accepted the challenge in reviewing the various aspects of what makes HPRS work, then offered suggestions and created new frameworks to implement within the series to improve the entire HPRS experience for all.
This unprecedented move in the decade long history of HPRS was spearheaded by HPRS Owner and Race Director John Lacroix who said, “Never have I opened the doors and windows to the inner workings of HPRS like I have over the last year and a half. It was important to me, and I feel our entire community, that I welcome our most trusted community members into the inner workings so that we can continue to build upon what has made our series so incredibly successful thus far. I believe that HPRS is incredibly special and there is no other trail and ultra community like it in our nation today. Having our community members play such an integral role in molding how our series looks and feels is a no-brainer, and I felt we finally had the right people to do that work together.”
Previous focus groups have included:
- The HPRS Focus Group (Spring 2023): The initial focus group set upon a lofty mission to take a deep dive into everything that makes HPRS tick, explored our many unique challenges, all with a goal of improving the entire HPRS experience for runners, volunteers, and staff alike. The cohort was divided into sub-groups that included:
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
- New Runners & Runner Retention
- HPRS Branding, Website, Social Media, Podcast
- HPRS Pre-Race Emails, Participant Manuals, Runner Drives
- Customer Service & Accessibility
- Volunteer Focus Group (Fall 2023): The second focus group worked solely on the HPRS Volunteer Program. This group looked into the inner workings of the HPRS Volunteer program, as well as explored what other trail and ultra series are doing with their volunteer programs. This group restructured the HPRS Volunteer Currency System, created the HPRS Community Fund, and suggested a host of “yet to be implemented” directives designed to bring the HPRS community closer together in service to one another.
- New Race Focus Group (Spring 2024): The third focus group was charged with assisting HPRS in creating two new events for our 2025 calendar of races, where we moved the previously held Cuchara Snowshoe Races and Cuchara Trail Runs to a new venue in Granby, CO; as well as restructured the events in a way that is complementary to our new venue/hosts. Focus group members received a brief Race Director 101 education before having a hand in helping reimagine the Cuchara events in a new location. Focus group members had a hand in the naming/branding of the new events, as well as mapping and permitting of the new courses, and helped create the structure of these events HPRS will introduce in 2025.
Now in the fall season of 2024 HPRS is set to embark on its newest focus group, the only of the four focus groups that will remain a permanent structure within HPRS albeit it community members cycling through based on needs and availability. This new focus group will begin meeting in October of 2024 with a goal to suggest and implement directives by Spring 2025. The new group is called the HPRS Community Roundtable.
The HPRS Community Roundtable will be made up of HPRS Community members who will permanently assess the present state of the HPRS Community as a whole. This work will include investigating who the HPRS Community currently is and how we got here; Explore new ways to grow the HPRS community; Explore ways to continuously engage the HPRS community; and to ensure that those who will ultimately join HPRS in the future (near and far) will understand what makes HPRS different and subscribe to being a positive part of the community we’ve become.
Speaking about the new group, Lacroix states, “HPRS was built upon the foundation that community be at the forefront of everything we do. The HPRS community has ebbed and flowed, realized many changes as well as different “feels” over the last decade. People will always come and go. I believe that the current state of the HPRS community is the best we’ve ever had. It is my goal to do everything in our collective power to celebrate the current community, while exploring ways to see the current version of this community grow.”
The HPRS Community Roundtable will be led by Lacroix and co-led by HPRS Community member Daniel Taylor. Taylor received his bachelor’s in social science and history and his master’s in education (Experiential Ed) from Regis University and implements the foundations of experiential learning in his other professional endeavors as a 5th grade teacher and youth cross country coach. He is also an experienced trail and ultramarathon runner in his own right.
HPRS is excited to welcome the newest members of the HPRS Focus Group Family within the Community Roundtable. It is our mission to continue to provide a place of belonging and community for all of today’s trail and ultramarathon runners. With this new and ongoing Roundtable, we feel that the future of the HPRS Community is in the great hands of a caring and engaged selection of its own members, and not just in the hands of our founder. Since it began a decade ago, HPRS has always been “For Us All.”