By HPRS RD: John Lacroix
When I first got into ultramarathon running in 2005, one of the very first things that I learned about was “The Fat Ass.” No, this isn’t some reference to an oversized/overweight individual. In ultra a Fat Ass is defined as a glorified group run where there are no fees, no aid, no shirts, no awards, and no whining. Typically for these types of runs, someone will design a route that is the perfect training run, and organize the logistics of where to meet, car spots, and locations of coolers hidden in the woods where runners can hide drinks and snacks.
Back then there were countless Fat Ass runs out East. In the New England area most of the prominent Fat Asses were designed and hosted by GIL’S Athletic Club. It wasn’t unheard of for runners in New England to make the 8-hours’ drive south to Virginia to run in the Fat Asses of The Virginia Happy Trail Running Club (VHTRC). There were other groups that led Fat Asses like GUTS in Georgia and Trial Nerds in Kansas City. Most of the better-known ultras out East were started as Fat Ass runs that eventually matured into a permitted legal organizes race.
The first time I ran an ultra-distance was in a Fat Ass that organized in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in the spring of 2005. The route was the famous Pemi-Loop 50k adventure, covering some of the rockiest and gnarliest miles on the entire Appalachian Trail. Thirteen folks showed up for that first Fat Ass I organized, and the roster was a who’s who of New England trail and ultra at the time. I’ll admit it. I cried kicking my own ass on that one, and it was a few weeks prior to my first official ultra. That Fat Ass training run taught me countless lessons that I still carry with me today, including how to embrace, face, and overcome adversity.
From that point on, I always made it a part of my yearly training schedule to not only participate in as many Fat Ass runs as I could, but to also host as many as my time would allow. While living in New Hampshire, I went on to create my own series of Fat Ass runs that spanned 2006 through the winter of 2011. Sometimes I could rely on the same 4 to 6 runners to show up, and other times the adventure was too good to pass up and I entertained a dozen or more. I never knew how many would show up, I was just excited to support the sport I loved by offering these free runs to area runners.
When I moved to Colorado in May 2011, one of the first things that I did was research the Fat Ass scene in the state. I found two that Team CRUD (Coloradoans Running Ultra Distances) hosted in the Colorado Springs Area. There was one out in Grand Junction called Bang’s Canyon… and that was it. I was stunned. I had just moved to the “Mecca of Trail Running” and Fat Asses weren’t a thing here?!
Those that know me well enough know what my next action was; I got to work.
One of the first things I did was hop on to the emailing lists for Denver Trail Runners (DTR) and Boulder Trail Runners (BTR), and even Team CRUD. I emailed these lists not only letting everyone know my intentions for starting a Fat Ass Series in Colorado but inviting everyone and anyone who wanted to come along. I was not prepared for the response I got, and it explained very clearly why Colorado didn’t have a Fat Ass scene.
I was bombarded with negativity, and mostly from those on the DTR and BTR lists, excoriating me for even considering hosting such a series. Some of the “old school” most well respected trail and ultra-runners of the area chimed in, “informing me” of the rules and regulations of land managers that prevented Fat Ass runs from existing. Some of those same folks told me to go away. Some of those folks told me that no one would ever show up. Some of those folks told me that “while they may be commonplace in the east, they’re not a thing we do in the west.”
At the time I was a Director of Operations for a guide company in Boulder, CO. I had just graduated from The University of NH with a Bachelors in Outdoor Education and a Concentration area in Recreation Management. I listened intently to the local runners who “informed me” of the rules and regulations of land managers that prevent Fat Ass Series here, and I also knew that they had a much different interpretation of the rules than I did. They thought they knew the rules and regulations, but honestly, I just felt like they had a reason, and excuse, not to move forward with similar ideas of their own. They had been shot down, so now I needed to be shot down too.
The first Fat Ass I hosted ran from McCaslin Boulevard in Louisville, CO, all the way out to Eldorado Canyon State Park. We ran to the top of Rattlesnake Gulch, and back. When I say “we”, I mean… myself and one other runner. We had an awesome time together. Sharing stories, sharing miles, taking photos of each other and for each other. It was a great day. One. One runner other than myself, that’s the start of our Fat Ass Series.
At the time I also had a blog known as “Sherpa John: Human Potential.” In New Hampshire I had named my Fat Ass Series the “Sherpa John Fat Ass Series.” Vain, yes, I know. I just wanted to make sure everyone was clear on who created the route and what lies ahead. If you’ve run an HPRS race, you know what I mean. When I moved to Colorado, I carried the name with me. I didn’t realize it at the time, and in hindsight I feel like a fool, but I think most folks were against the idea of the series because I used my name in its name.
The winter of 2011-2012 I created a handful of Fat Asses in Colorado’s Front Range. They included: the Boulder Skyline; a run from Marshall Mesa through Eldorado Canyon and around the Walker Ranch Loop called The Boulder Brass Knuckle Shuffle; the classic run from Nederland to Boulder called The Frozen Dead Guy 50k; and the Sawmill down at White Ranch Park in Jefferson County.
That winter there were 14 runners other than myself who showed up regularly to run in my new series. One of those runners was a guy by the name of Jeff Friedman. He drove over from Grand Junction to run in our Fat Ass runs and enjoyed them immensely. Jeff offered up some sage advice at the end of that first season by saying, “John… if you changed the name to the Human Potential Fat Ass Series, I bet you’d get a lot more runners.” So I changed the name.. and the Human Potential Fat Ass Series was born.
Over the next couple of winters, participation in the Fat Ass series grew, eventually so at an alarming rate. I started adding more Fat Ass runs to the winter calendar including The Monster Marathon in Golden, the Headless Horsetooth in Loveland/Fort Collins, and the Lincoln Mountain 12-Hour in Douglas County. We took some of the courses we’d run countless times already and edited them to make them a little more challenging if a runner so chose to engage.
By the winter of 2012-2013, we were averaging 80-100 runners per Fat Ass. It was quite a site to see. 80-100 runners descending on pre-determined trailheads throughout the Front Range, just looking to run together and train as a community. Why was this so important to me? Because when I first moved to Colorado, not only did I find a small handful of Fat Asses, but I found that a lot of the runners here treated even the most mundane training run like it was an Olympic qualifier. People weren’t running “together,” even training runs felt like a competition. So there we were, a huge group of Front Range Ultrarunners just enjoying countless miles together all throughout the winter.
I created a Facebook Group called “Front Range Ultrarunners” that would eventually grow to over 1,300 members. It was the place to talk about the Fat Ass Runs, organize, find running partners, etc. Together through this group and the Fat Ass Series, we had transformed the trail and ultra-community in Colorado’s Front Range. It was beautiful. It was everything I knew and loved about trail and ultra running. The problem was that we were now exceeding the grey areas of written land manager rules and regulations by having 80-100 runners show up.
Most land managers require a permit for any group activity that is 10-15 people or more in size. Some of the land managers specify a provision of those activities being “for profit” in nature, while others leave it vague, and it applies to ALL groups of 10-15 or more in size. The USFS only requires a permit if your group is 75 or more in size, but there was typically too much snow on USFS lands to even use them this time of year. Something had to be done, or the Fat Ass Series would be over. At the same time, other Fat Asses started to pop up across the Front Range, with one in Superior and two others in Fort Collins with GNAR runners. Fat Asses in Colorado were growing!
The first thing I did was try to manage our group size by implementing starting times for Fat Ass runs. You’d sign up for a Fat Ass and then sign up for the time slot you wanted to start in. This kept our group size in the trailhead to a minimum and made it hard for land managers to assess who was with who, and the actual size of our group. As the Fat Asses continued to grow despite this attempt, I realized we had to try another idea.
It was the winter of 2013-2014 when The Human Potential Fat Ass Series averaged 100-125 runners per Fat Ass. It was out of control, no longer sustainable, and quickly becoming a headache. A few runners in the community approached me with their own concerns about our group size and acknowledged that it was time to do something different. Some of those friends convinced me that I should become a full-time race director as my career. While they explained all the reasons why I should own and run a business; because runners loved the community I had built, because they loved my courses and their difficulty, I was busy telling them all of the reasons why I shouldn’t own my own business.
Two days later Human Potential LLC was born, and the Fat Ass series was now known as The Human Potential Running Series. I was now a small business owner, and a full-time race director. I started an Indie-gogo campaign online to raise funds for the start of HPRS, and used the $3,400 raised in two weeks, to buy the initial infrastructure for a series of official races. We were the first race series in the nation initially funded by a community-based campaign of this kind.
Having an official business changed things. Now there was a lot more to lose because of the Fat Ass Series than was at stake before. Now I’m in a position where I needed to work with land managers to acquire permits for our series of official races. Land managers talk. A few times on a Freedom of Information Act request, I have been able to acquire every land manager email that discusses HPRS, which has allowed me to address the concerns of Land Managers without us ever having to talk about them. The Fat Ass Series was a huge reason for concern and distress. I need to keep working on it.
In 2014-2015 we held the Fat Ass Series as normal, and the crowds were just as big. We held the Tommyknocker Ultras in September 2014, and the Indian Creek Fifties that November. Hosting two in person events only added fuel to the Fat Ass fire. The Facebook Group continued to grow, and so did the level of stress this first-time business owner had to handle. People don’t realize the handful of conversations I had with other business owners, who were mentors, all of whom said the same thing, “Now you need to weigh the risk of hosting the Fat Ass Series. Does the risk of hosting the series outweigh the benefit?”
The following winter (2015-2016) I took the next step by creating a membership program. Only paying members were allowed to run in our Fat Asses, and each member was allowed to bring a maximum of two guests to each Fat Ass. We had near 400 paying members, and many of them brought their two guests. It’s funny to me because prior to this, I used to just place a can on the hood of my car at Fat Ass locations, and runners could choose to drop a few bucks in the can to say “Thanks for the Fat Ass” or not. Now here I was managing a membership program.
Suddenly the grey area was getting blurrier. Fat Asses had always been touted as a “No Fee” thing in our sport. Many people considered the membership fee to be a fee for running in a Fat Ass. I tried to argue the difference between a Fee for a Fat Ass and a fee for Membership, Fat Asses were just “an added bonus.” For the 2016-2017 season, Fat Asses were members only. No more guests. Our membership numbers dropped from 394 to 280. The problem was that runners were confusing our Fat Ass Series with our official races, and many people thought that our actual races were members only, when the races had little to do with the membership at all.
Then the shit hit the fan…
During the summer of 2016, a Colorado 100-miler not associated with HPRS hosted what many felt was a negligent event. During the race I was personally receiving a handful of texts and private messages from runners and their crews, who were at the event, asking what they should do. They were scared, they were angry, and many were stating that this RD should never be allowed to direct a race again. “It’s trail running, how bad could it be?”
I collected the first-person accounts of what transpired at that event, and they all jived together.
The gist of it is this: Runners showed up to the race site and quickly realized that the RD did not purchase nearly enough food for all of the runners, especially for a race of considerable length in time. Shirts were not ordered because the RD “forgot.” Runners were required to be tracked via transponder, but those “were stuck on a UPS truck in Denver and didn’t make it in time.” Buckles were also not ordered so if you finished, you wouldn’t receive anything. When asked what color tape the runners would follow the RD said, “I don’t know yet, I’ll ask my brother when he comes back in from marking the course.”
The RD told everyone to check-in for the start at 3:45am for a 4am start. At 4am, he drove into the race site with his U-haul in tow, got out, and told the runners they’d be starting in 15 minutes. He threw two cones out onto the road, and hurriedly got his shit together. He started the race at 4:15, but never checked a single runner in. A 100-year rainstorm had engulfed this mountainous area, and he just sent a few dozen runners out into the mountains… without even knowing who the hell started.
Aid stations were not where they were supposed to be, there weren’t enough volunteers to man the stations that were. Suddenly the crews and pacers of runners were assembling the aid stations along the way and throwing their own personal food items onto the tables to feed the runners because the RD hadn’t purchased enough. There was no medical staff on site. Course conditions up high were icy, so the RD drove out to reroute the course mid-race. On top of that, all of his pre-race route mapping was done by his thumbs on the strava app, and the 100-mile race was actually closer to 125 miles.
Understand that when I hear of something like this happens, I cannot and will not sit on my hands. I recognize that should have something disastrous taken place through this event, it would have affected ALL similar events in the state of Colorado. No, it wasn’t my race, so many would think that it’s not my problem. It very much was my problem. I saw a credible threat to my new business. I saw a credible threat to our community. I saw a credible threat to our abilities to acquire permits, and the potential costs to race entries, all due to one “race directors” negligence. So I wrote a letter. I wrote a letter to this RD’s land managers, condemning his action and inaction, begging that he is not allowed to obtain a permit for this event ever again. His permit was revoked.
What does this have to do with the Fat Ass Series?
A friend of that RD decided to give me “a dose of my own medicine.” An individual with the initials W.H. wrote a letter to all the land managers associated with HPRS. His letter didn’t just go off to the land managers where we hosted our Fat Ass runs, it went to the land managers where we host official races. Everyone.
The letter depicted a culture at HPRS that he described as “a fraternity.” That “not only do we encourage alcoholism at our events, but we supply the alcohol.” Shared in the letter were a handful of photos from our Fat Ass Series, some photos showing what could be construed as a full bar on the tables at the Fat Ass runs. This was 100% true. Many volunteers brought (many) bottles of alcohol to put on the tables at our Fat Asses for anyone to enjoy along the way. It was fun, it was funny, and it was in line with the trail and ultra-running culture that I had known for years. However, a lot of these runners never took into consideration the implications that bringing alcohol possessed
But these pictures weren’t presented in a way that highlighted this being at Fat Asses. The narrative shared was that these photos were from our official races. Slander at its best. A false narrative used only to hurt HPRS. Retaliation. Here is an RD who was negligent in his duties as an RD, lost his permit, and the “payback” was his friend disrupting everything HPRS on exaggerated and misrepresented claims. He painted the picture that went down at our Fat Asses, is what happened at our actual events, when the two were completely unrelated.
Our land managers placed us on probation. All our permits, to this day, have a prohibition clause therein that prevents HPRS from distributing any alcohol at any of our aid stations without an official liquor license from the state, all the while, countless races in Colorado serve alcohol without anyone ever knowing it’s a thing. The back lash from the retaliatory letter, is what initially doomed the HPRS Fat Ass Series.
Now the land managers were paying even closer attention. Now I stood to lose my entire business, all our official races, and all because of some pissing contest. I still, to this day, do not think I was wrong in writing my letter. I would do it again in a heartbeat if it means protecting our sport from negligence. The intent of my letter was very different than the intent of theirs. The RD in question played an assistant RD with another race, and he was fired from his role there due to his negligence at his own race.
The Fat Ass Series was became vastly different, fewer people were showing up mostly because I had to take registration down off Ultrasignup.com. The Fat Ass Series became very underground. Getting the information about our Fat Ass Series out was harder than robbing a bank.
In 2017, I got a divorce. My kids moved thousands of miles away. I fell into a deep and very dark depression. I was in a tailspin. I lashed out at people, I was angry, hurt, and betrayed. HPRS was teetering on going out of business, I sold off our enclosed trailer to make ends meet. I was raking yards, driving for Uber and Lyft, and wondering how the hell I was going to save HPRS. I was also wondering if HPRS was even worth saving. I even threw a grenade into the Front Range Ultrarunners group on Facebook, and completely took it down. The community that I had built, the people we brought together, the Fat Ass Series as we knew it.. was dead.
Since the winter of 2017-2018 I have tried several different ideas to keep the HPRS Fat Ass Series going. The last three winters it was a series that allowed runners to train all winter long, and the more miles you ran in our Fat Ass Series, the greater a discount you acquired for our regular series of races. Essentially, I was using the Fat Ass Series to motivate runners and reward them for their training efforts. Year over year, our membership numbers have declined, and so too has the number of people participating in the Fat Ass Series.
We turned it into a standard Virtual Series in 2020-2021 with the Colorado Classic, Vertical Challenge, and Distance Challenge options. As a virtual series, we had 36 runners over the winter of 2020-2021, and 54 over the winter of 2021-2022. I’ve gone back to that old question, “is the risk worth the reward?” At this time in the history of The Human Potential Running Series, I can no longer justify a Fat Ass Series. The community we built around our Fat Asses is long gone. There are countless other Facebook Groups for Colorado Trail and Ultra Runners now, and the very fabric of our “community” has changed over years. It’s just not what it used to be, and I’m not sure it ever could be again.
It pains me to say this but, as of now The Human Potential Fat Ass Series has been packed away. Why it pains me is because HPRS was born out of the series. What started as The Sherpa John Winter Series, grew into the Human Potential Fat Ass Series, and eventually The Human Potential Running Series. These Fat Ass runs were once what kept me afloat while I tried to create the larger HPRS series you know today. That huge community we built is what inspired me to become a full-time race director. I owe so much to the Fat Ass Series, and the people who were a part of it. Good or bad, I’ll never forget a soul.
All across the country, Fat Asses are dwindling in quantity, and all as a result of land manager regulations and the fact that today, “ain’t nothin is free.” I’ve seen Fat Asses be one step below an official race, complete with insurance policies and porta potties. I’ve seen countless Fat Asses turn into official races, including our Sawmill Trail Runs. Maybe the HPRS Fat Ass Series will return some day. I’m always open to ideas on how to restructure it and how to make it work. For now, I’m out of ideas, I’m out of gas, and I’ve decided to let it rest.
So to all who have ever run in our Fat Ass Series, I’m so terribly sorry if I disappointed you. I never thought or felt that by doing what I thought was the right thing to do, would have affected so many of you so much by destroying what we all had once built together. To those who hung on to the very end, THANK YOU. Thank you for continuing to be a part of our history, and believing in HPRS and the power of a stronger community.
To the fattest asses out there, heehaw!