[Featured Image: Todd and Renee Janssen in Forest Park as runners pass by. Image provided by Go Beyond Racing.]
Forest Park is beloved by trail runners far and wide, with many running groups and hundreds of trail runners frequenting its trails. The family-directed trail racing organization, Go Beyond Racing, is a race organizer many of you may already be familiar with. They not only host races in Forest Park, but they are also an FPC Business Member who donates a portion of their race proceeds for events in Forest Park back to us to support the park’s wellbeing.
I heard about some of the awesome work Go Beyond Racing has been up to in recent years to make their events more sustainable and accessible, and so I wanted to hear more for myself! Todd Janssen, one-half of the husband and wife duo of Race Directors who founded the company, was gracious enough to hop on a call with me and to talk a bit about their accomplishments and why he loves trail racing and hosting events.
For those who are unfamiliar, what does Go Beyond Racing do as an organization?
We put on trail races in Oregon and Washington, that run anywhere from 4 to 200 miles.
What do you feel makes Go Beyond Racing special? Why do you do this work?
The reason we do this is that we love to see people accomplish something they didn’t think they could. We are trail runners ourselves, and being a part of the trail running community brings us great joy.
What things do you take into account when hosting an event on public land? (And engaging with the public)?
All of our races are permitted through the appropriate land manager, like Portland Parks & Recreation, the Oregon Department of Forestry, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, etc. so we work with each to meet the demands of the permit.
We also look for beautiful places to host races, on trails that we ourselves enjoy running on. You need to not only have a fun, scenic place for the race, but we also consider parking availability for participants and the general public. It sounds simple, just finding a cool place to do events, but we need to have sites accessible that enough people can get to the event. There are some places we can’t do events because they would be in wilderness-designated areas where events are not allowed.
Once they get to the race, runners have to park and that is often the deal-breaker. Many trailheads don’t have enough parking to host a race. One solution to the parking issue is to shuttle runners to and/or from the trails. This gets expensive though, and we strive to keep our race prices as affordable as possible.
What do you take into account with running events in Forest Park?
For Forest Park, we work with the Natural Areas Supervisor for Portland Parks & Recreation on approving routes and event plans and addressing any concerns or issues they have. We strongly encourage and even incentivize people to carpool to reduce cars on the road and decrease the number of vehicles parking near the races. We also start and stop our races away from the trail heads to reduce the sound impact to the neighbors and donate to the Forest Park Conservancy with each race in the park.
What strategies do you implement to reduce waste and emissions at events?
The biggest source of emissions for any running event, if you look at it with a global focus, is people getting to and from your event. We try to reduce the number of people driving, by promoting carpooling. Additionally, we have moved from gas to battery and solar battery-powered generators at our events.
We also try to do as much as we can do to reduce the amount of packaging by using as many bulk or unpackaged items as possible. For example, at some of our events, we have guacamole. We won’t buy dozens of those small portions at the grocery store, but we’ll buy the giant tubs so we’re reducing plastic. Or we’ll get big bags of ice versus small bags, etc. We also serve food at our aid stations that can be made while producing minimal waste.
After events, we take all the garbage bags back to our house to hand-sort it out by recyclables like plastics and cardboard and glass, compost, bottles for Bottle Drop, etc. We met with Metro and other folks to learn what we should focus on for the highest impact. Metro told us taking compost out of the garbage would be the biggest way to reduce methane waste in landfills. As a general tip, that’s one of the best things anyone can do at home.
Nossa Familia Coffee donates coffee for our ultra-distance events, and Nike Trail provided reusable metal camp mugs so we don’t use single-use coffee cups – we wash and reuse those cups again and again instead. For the Portland Trail Series, we also use reusable stainless steel cups for water.
What are some milestones or achievements you Go Beyond has achieved that you are particularly proud of?
I don’t even know if it’s an achievement that we realized we were working towards at the time, but things like having the reusable cups and incentivizing carpooling are all things we’ve done for a long time. It’s easy and all event organizers could be doing this.
Also, having nonbinary awards and equal prizing for all genders is still a struggle for some race groups. We’re not the first in the world to have more equal and inclusive races, but having done it before other groups feels gratifying.
Another thing I’m particularly proud of is our focus on the everyday/average runner. That doesn’t mean we don’t admire and appreciate when elite or professional runners attend our races, because seeing what they are capable of is really cool too. But we get a lot of satisfaction when someone doing their first race, or their first ultra, crosses that finish line. We work hard to make our races welcoming to everyone and treat all runners equally.
To finish off, is there anything else you would like to say to the people reading this article?
People get tired of hearing me talk about this, but I can trace just about everyone I know in Portland to doing trail work in Forest Park. I moved to Portland 15-ish years ago, signed up for a Thursday work party, and met people that became good friends that way.
I encourage everyone, especially trail runners, to volunteer as it connects you and Forest Park. Forest Park is really important and we’re so lucky to have it in our backyard. People need to take ownership in maintaining it. We, with the Forest Park Conservancy, host trail work parties in the park every year. We believe it is vitally important for users of the park to give back to it by volunteering.
If you feel inspired to give trail racing a shot, we encourage you to check out their Portland Trail Series Spring, Summer, or Fall events, or the Stumptown Trail Runs 50K & Half Marathon, all in Forest Park! FPC is the beneficiary of all these races!
And if you’re a runner inspired by Todd’s words who wants to help do your part to keep our trails clean and well-maintained, consider volunteering with us to help us finish out our raking season or donating through our website to support our work going into 2024!