This week’s chat with PNW’s North Bend Trail Fest race director’s Joe McConaughy and Scott Sowle provides me with the perfect distraction from my own race prep for Beast to discuss the news of the moment: doping among influential trail runners. Joe shares his elite athlete perspective and we discuss the challenges for race directors trying to navigate the seemingly insurmountable financial challenges to provide doping controls at our events.

Also: come race in the PNW. Our trails are awesome, Mount Ellinor and Mount Si are calling you!

Joe McConaughy has achieved a lot in his life already, but this year he’s going to embark on two new and daunting adventures : fatherhood and race directing. I don’t know which one’s harder, but we chat about both and a lot more on this episode of Singletrack.