Written by Peter Maksimow. Barr Trail Mountain Race is a member of the American Trail Running Association.
Women who finish on the podium at the Barr Trail Mountain Race this summer can expect to win 20 percent more than their male counterparts.
The prize amounts have been increased to $420, $300, and $180 for the first, second, and third woman, respectively, and $350, $250, and $150 for the men. The race committee came to this decision as a gesture to reflect the wage gap between men and women in the U.S. workforce. On average, female workers make 80 cents for every dollar men take home. In fact, The Gazette reported that a recent study found Colorado Springs women make 73.6 percent the salary that men take home — one of the larger pay gaps among U.S. metropolitan areas.
The Barr Trail Mountain Race is a 12.6-mile trail run on the shoulder of Pikes Peak that takes runners up Barr Trail from the Cog Railway Depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado, to Barr Camp, about halfway up the mountain at 10,200 feet, before returning to the base of the mountain for the finish. The course climbs and descends more than 3,600 feet.
Little progress has been made in narrowing the U.S. wage gap since President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act more than a half century ago, according to Sheryl Sandberg, founder of LeanIn.org and chief operating officer of Facebook. Campaigns such as #20PercentCounts and the observance of Equal Pay Day have emerged in recent years to draw attention to this disparity.
Race sponsor Simon Gutierrez and BTMR committee member Timothy Gore believe in this cause so strongly that they have donated specifically to the women’s share of the prize pot.
Outside Colorado, both USA Track & Field and the World Mountain Running Association have made moves to support gender equity in trail running. In 2016, both men and women raced the same distances at the USATF Mountain Running Championships. 2017 will be the first year that men and women will race the same distance and are represented by equal team sizes at the World Mountain Running Championships. The Barr Trail Mountain Race committee is proud of this decision and eager to work toward equality in the sport of mountain running. To paraphrase the immortal words of Beyoncé – Who run the trails? Girls.
The Barr Trail Mountain Race will be held on Sunday, July 16, 2017, at 7 a.m. in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Get all the details at www.barrtrailmountainrace.com.
For more information, contact Peter Maksimow at [email protected].
