Meet Briston Rains: He Started with One Controversial Race Post and Created a Trail Running Legacy

DFW Running Talk - Texas Outlaw Running with Briston Rains
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Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW running talk. I'm Chris Detzel. So let's get started.

Chris Detzel: All right, welcome to another dfw running talk i'm Chris Detzel and today we have texas outlaws running ceo founder and I guess you could call him a race director as well. Briston rains. Briston. How are you

Briston Rains: good, man? Actually, I don't like to say good. I like to say peachy nowadays I feel like you always ask people how they're doing.

They always say good So I try to change it up say peachy or something.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, maybe the question maybe there should be another question You know before it

Briston Rains: Yeah, I feel like when you ask someone how they're doing it's really like a hello Yeah nowadays and I don't think it's like a genuine oh, how are you doing?

You know what I mean?

Chris Detzel: It's probably a good point if I were to ask you exactly how you're doing and you have all these things going on It's depends i'm doing okay in this not okay in this and those kinds of things but hey, i'm really [00:01:00] excited to talk to you today briston and I remember You Probably four years ago hearing about one of your races.

And I thought to myself, who is this kid, and I think a lot of people did, to be honest, and I thought, I don't even know what this is. And it's really fun to watch watch you over the last, four years. You've actually started several races your race director ceo, like I said, of Texas outlaw running so i'd love to know your story tell us a little bit about You know how you got started why you got started and what you are actually doing.

Let's do that

Briston Rains: Okay. Yeah, man, I can share how it all got started. So I attended Southern Arkansas university and I ran cross country there as a freshman in college and in high school prior to that, I've always been very entrepreneurial and there's this man by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk that I used to watch and he would always say, you do know who he is?

Chris Detzel: [00:02:00] Oh yeah. I think

Briston Rains: we all

Chris Detzel: do, or a lot

Briston Rains: of people do. Basically. His whole message was like, do what you love, create a business, like if you're an entrepreneur, create a business around something you love. And so in high school, I started a company called Apache running and I just thought it sounded cool.

And basically it was like a clothing line for running clothes and I only made 50 pairs of shirts. And sold them to a bunch of friends on my cross country team anyways. But do what they bought them

Chris Detzel: on. Yeah,

Briston Rains: I think I sold them. I don't, I sold them a bunch of family, friends, stuff like that.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. So that was like my beginning of delving into business and running. And even prior to that, this is a funny story. I was 15 years old and I started a company called like polar clothing or something. And I was. Freshman, sophomore in high school and a company called Pauler Construction, I think is the name of their company [00:03:00] emailed me and said they were going to sue me if I didn't change my name and I was 15 years old, it was totally not legit business, but

Chris Detzel: it's I better just not do this.

Briston Rains: Yeah. And literally like in high school, I just. I played around a lot with businesses and things. And so I had a very, but then I also loved running. And so going into college, I was running and I was trying to think about what I wanted to do with my future. Because, I'm a freshman in college, I'm a marketing major.

I knew I wanted to get somewhere, something involved with marketing and sports. Yeah. And. So I remember it was two weeks into college and I'm sitting in a some type of economics class and I'm just sitting there and all of a sudden this idea hits me of what if I started a running company to where I did coaching and races?

And merch and it was all in one company.

Chris Detzel: Yeah

Briston Rains: And then [00:04:00] in that class I started writing down name ideas I walk over to my dorm room and as I put the key Into my door of my dorm room the name of the company hits me at the time. It was texas devil running company, but it's now texas outlaw. But I walk in there.

I tell my roommate i'm like, hey, man I'm gonna start this business and I'm gonna put on races and coach and do all this stuff. And I grabbed this notebook that I still have. And I write down, I start to write down this business in this notebook. And I didn't have a lot of money at the time. I only maybe had a few hundred bucks in my bank account.

So I take that few hundred dollars. As a

Chris Detzel: college student would, right? Yeah.

Briston Rains: Yeah. I didn't have anything. And that money was actually, I think for my summer jobs. But I took all my money I had and I paid somebody for a logo. Paid for a website. And That was it and that was build your

Chris Detzel: own website or you had somebody do it

Briston Rains: No, I built my own because I was broke.

I had to do my phone stuff. So yeah

Chris Detzel: Back then [00:05:00] even four years ago doing all of that stuff wasn't as easy It is as it is today with all the new tools that came out Anyways, we don't have to get into that. But anyway, keep going.

Briston Rains: You're not wrong. You're not wrong It is way easier now than it was before And now like I hire people to do a bunch of stuff But back then man, I was I didn't have any money and so I had to figure out how to do things on my own and created the website and I created my first race is going to be a 5k in my hometown Gainesville.

And so I created that race. And then I created two more races during the summer. And both of those races I'm still doing now, I created the Chupacabra 50K at the time and then the East Texas Ultra. And so I had three races on the year for 2021. And so that's like the beginning of it all and how it started.

And I remember I would even, which actually now I think about any reach out to these guys. And make sure I pay their [00:06:00] equal share, but I was going to My root like people in my dorm and asking if they wanted to invest some money Because I had no money and I needed some money to do stuff And so I would have friends invest like twenty dollars for point zero zero two percent or something And I knew the value of this business.

I knew it was going to be worth a lot because yeah I was looking at other races and race directors and I did the math on how much they were making and so I You When this company was worth nothing, I valuated it a hundred thousand dollars. And so everyone was investing based off my evaluation. So anyways it's a side tangent, but that's how I got started with.

Chris Detzel: I like that. And I don't, I think that, when people are thinking about when to start a business, they should look at, ROI from it, right? Like, how do you is it even worth getting into, how has it, proved to me, what are people making from there's a whole business side of this, and I'll tell you this and something that that was, I was talking to Rob the other day, I don't know if Rob go [00:07:00] He was telling me, look, there's a lot of these race directors, especially in the past, that put on these trail races and, they did it just for the love of trail racing, which is fine and good, but they weren't looking at the business side of it, of making money.

So they would just put on 50 milers or a hundred milers and thinking they're going to make They're going to get not necessarily make money or a lot of money because they weren't necessarily doing it for the money But there's a whole business side of you have to pay people and you have to be able to and he goes look Putting in a 5k, 10k, eight miler and those kinds of things that was unheard of until really he's, I think he's the one that started to do a lot of that in Texas and and then everybody else started to follow it.

Cause that's where the money is a hundred milers. There's no money in it. I'm not saying you shouldn't do some of those, for the, anyways, I think that's important though.

Briston Rains: And I think also, so I did a survey junior year of high school, I had a statistics class. And so I did a [00:08:00] survey asking trail runners, like some of the most important things at races and among ultimate.

Ultra or trail runners, both the biggest thing is they cared about who the race director was. And that was a big factor on if they signed up for a race or not. Whereas road runners, they don't care who the race director is, but trail runners do. And it made me realize if someone wants to start a running event company or trail running event company you can't do it just to make money.

You got to do it because. You actually are a part and enjoy the sport and you're actually involved. Because if someone comes in and we saw this happen with Iron man, buying out a bunch of trail race companies and UTMB, everybody got all upset because Because basically these rich people that didn't care about trail running at all were coming in just doing it for the money and people don't like those intentions.

People don't like participating in something when it's just a money grab. And so I [00:09:00] think, me having my experience and my passion with. Cross country and trail running when I was younger and combining that with my entrepreneur side I think it blended really well into what it is now. But yeah, man, it's you got to be You got to be a runner a trail runner yourself if you do want to try to get into the business,

Chris Detzel: Yeah, I think that if you look at other folks that have built some of these races And I would agree.

Most of the time the race directors and that's that start these races are big time into the trail community and I would say like like even this weekend you and I are at this I forgot what it's called. Dirt

Briston Rains: circus.

Chris Detzel: Yeah dirt circus and grapevine area and Grapevine area Just that community the people I know but it's just a welcoming community I wouldn't say it doesn't you can get that on the road, but it's a different completely different atmosphere I just feel closer and people really do care I'm, not look i'm part of communities that are about road racing and they care But it's just a different [00:10:00] mindset, right?

You go to a 5k that here in dallas And you could have 2000 runners, and it's fun, it's not just hey I'm gonna meet up with a bunch of people hang out and you know go So I think that the dynamic is completely different for sure so you have what four five people that are on your team that really help out or how does that work?

Briston Rains: So currently we have Four, I'm about to add a fifth. So I'll explain that real quick. So for three years straight, everything was me. I was race director, CEO. I was doing all the accounting, like every aspect of this thing I was doing. And I had to figure it all out by myself using, and I use like YouTube and Google and stuff to figure it all out.

But as of last year, really this year I brought on one of my best friends. And college roommate, his name is Asher Hamlin. And he has been at races with me for the past few years on and off, just helping out. And so I brought him on full time as a race director. He's getting paid [00:11:00] salary now to go and put on races.

His wife that he just married McKenzie, she is his assistant race director. And she helps him just do stuff that needs to be done at the races. I'm now. I still do some races, so there's some races. I'll still race direct some little races, but I'm more so focused on operations now. So my title, I give myself as operations manager and basically I handle all the permits, I handle all the marketing side of things payroll.

Just typical business owner things that you have to do. And so I'm not, I'm still at some races, especially the really big ones, but I'm not at every race now Asher's doing that. And then my wife, Carly, she's my secretary. And so she handles volunteers race credits, things like that. She handles all that for me.

And then we're about to bring on. And we're supporting two families off of it, which is pretty cool.

Chris Detzel: It

Briston Rains: is cool and soon to be a third.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. So what's your biggest rate? What are your top two [00:12:00] or three races that are put on?

Briston Rains: Yeah Some of the biggest ones we have we have the west texas ultra over near amarillo it's a beautiful race We had we put it on for the first time this year and had two to 250 people for the first year Which is like huge for a first year.

Usually first years are like 100 to 200 We had over 200 for the first year and so that's One of the definitely one of the big ones. We got the big texas ultra we got actually have 95 people signed up for the 50k this year and it's a 30 mile loop around lake georgetown. And so that's a cool race

Chris Detzel: I was looking at all your races, by the way, you had 30 of them

Briston Rains: Yeah, I have total.

I think I got about 35 right now.

Chris Detzel: I saw 30 on your website, so I don't know if they're all,

Briston Rains: there's a few other ones that are like still in the process of being made or I'm also including, I started this kind of sideburn called holiday races. Where we do trail races on the [00:13:00] holidays all over the United States.

And so I'm including some of those too.

Chris Detzel: So you're not pushing that into the Texas outlaw stuff?

Briston Rains: No, that one's different because here's the thing. Like I've worked with people to help put the races on form their dream races. And I pay him a cut and stuff, but basically I don't want somebody else course marking and putting on a race.

If it's not to my standard and if they're using my brand. And so like for Texas outlaw running me and Asher, whoever's putting on a race. I have a standard and it needs to meet and exceed that standard. If, for example, I put on a race and hire somebody to do it in California and they jack up the course markings, that's going to hurt my brand.

And I don't like that. So I'm not going to do that. So I hired, so I created a company called holiday races where we still set the standards, but it's not tied in the Texas outlaw running is still using some of the principles.

Chris Detzel: And it's amazing

Briston Rains: what it's like, if you [00:14:00] want to put on a race. You work with holiday races and I walk you through every step of it and you get paid to be a race director and you get to put on a race on a holiday.

And wherever you're going to be. And so that's like a new thing, cause I get so many people wanting to be a race director.

Chris Detzel: So you guide them and the standards and what to do and all of those things to help them put on that race,

Briston Rains: right? Yeah. And it also helps to where, let's say they do Jacko.

And that's something that it's not going to hurt Texas outlaw running. And I gotta make sure I'm there physically showing them how to do stuff. If it's going to be a part of Texas outlaw running, because I was, I have a high standard, I told Asher, my race director all the time, I said, I want the best aid stations, the best course markings and the most friendly and encouraging staff we can have.

And that's my standard. It's near perfect. It's like I, I, in our policy, I have a policy of I want an Olympic standard to where you're not perfect. Like Olympians aren't [00:15:00] perfect, but they're pretty close. They do everything to the best of their ability. So, that's what Texas outlaw running is and how we run.

Run the business, put on the events.

Chris Detzel: No, I think that's interesting. I love that. I hear what you're saying about, we're, we put holiday races on, or we help the folks that are outside of, are not necessarily the standards of Texas outlaw running. If you're not there, or if Asher's not there, then you're probably not going to call it, Texas outlaw running or associate with that.

It's going to be associated with holiday races. So that's interesting. Yeah, I say it more as like a consulting kind of gig, you know to where you guys are just consulting people on how to Put on a race and the consulting company is holiday races You know that helps you with the standards and ways to do things and things like that.

So That's pretty cool. So are you a cross country coach as well or track?

Briston Rains: Yeah, so man people listening to this are probably like what in the world this guy's got too [00:16:00] much going on so I'll lay it out for you. So I am I'm a pretty active and advocate of Detzeltianity, follower of Detzelt. So I'm busy with the church a lot.

I'm actually getting my master's in theology right now online. In addition to that, I'm a husband. I'm a father to a newborn three, three week old baby right now.

Chris Detzel: Congratulations.

Briston Rains: Yeah, man. Thanks, man. And then I am the owner and operations manager of textile all running and holiday races and I'm a teacher and a coach at a small school over here in East Texas.

So I got my plate full, but I make it work. Somehow everything comes together still. Yeah, that's all I do. Now is

Chris Detzel: it is it just for like ninth grade and up or how does that for the cross country?

Briston Rains: Yeah cross country is middle school and high school, but it's such a small school that I only had five kids on the team, but Five kids?

Chris Detzel: Okay. [00:17:00] You've

Briston Rains: got to evangelize

Chris Detzel: that a little bit more about how important running is,

Briston Rains: yeah, if I could do it over again, I'd go in the cafeteria and set up a booth. Get some more kids recruited

Chris Detzel: do it next year, yeah, I mean see if you can get some interest. Yeah so you're pretty much all over texas.

Obviously Longview I think that's where you live, right? And remember as a kid driving to longview my I'm in dallas and so my mom had a friend in longview. I thought it was the longest drive ever It's three hours, I think but Yeah But you're used to driving, I mean You're just, like you said, you're not on the road as much as you were.

So I guess that's positive with all the stuff that you're doing now.

Briston Rains: Yeah. And yeah, it was strategic, having the baby, bringing Asher on. And honestly, my, at the time I wasn't a coach or a teacher. That's a new thing. But at the time I was working ridiculous hours. And so I knew it was time to bring Asher on, but yeah I learned how to enjoy the [00:18:00] drives because we would have 10 hour drives every.

Over the other week out to races and putting them on and coming back. Yeah, man, I got used to the driving So it's cool though It's felt like a trucking job because I was shipping supplies to the race site And then shipping it back pulling the trailer.

Chris Detzel: How do you start looking at there's a couple things I want to talk about volunteers and it seems like in every race that you go to the volunteers are always the hardest to find and especially if they're You know, having to drive far and, it's obviously people have full time jobs, but they come on their own to volunteer.

How do you incentivize and think about that? I look at your website and, it tells you what to get. But how do you manage that?

Briston Rains: Yeah. So for volunteers, honestly, We have a great volunteer community with Texas Outlaw. We got a lot of like repeat volunteers, great people. But basically what I do is, as we're putting on these races some of them are bigger than others, so [00:19:00] like the volunteer need depends on how big the race is.

But pretty much what I do is I let participants know, hey, the race is in a week or two weeks and we need some volunteers. We need three volunteers or 10 volunteers or whatever the amount is. And I let them know, Hey, like for this to race, to be successful. We need people to come out and volunteer.

And I think it's a bonus too, that they get race credits towards our races. And we have so many that they're able to use those race credits. Whereas if you're volunteering for a race, that's once a year or a race company that doesn't have many races you can't really use those credits like you would like to.

Whereas we're all over, so you're able to use it wherever but yeah, I just sent an email out and people show up, show out. And if it wasn't for the volunteers, man, like terrible, they would no, that's probably one

Chris Detzel: of the biggest things that you would, I would assume that you'd have to put the effort into, right?

There's a lot of things that go on in a race and I think [00:20:00] what you said was perfect earlier is you really have to have a love for it. And going out and then finding the volunteers is just gonna be, it's a challenge. I'm sure. Maybe you figure out how to, maybe there's a magic formula to do it.

I don't know. Sure. It's always a challenge.

Briston Rains: Yeah, it is. And sometimes I gotta push harder than others. Like we got the big Texas Ultra coming up, which is, that 30 mile loop and we're definitely need a lot of volunteers and so that one I'm really gonna push for really let everybody know, Hey, we need some volunteers for this thing.

But yeah man, it just again, depends on the size of the race. Depends on how many we need. Got couple. Go ahead. Sorry. No, you're good man. You're good. But a

Chris Detzel: couple questions I was gonna ask is one is I was looking at some of your races and you're not really, you don't really do many a hundred milers.

I think I saw one in there. Is there, which, I think I understand why, but, that's a long ways to go.

Briston Rains: Yeah. A hundred milers, there's there's so few people that run [00:21:00] 100 milers and for us to stay up that long and put that much resources into it, I just don't see it really paying off.

I do eventually want to do a really big 100 mile race in Texas. That'd be great. And. And that's something that I strive to do one day. But. To put on 100 mile race around a looped course is just monotonous and everybody like if someone's going to go around 100 miles, they're going to go out of state to and run a back 50 mile or a looped 100 or something.

Nobody wants to run, 100 miles around a. five K loop or a 10 or 20 mile loop. They'd rather run, make it a full experience to where it's not so easy to quit when you loop through. I'm waiting for the right opportunity and time to put on a really good a hundred miler. But there's just, I don't see her get a good point in doing it right now.

[00:22:00] With our current setup and our resources.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, it's look, the places in Texas more than I do, I'm sure. But, the only place that I remember that has a pretty good hundred mile an hour potential, or, at least a, Hey, look, there's mountains is El Paso,

Briston Rains: Yeah, I've looked around at Texas isn't as blessed with trail systems as the mountain states, but I've looked around and there's places to do one.

There's definitely a few places you can do them. But there's only a few, there's only four, maybe three or four places you can do it. And I would not go out to El Paso, it's too far away. I'd want to do something in the central part of Texas or the north or south, somewhere that's not a 20 hour drive or something.

There's places to do them. There's very few of them and depending on the place, depends on the restrictions. And I actually plan on course previewing 1 of the locations here soon. And maybe 2026 have a, a full on [00:23:00] 50 miles out, 50 miles back, 100 mile or even 100 miles out and then shuttle back or something.

I don't know. But it's in the works of something doing something like that because there's nothing like that in Texas. And I see that and I'm willing to jump in it and make it work.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, there are a hundred milers, right? But a lot of times they're, like you said, looped and things like that.

So

Briston Rains: yeah, there's no out and back or point to point a hundred milers or looped one big loop, a hundred milers in Texas that I know of. That's let me say that's within. 10 hours of Dallas or Dallas, but Austin, because I'm sure they probably got something like that down in big bend area or even El Paso, Franklin mountain area.

I'm sure there's a, they got something like that out there, but that's way too far away. That's like another state. So I would need something around, Dallas within a few hours of Dallas or Austin. Or even San Antonio would be preferable.

Chris Detzel: [00:24:00] Now, do you still do quite a bit of running yourself?

Briston Rains: Oh yeah, definitely. I just I did a few things this year. So I did I carried a cross for 24 hours straight. And I covered 40 miles and it was a 60 pound cross and that's on YouTube. And then I did the new way. The new week or the new nine hour relay in Dallas. And we won that one. How

Chris Detzel: many people were on that?

Briston Rains: It's a three man team and we would run a loop and then switch. And it was like a, I think it was like a 5k loop or something.

Chris Detzel: Okay. A lot of switching then

Briston Rains: do what

Chris Detzel: I said? A lot of switching then.

Briston Rains: Oh yeah. Yeah. So we'd run through and then hand off the bid later,

Chris Detzel: Can you do another one?

Briston Rains: Yep.

Yeah, it was interesting. You'd run and then sit there for 40 minutes and then go run again and you do that for nine hours Yeah, the only thing

Chris Detzel: I did like that before was and it wasn't nine hours, but I think there's four of us [00:25:00] and it was What's it called? It's a very popular race and Senate or San Antonio area, but basically we'd run, it was a 30 something miles each, right?

And then you just get up, run a, there's a red, green and yellow loop and each one's a different mile. So one was eight miles, one was five and one was three. And we just do it three times each, but we had to switch off all the time. And it took us, I think, 19 hours overall to do it, and those are fun because you're doing it with the team.

I really like this. Team things like that. I don't like to do it on the road too much, but so are all your races pretty much a trail?

Briston Rains: Yeah, I would say yeah, I would say about 90 percent of them are all trail. So, the North Texas ultra is on a gravel trail way, like a super fine gravel trail way.

And so that one's cool because it's flat. It's paved with a super fine gravel. So your knees don't get. [00:26:00] Jammed up like it does on the road. And it's anywhere from a 10 K to a 100 K. And so a lot of people like to go out there and run some fast ultras.

Chris Detzel: And

Briston Rains: we even had a blind runner come out and run a 50 K this past year.

And if that was a trail, I don't know if he would have been able to do it, but the fact that it was a paved. Gravel trail and it was wide and flat. anything. He was able to do that 50 K distance. And could even do the Andre K if he wanted to, but we have that one. And then we also have I'm delving into the road marathon for the first time.

So my hometown is Gainesville, Texas, and I've always had a dream of putting on a big city marathon there. And so in February we're going to be putting on the Gainesville marathon and they're going to shut downtown down. The police are we're going to have police escort. You get to go through historic downtown Gainesville out into the county roads and then run back and so we're That's going to be our first big road race.

We're doing like that. And so that'll be really neat.

Chris Detzel: So you'll show up for [00:27:00] that one then.

Briston Rains: Yeah, man. Yeah. That's a

Chris Detzel: five K a half marathon and a 26. 2.

Briston Rains: So

Chris Detzel: in the marathon, right? Yeah.

Briston Rains: No, the Gainesville marathon is since it's the first year, I'm just doing a five K 10 K half marathon next year.

If it goes well, we'll do, we'll add on a marathon, but I don't want to do a full marathon distance. Okay. And not know what I'm getting myself in

Chris Detzel: my change. Your website says February 2025 5k 1326. 2.

Briston Rains: Yeah, that might have been like the original plan. But once I got talking with the police and stuff, we ended up.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, the marathon's a little too much this time.

Briston Rains: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: I might come out for that 1 to that.

Briston Rains: Yeah, I'm super excited about that one. We we are, I think it's going to be on February 23rd. And so that's going to be our first time delving into the road marathon scene, or I guess half marathon can get seen.

And so we're going to get [00:28:00] that started. We also have A It's a new thing we're delving into, but we got a race in March 8th called a beast of the back roads. And that one is a road 5k 10, 10 mile. And then we're also doing, I know this is a running podcast, but we're also doing a hundred mile bike ride out there too.

Chris Detzel: I see a hundred. So that's the beast of the back roads is 103 miles, 65 miles and 27 for bike or 10 mile on a 5k run. Yeah, it's in long view though, right?

Briston Rains: Yeah, that's a very long view. It's a

Chris Detzel: little

Briston Rains: easier for

Chris Detzel: you.

Briston Rains: Do what? A little easier for you, right? Yeah, and even that one, um, that was a race where a guy reached out and was like, Hey, I want to do this race here.

And I was like, let's do it. And so he's going to be doing the bike race and then Asher's going to be doing the road running race.

Chris Detzel: Go back to like when you put on a [00:29:00] new race and in this case on the Gainesville, half marathon and 10 K and 5k, how do you look at? Marketing that I mean, you have a bunch of people that you can let them know if they want to come, obviously, this is actually in Gainesville, the place that you I don't think you've done races before, right?

So maybe there's people that you want to come. How do you market to that particular city and an area? Is there specific ways that, to get contacts and things like that? Or

Briston Rains: that's a, yeah, that's a really good question. And I think when anyone starts a business of any sorts, the number one question you got to ask yourself is how am I going to put, how am I going to put this in front of people and how people know, and luckily nowadays we have access to.

The internet where we're able to advertise on the internet to people. And so I just use, internet advertising to let people in the area know, okay, we're doing this race

Chris Detzel: and other Google ads and things like that.

Briston Rains: [00:30:00] Yeah. Yeah. I use, yeah, just online advertising and I let people in the area know through that and they can sign up through that.

And that's how people. Really get word out and get to know about it is through online advertising. And so that's how, that's how we let people know about it and how we get people to sign up for it.

Chris Detzel: That's cool. That's, seems like a, I wouldn't say easy, I felt like, Google ads is expensive, but maybe it all just works out in the end.

Briston Rains: Yeah. And you definitely got to know what you're doing. Because if you click like the little boost post button on social media, you're going to be losing a ton of money. You got to go in

Chris Detzel: I want more.

Briston Rains: Yeah, if you do the boost post you're throwing a bunch of money away i've learned so much about marketing the past You know eight years To figure it all out and I watched enough youtube videos and stuff and to figure it out but you definitely got to go in and it's like It's definitely requires a lot of knowledge to know exactly what [00:31:00] to do and what's most effective.

If you hop into a Google ads or Facebook ads manager dashboard, you'd be like, it'd look like alien language probably.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, if you're not used to and you're not and you haven't you know, like you said look I think doing is the key at Learning anything. Certainly you have youtube and a bunch of other places to go in and find how to do that stuff, but It's not easy like i'll go in there I want to do a linkedin kind of post around and I want to you know Get more podcast hits on my data hurdles podcast and start looking at them like Sorry, that's a lot of money, and so you've got to, you've got to really think about, how are you going to use that?

Sometimes maybe the strategy is just to get a bunch of emails so that over time you have those later as well. Because you're collecting a lot of good Great email contacts and everything else, by doing those ads, because that's how they have to register,

Briston Rains: right?

Yeah. Yeah. And you don't need a lot of money to start advertising. If you use Facebook, it's, you can do a dollar a day. That's what I [00:32:00] did starting out. I just did a dollar a day, really 30 a month. Starting out and that's how I started and a lot of people think you need all this money to start doing whatever it is that you need to do.

But as y'all know, like I, or as I didn't start with a lot of money, but I, all the profit that I'd get from the races, I would reinvest. And start paying for things like ads and tables and tents. And I would just use that money I made and then purchase the equipment I needed. And that's all I did.

I didn't, it didn't require thousands of dollars or outside funding. I just reinvested it all. And I still do that too, like to this day. I, every penny I can goes back to the business. So that way we can keep putting on, great experiences for people. And I don't know if you saw my sign at dirt circus, but it said adventures all over Texas and that's since the beginning that's what we're providing people as an adventure.

Somewhere in [00:33:00] texas for

Chris Detzel: sure

Briston Rains: whether a trail road, whatever it is You get to go on an adventure with yourself and in the world and in the wilderness and you get to challenge yourself and So yeah, but I don't know how I got off to that. No, it's good I like tangents. I

Chris Detzel: don't know if anybody else does but i'm pretty good at getting off on them.

What kind of such Do you feel like that? That you guys are set apart from other races, and if so, what is it that sets you apart From other races and maybe it's not other races just setting you apart to hey This is why people come to my races and this is why they want to do it I know you mentioned, it's A lot of times it's the relationships that they might have with you or your race director and those kinds of things

Briston Rains: Yeah, I think the biggest thing that makes us different than other race companies And we get this a lot of our races a lot of people tell us this but they when people come to our races They say that it's just, they can't [00:34:00] describe it, except that it just feels different.

It feels super welcoming. They love the vibe. They love the music. They love how, who we are. And they just enjoy it. And I get tons of comments on social media that just say like we had such a good time at your race and we can't wait to do more. Or we absolutely loved it and had an amazing time.

And that's my goal for everybody that comes to these races. And honestly I can't pinpoint exactly what makes us stand apart. But when people come they, they clearly explain, man, this is just different than anything we've been to before. And they like it. I do know, like I said before I think, when you come around with us, you're going to get good quality of it.

You're gonna get fully loaded, stacked aid stations. You're gonna get a very well marked course and you're gonna get race staff that encourages and supports you the whole way. And volunteers. And I guess our quality. And who we are because we are genuine honest [00:35:00] people is what sets us apart from the rest and obviously the amount of races we do sets us apart

Chris Detzel: Certainly the amount.

Briston Rains: Yeah

Chris Detzel: i'm not done with your races yet, so you know, I was so excited that you said yes to Come on this podcast because I was like, i'd love to get to know briston a little bit,

Briston Rains: Yeah, No, I was just going to say that whenever we have new people come to our races, we, and I've explained this to Asher too, but like we treat you just we just try to treat you just like a, not like family.

I feel like it's kind of cliche, but we're just very genuine and honest and open with people and like open arms and like super loving. And I'm a Detzeltian and like we're called to love others and so that's what we stand for is just like loving on other people and celebrating their Wins and their accomplishments with them.

And so I guess when we get a new person in they just get to experience That's probably I would say that's probably the biggest thing that attributes to [00:36:00] that Difference people experience when they come so

Chris Detzel: no, that's great. Um you know looking around you've got a great website by the way it's very clean crisp Tells you exactly what you need to do and, or where you need to go.

So I really like it. You, you have not just the website, but you have a podcast, you have, a social Facebook group, which I would thought there'd be like thousands on there and there's 228 or something, but there's an opportunity there, but still, I think that overall you've done an excellent job of really.

Promoting your brand in a lot of different ways, I think that your website really brings the connected experience to I think the digital piece is key at the end of the day, right? And I think I feel like you've done a really good job of that. So kudos to you I was looking at it yesterday and today and I was like, damn, this guy has done a really good job of just I think you have 150 episodes on your podcast.

So you're extremely [00:37:00] consistent. You've grown your brand to 35 races, like you said, at least 30, that's on the website. Um, and you're doing all the right things. I really love, what you and the team have done and what you've created. Kudos to you.

Briston Rains: Yeah, I appreciate that, man.

Yeah, man. So I remember in college when I first started we had, I remember when I created the Instagram account, we had zero followers, no brand new. And I would follow running pages and then follow the people that follow that running page. And that's how I got my beginning followers. And I had nothing.

I started with absolutely no content, no races, nothing. And looking back now, because Now we have, like you said, everything's tied in and very consistent. And back then, and even now my perspective is just. One brick at a time.

Chris Detzel: And

Briston Rains: so what you see now is accumulation of four years of putting a brick on top of a brick every single day [00:38:00] for the past 365 days.

And when I look at other race directors, most of the other race directors are older. And one thing I have on them, but they didn't pretty

Chris Detzel: much all of them.

Briston Rains: Yeah. They're pretty much all older and the perspective I've always held is I'm young. And if I just do something every day for the next 40 years, I can do something that these guys can't because of time.

I have time on my side. And so I just looked at it as a perspective of just adding a brick every day. And every day is a brick, whether that's a piece of something posted on social media, a podcast episode, making the website better, whatever it is. Hundreds of hours into the website. That is Something that has been developed and worked on and made to where it is now took a lot of time a lot of late nights,

Chris Detzel: It's it's hard to become simple and when [00:39:00] you look at you know All the things that you're doing and all the platforms that you're on and things like that It's hard to bring it into one website and not to stick to this website thing But you've done a very good job of keeping it simple And I think that's the key is, if it's everywhere and it's I don't know what's going on and I can't even, so I'm sure you guys are drawing pretty good traffic from there.

Cause people want to sign up and things like that. Again, kudos to you and we're keeping it simple over the years. Like you said, you've been laying the foundation and the brick works, you're on one brick at a time and it's not just over here or over there or, like it's somewhat consolidated and it looks pretty good. And pretty impressive.

Briston Rains: And I would say too, to that you talked about how simple it is. One thing I always tell people now is just to keep it simple. Like me, I'm very pragmatic and rational. And I want it to the point and I want to, I don't want [00:40:00] a bunch of extra stuff.

I just want to, I want the meat, I don't want all this extra stuff. And whenever I consult or talk with people that are trying to build a brand, the biggest thing I tell them is just to keep it simple. And yeah, there's a lot of ideas we have and things I could do. But at the end of the day, I want stuff that's going to have the most impact and that's the most efficient as possible.

And yeah, like you said, on the website, we got races, store, content, and coaching. Yeah. Click on what you want. You want a race? All right. Here's a races. Here's where they are, when they are, you want to sign up, there's a register button just to the point, and that's just how I operate.

That's just how I am to the point. And I don't like all the extra fluff and I don't think people in general, like all the extra fluff. They just want to be able to, get what they need and go.

Chris Detzel: Is there anybody that and maybe this is a hard question, maybe it's not I have no idea but that you really respect [00:41:00] From the trail running community that has done some of this stuff really well or anything like that Do you look at anybody and say, that person did a really good job I really I don't know.

Maybe there's not maybe there is

Briston Rains: Yeah, I was like a conglomerate of people and so like when I first started I didn't know what I was doing so I would look at trail racing over texas or Yeah Or run bum races or are a BIPA running. And I would look at even like Ironman and I would look at how they have their stuff set up and what what are they doing and how's everything laid out.

And so I just took things I liked from all of them and put it into my website and then added on things that I thought should have been added. And so it's a conglomerate of all the successful race organizers that you will see or know in the running community.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, no, that makes sense. I've run run on race once I was in go Tennessee or something like that.

Pretty cool race. Got what it's called, but it's really hard. [00:42:00] Yeah. I think you can learn a lot from the entire trail running community. And even I'm sure you can learn a lot from the road racing community as well. And how they marketed and things like that. Look, I'm always a big fan of, Hey, who's doing it the best.

I remember so I'll just, I know it's not about running, but I think that, like I build online communities for a living or B2B companies. But. The ones that the b2c companies build really cool online communities and the b2b are a little bit more stuck in The old school thinking in some ways, right?

And so how do you get yourself out of that old school thinking and just do what you're doing, right? I mean you're all over social everybody is now but but anyways anything that you think I should have asked that I didn't ask

Briston Rains: What a good question. I don't know if I've ever had anyone ask me that in podcast.

See, just making sure we're good on time over here. No, I think all the questions you guys have been great. And [00:43:00] yeah, I think this is a pretty good conversation. I'm an open book. I'm not afraid to say how it is. You'll get a lot of race directors on podcast.

And, they'll talk in a way that advertises to a runner and in a way they manipulate what they say to make it sound good to the end consumer. So that way they'll come run their races. And for me, man, I'm an opus honest book. I'm completely raw. I don't care what other people think.

And we talked a lot about business on this episode. We talked a lot about how operations work and honestly that's the meat and bones of it all and yeah yes, I love trail running. I do it. I'm literally Not only do I still run them, but i'm literally training and I love running in general I'm training for now the houston marathon in january.

And so i'm a runner myself

Chris Detzel: nice. So it's not even a trail So that's great

Briston Rains: Yeah, that's on the trail. It's my first road run in a long time. So

Chris Detzel: do you have a goal?

Briston Rains: Do [00:44:00] you

Chris Detzel: have a goal in mind?

Briston Rains: No, I'm just running it for fun, man. I'm gonna go out there, run with a guy. I know we're just going to run it.

And get a medal and head home. So

Chris Detzel: great race. Yeah. After we're done the half, I don't do many marathons anymore. I just do a lot of haves and things like that, but it's a great atmosphere. Great race. So that's awesome.

Briston Rains: Yeah, man. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that and, used to marathon.

That's a bit, there's a event organizer over that and they're. They're a business and we're looking at everything logistically and business wise. And yeah, man, so let me ask you this. Are there any like hard hitting questions you want to ask? Anything that might be sensitive or controversial? And nothing you say will offend me.

Is there any questions that you have for me that are like, You might be scared to ask maybe or No,

Chris Detzel: i'm not scared, the one thing that I want to make sure that on my podcast is like i'm not looking for drama and i'm not looking to start up drama or anything like that. I would say Remember in the very first of this podcast [00:45:00] again, i'm very impressed with what you're doing So there's no but a lot of people in the beginning were like who's this briston guy, And he's come on the scenes and things like that and i'm sure for you Maybe you just didn't care but i'm sure there's some of that right?

Like it's okay I'm getting on the scenes and i'm just now starting. How did that the beginning You know, how did you feel and did you just didn't think about it? What went on in your mind? Maybe you didn't feel that way or maybe you didn't see that, but I did. I thought that was like, here's this kid, as he, but over time, I've really been pretty impressed.

Briston Rains: Thanks man. Yeah. I yeah I'm glad you actually brought that up because the beginning was very interesting when I first started, so, but you gotta, I had to start somewhere in the beginning, I remember I posted in that DFW running group, Hey, I'm putting on the hardest marathon, 26.

2 miles.

Chris Detzel: That's my group, by the

Briston Rains: way. Yeah, that was your group. And I remember people [00:46:00] were pissed. They were like, I remember that. What do you mean hardest? They were like the Habanero is the hardest and the Habanero doesn't even have a 26 mile marathon. So I was like, what are you talking about?

But yeah, I put that in there and, I'm pretty bold and confident. And stuff like that, whenever I'm saying stuff like that. And I looked around at every single 26. 2 mile marathon in Texas, and there was not one that's in the middle of the day that started at noon on July in the middle of July on sand.

There wasn't one. Yeah, there, there was a Habanero a hundred, but they didn't have a 26. 2 mile marathon. This is the hardest marathon in Texas. And so I posted that and a lot of people were pissed. And I remember Rob commented and he said something like, Rob Goyan with trail racing over Texas. He said that he backed me up.

He said something like. Every dog has got to eat or something. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he basically was supporting me in supporting what I [00:47:00] was doing. And and they did go down in history from my knowledge as being one of the hardest organized 26. 2 mile marathons in the state of Texas.

And obviously we discontinued that race because I matured and I realized I want to put on great experiences for people not. Terrible suffering experiences in that manner. It just liability wise, as far as like cost liabilities and it just ended up not being right. So we can cancel that.

But yeah, I definitely got a lot of backlash and I, and it, and there were people showed up, didn't they? Yeah. Yeah. And there were people in the community that were like, I'm never going to run one of the races. Your races are terrible and these are people that never ran with me before and I remember that and it did definitely affect me in the beginning because I can sometimes be a people pleaser depending on the day and how I move.

But, uh, yeah I took that backlash to heart and then I would [00:48:00] have to people tell me don't take it to heart and I'd have to people tell me if you didn't have the hate. And you're not doing it right. Yeah. And so, but if anything, it just fueled the fire to make, to allow me to want to put on better, more professional races, because when people would say things negative, I'd be like, how can I prove them wrong?

What can I start doing now? And yeah,

Chris Detzel: I love a person that, you took that to heart. You had the race shirt was really hard. You learn from that race. And one of the things that you said was. Look, I want a better experience race. I want it doesn't have to be easy It still can be hard obviously anytime in the summer you run In texas, it's going to be hard and hot and all that kind of stuff you want people to have a more enjoyable race, right?

And that's what you're starting to create and have create. Geez you have 30 plus races, and And you've been extremely successful So I say hats off to you and the team and you should be proud of what you've done You know

Briston Rains: Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Yeah, it's it [00:49:00] was it was a long, uh, like a long and emotional roller coaster for me.

I have a video actually me one year ago today. This close to quitting giving it all up.

Chris Detzel: Wow.

Briston Rains: I'll tell I'll talk about that real quick because that was actually really interesting time. So I graduated college last year. And I had to live on the business for the first time, and this is my first time paying myself for the business was last year.

So I built this thing over three years, reinvested everything back into it. I would pay for a few thousand dollars for my college tuition each semester out of the business. But as soon as I graduated college, I was my first time ever living on my own and it was either live or die. It's either I keep on, I put on more races to live off this business and the business keeps going.

Or I go get a regular job and this business dies. And so it forced I was, I didn't want this thing to die. I've been building for three years. And so I began to put on or start creating races for the consistency that we have, just so I could live just so I could pay the rent, pay for [00:50:00] food, pay the bills and pay for gas, and I look very frugally. At the beginning of this year, and then after a few months after living out the business for six months, things started to take off in January of the beginning of this year. And for the first time ever, I was seeing these huge numbers every month that were very consistent that came out of nowhere.

But right before that, though, I was this close to quitting and giving it all up. I literally have a video of me crying in my apartment over here that I'm in right now. And in the video I'm like, I don't know if I can do this. Cause I was getting a lot of hate online of people being like super, just I'm okay with criticism, but just

Chris Detzel: extremely

Briston Rains: hateful criticism.

And on top of that, I'm barely

Chris Detzel: getting anybody,

Briston Rains: yeah. And I'm over here barely paying the bills, pouring my heart and soul into this thing. And I'm getting all this hate criticism online. And I was just done. I was like, I'm done. I called a few people saying, Hey, do you want to buy some races?

I [00:51:00] don't know if I can do this anymore. And that was like in November of last year. And just, I don't know, slept on it. And it was finishing out some races and then January hit. And all of a sudden, like I had started to have these huge numbers and all those races I had planned had started finally coming in.

And I started to see. These huge numbers come in every two, I get paid every two weeks from ultra sign up and I started seeing all these big numbers coming in and then January, February, March, they were very consistent and I was like, okay, like I can live off of this comfortably now. And I still pay myself a modest salary.

I was paying myself

Chris Detzel: at

Briston Rains: the time 3, 000 a month for my wife and I, and my wife doesn't work because she has narcolepsy and she's not able to drive. And I was living off 3, 000 a month and even still to this day yeah, we're bringing in a lot of, a lot more money now, but I'm still paying myself very frugally, just enough to get by.

I don't [00:52:00] need a big salary. But yeah, that was a scary time, and I still have the video on my phone. I like recorded myself. About it, because I was like, maybe in the future, I can look back at this and see I bounce back. Or maybe in the future, I'll look back on this and see how it started all crumbling one of the two, but

Chris Detzel: Look at you, man.

This year's turned around a little bit. Yeah. Personally, I know we're pretty much up on the hour, it's been really great to hear your story and all the things that you've accomplished and gone through. And, look, I think there's always good and bad things that happen or I don't know what's called bad, but there's always hurdles that you have to jump through and you have to learn, and.

When you deal with retail kind of stuff, and opinions, because, in trail running and in general, like running in general is there's a lot of people's opinions and they've done a lot of races. So they think they know exactly what you need, but look, you've done it, you've been there and you continue to kill it.

So congrats.

Briston Rains: Thanks, man. I appreciate the support encouragement. So

Chris Detzel: of course,

Briston Rains: [00:53:00] but yeah, man I Appreciate you for letting me come on here and you asked me a bunch of questions for people to learn more So

Chris Detzel: yeah thanks for tuning in to another dfw running talk I'm, Detzel detzel and please don't forget to rate and review us and bristin.

Thanks again. Thanks,

Briston Rains: man.

Chris Detzel: All right