Reporting on the Fray in Ferndale in real-time has been a bit of an experience and very fun. I've learned a lot that I will carry through to the next race I cover. Here are my notes on this experience, as well as some background.

General Information:
- This site is less than one month old.


- There is a hunger for information about multi-day races while they are happening.

- It's difficult to get ahold of people at the Fray for several reasons.
     - Internet connectivity is allegedly limited in Ferndale.
     - Cell phone reception is allegedly spotty in Ferndale.
     - People racing in Ferndale are busy.- People from around the world are interested in the Fray.
     - This site was visited by people from Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Spain, France and New Zealand in the past week. They were all looking for Fray information.
- People from across this country of ours are interested in the Fray.
     - This site was visited by people from 39 of the lower 48 states, plus the District of Columbia.- Information about this site and the Fray information held within was posted to a dozen Yahoo! groups, as well as several forum sites. Days and times the link was posted led to the highest traffic moments. (not really a surprise)

Notes for the next event:
There needs to be a better way of organizing the information. Perhaps a forum setup instead of a single blog entry. This will hopefully allow for a better organization of the information and an easier way to reply.

There needs to be a better way to view the results info on a mobile device. Right now it's very confusing.

Establishing connections and specific date/time check-ins ahead of time will likely increase the information volume and regularity. Please contact me if you're interested in helping out with this at the next big race you attend.

If you have input on how things went, please send it along. You can email it or just reply to this thread.

Using that old Carnegie Hall adage, practice, practice, practice.

Most people from outside of Northern California and Southern Oregon will fly into Redding, CA, San Francisco, CA or Medford, OR and make the drive from there. It's about a 5-6 hour drive from San Francisco up highway 101. If you want to see some of the most beautiful terrain on the planet and have a couple extra hours, head up highway 1 along the Pacific coast. You might need some Dramamine from all the twists, turns and switchbacks.

Here's Rick Burneson's experience at the 2002 Fray. He drove from Southern California.

Old Weird Harold (I think) talks about his trip to the 2003 Fray, which took place in a new, larger venue. 

One industrious race, Tom Bowman of BRP rode his motorcycle from Virginia to the Fray in 2008. Here's his article on the experience.

Here is racer Smalltime's account of his experiences at the 2011 Fray.

I swear I'll make it up there someday.