I know there are several endurance unicyclers here and was wondering if any of you have raced in any long distance running races. I’m looking forward to join a local ultrarunning race of 100km but would like to hear if any experienced muni rider have ever raced with runners and how did the organizers react when asked to join the race? And how about the runners?
Thanks for answers!
-Minikumi
I’m an experienced muni rider and a long time ultramarathon runner (over 17 years and almost 150 ultramarathon races). I’ve also ridden in some long distance, single track endurance mountain bike races on my unicycle. However, I’ve never attempted or thought about unicycling in a ultramarathon FOOT race. The exception was I did pace my wife during a 100 mile road ultra marathon several years ago; I rode ~31 miles or so along side her while she ran. I asked permission of the race directors several weeks in advance and in this case they had no problem with me unicycle pacing since they were already allowing bicycle pacing.
So I’d say it totally depends on the race director and race management and I’d NOT just show up and try to ride without permission. You see I’m also involved with putting on organized running events in my area, from 5km races to ultra marathons and know something about the inner workings of these events. One of the big issues in insurance (at least over here in the U.S.) and most event permits are very strict about what is and is not allowed. For the most part the permits we use do not allow anything other than foot traffic in the event (duh! It’s a foot race! 
) so this may be the same in your area, may be not; I can’t say. Still this is why you should always seek permission ahead of time because to just show up and do it anyhow actually puts the whole event (or could) in jeopardy if you were to get injured or injure somebody else in the event for which you’re not covered by the insurance…
Good luck!
Well of course I didn’t plan to just show up and ride 
my dad is gonna be there running and he does know a lot of people from there, including the organizer, and he asked me if I’d like to ride there with them. He will contact them and ask about it since he knows them already. I just wanted to see if this kinds of things have ever done to convince the organizer since he most likely doesn’t have any idea of muni or even ordinary unicycling.
The insurance isn’t luckily big deal in this race because everybody are running on their own risk. But naturally I’d better keep some kind of safety distance to runners if a UPD happens for some reason.
Anyway, thanks a lot for this! Ultrarunning isn’t really a big sport here in Finland and this race includes just a bit less than 40 runners and the track should be long enough so I guess I won’t be disturbing very many of them. 29er will probably help, too!
Awesome! Sounds like it will be a lot of fun and quite the adventure! With an event as small as you describe and a trail that seems to be wide enough to accommodate you and a runner you should have no problems.
Have fun and take some photos to share with us.
Yeah, it indeed would be quite a ride and I was planning to write a small riding report if a manage to get in there, of course with photos so lets see!