Ultra distance sponsorship desired

Try Inov 8, not too many American Ultra guys that they are sponsering. Or maybe the Patagonia ultra team. I don't know too many others. Montrail has been in the dumps lately.

Nobody placed Top 5 at both White River and Leadville. Results:

http://67.132.106.4/finishersreport.ihtml?rid=73&racename=Leadville%20Trail%20100

http://www.seattlerunningcompany.com/WR50/results09.html

Which races did you run, and which did you set the CR at?

Andrew Henshaw...come on down

Looks like Andrew Henshaw to me.

He placed 6th at WR50, and 4th at Leadville.

While that is a 6th place finish at the White River 50, which serves as the USATF 50 mile trail championships, it IS a 5th place finish at the USATF 50 mile trail championship, because one of the guys ahead of him didn't have a valid USATF card.

Because you have no self awareness, I will be embarrased for you.

I think that's a lousy distinction not to make. That's the type of thing Dean Karnazes would do.

Is Andrew trying to create a name for himself on a message board? Well played.

Oh, and now back to the original question:

Andrew, I'd write up your running resume, and then circulate it to whichever companies make products that you use and want discounted.

Another route (one I personally find more useful) would be to do the same with the local running stores, to see if they are interested in sponsoring you with free merchandise and possibly a small stipend for entry fees and travel expenses in exchange for sporting their logo. This has the advantage of not being tied down to one particular brand of shoe, drink, etc.

As someone mentioned above, Inov8 has a pretty decent program. Last I heard you received 10 pairs of shoes per year, a uniform (singlet, shorts, short sleeve, jacket, pants), and a backpack. They already sponsor some ultrarunners (like Brian Morrison, Mark Lundblad) and mountain runners (Joe Gray).

Nuun is very liberal with product; they'll give you tons of free product in exchange for sending them photos of yourself using their product/displaying their logo in races. However, this is kind of a joke because it seems that every ultrarunner has a Nuun "sponsorship", judging by the number of people wearing Nuun visors.

You might also want to try some online retailers, like Backcountry.com, who sponsors athletes like Matt Hart and Karl Meltzer.

Thanks for the advice... and i apologize, that was a lousy distinction not to make

No worries; you were technically correct, since you did state "USATF championships" and not White River. Besides, 6th is still nothing to laugh at with this years field. I was volunteering at Corral Pass; you looked good coming in but none of us were sure who you were! Someone thought you were Leor Pantilat. Kind of funny.

Good luck with your sponsorship quest, and keep up the good results.

Karl Meltzer and Anton Krupicka, other than being two of the best ultra-runners out there today also have relatively successful blogs. Especially in Karl Meltzer's case I think his sponsor gets a lot out of that... Backcountry are always in his posts and a lot of ultra-runners go there for news of upcoming events and results.

You could look into doing something similar - just marketing yourself outside of the races you run, gain contacts throughout the community by networking yourself around the blogs these runners have.

Check

http://www.ultrarunning.com

There is mention of a company offering sponsorship (article was still up late 09/03/2009).