Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Hansel.
Hi Mandy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
My husband Bill and I are both avid trail runners. In fact, we met because of trail running! In the spring of 2019, after visiting a friend’s trails on his farm, we decided to host our first trail race, Storm the Farm. This event was conceived, planned, and carried out within about 3 months of that initial visit. We have now grown to 4 annual events. Storm the Park which is held in April at Whitewater State Park, Storm the Farm which held in July at Briggs Outdoors, Storm the Day which is held in October at Prairie Island Campground in Winona and in December we hold Storm the Bluffs at the Bronk Plowline Unit near Winona, MN. We have a variety of distances at our events, ranging from 5k all the way up to 50k. Our events include a variety of disciplines including running, mountain biking, and a very unique off-road duathlon.
The mission of The Storm Trail Race Series is to encourage people of all skill levels to participate in trail racing events, get outdoors, and enjoy the beautiful local trails in Southeast Minnesota. A percentage of the profits from our events go to organizations that assist with Youth Mental Health treatment and awareness. Since we created The Storm Trail Race Series in 2019, we have donated over $25,000 which has helped local non-profit organizations.
Our events are all-inclusive for all skills, experience levels, and speeds. We do not have any cutoffs at our events which allows people to dream big and try a distance they never thought they would be able to achieve. With no cutoffs, they can enjoy their time out on the trail without being concerned with being “swept” from the course if they don’t finish in a certain time.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not always been smooth sailing! Our event Storm the Park was planned to take place the Saturday after the countrywide shutdown. We rescheduled the event for about 6 weeks later but were once again shut down by the state.
We ended up having to turn that event into a virtual event, even holding a drive-by shirt pickup! Then in December 2020 we were once again gearing up for our Storm the Bluffs event when the state was shut down again and had to cancel the whole event. We were not able to get back to in-person racing until July 2021.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We put on trail races that are all-day parties which we like to call “trailgating!” We encourage people of all abilities to participate in our events. We welcome all speeds and skill levels! We want people to feel comfortable giving something new a try and our events are the perfect place to do just that! We like to celebrate all participants no matter if they are first or last place. In fact, we give the last person, known as DFL in trail running, the very same awards we give the first-place finisher. We know that the person that finished last had to have the tenacity to stay out there and persevere much, much longer than the first-place finisher and they should be celebrated for that!
About 1/3 of all of the race registration fees are earmarked to donate to local area nonprofits that provide awareness and programming for youth mental health. We also collect donations from participants in order to help increase what we can provide our benefactors. Overall, we have donated over $25,000 to these organizations since we started in 2019.
We all have different ways of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success to us is putting on a great race that people enjoy participating in, all while raising money for youth mental health programs!
Contact Info:
- Website: thestormtrs.org
- Instagram: @thestormtrs
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestormtrailraceseries
Image Credits
Roxanne Ready
