About the archive

About the Archive

Preserving the past. Documenting the present. Inspiring the future.

Why Kansas Ultrarunning History Exists

Bring the scattered record together.

The history of ultrarunning in Kansas is far deeper than a list of race results. For decades, runners, race directors, clubs, volunteers, crews, families, photographers, writers, sponsors, and communities have contributed to a distinctive grassroots endurance culture across the state.

Much of that history is scattered. It lives in old magazines and newsletters, race applications and result sheets, club records, photographs, newspaper stories, personal collections, websites that may no longer exist, and the memories of people who were there. Some records are easy to find. Others are buried, incomplete, conflicting, or at risk of disappearing entirely.

Kansas Ultrarunning History exists to bring that record together.

History belongs to everyone.

The Foundation

A durable institution behind a living archive.

The Kansas Ultrarunning Historical Foundation was founded on August 24, 2026, by Wichita native and longtime ultrarunner Eric Steele. KansasUltrarunningHistory.org is the Foundation’s primary historical archive and public website.

The Foundation is a Kansas not-for-profit corporation established to support historical research, preservation, documentation, digitization, interpretation, publication, and public access to the history of ultrarunning in Kansas. Its EIN has been obtained, IRS Form 1023-EZ has been submitted, and recognition as a 501(c)(3) public charity is pending.

The Foundation’s historical resources are powered and supported by Epic Ultras, while their historical scope covers Kansas ultrarunning broadly and is not limited to Epic Ultras events, participants, or history.

Our Mission

Preserve, verify, and share.

To preserve, verify, and share the complete history of ultrarunning in Kansas through objective research, historical documentation, firsthand accounts, and community collaboration—ensuring that the individuals, races, organizations, performances, and milestones that shaped the sport are not forgotten.

What the Archive Will Document

A living historical archive, not a single static timeline.

Kansas Ultrarunning History is being built as a living historical archive rather than a single narrative or static timeline. As the project grows, it will include:

Race histories and event timelines
Historical race results and notable performances
Runner profiles and oral histories
Club and organization histories
Race director, volunteer, crew, and community contributions
Photographs, programs, newsletters, certificates, advertisements, and other original documents
Contemporary magazine and newspaper coverage
Interviews and firsthand accounts from the people who participated in the sport
Corrections, additions, and newly discovered historical evidence

The archive is Kansas-centered, but the goal is broader than simply recording events held inside state lines. It is to document the people, organizations, relationships, and milestones that collectively explain how ultrarunning developed in Kansas.

How We Approach History

Documentation first.

This project is built around documentation first. Whenever possible, historical claims are checked against multiple independent sources, including original race results, contemporary publications, club records, official documents, photographs, archived web material, and firsthand testimony.

Firsthand recollections are valuable historical evidence, but memory is not treated as infallible. When a recollection can be compared with a contemporary record, both are considered. When reliable sources disagree, the disagreement will be acknowledged rather than quietly forcing the record into a single convenient version.

The goal is not to manufacture certainty where certainty does not exist. The goal is to make the strongest evidence visible and allow the historical record to become more accurate as new material is discovered.

Preservation, Not Promotion

The record comes first.

Kansas Ultrarunning History is not a rankings site, a race-review site, or a promotional vehicle for any single runner, race, club, or organization. The archive will document accomplishments, controversies, changes, failures, breakthroughs, and competing accounts when they are historically relevant and adequately supported.

Epic Ultras powers and supports the project, but the historical scope extends far beyond Epic Ultras and its own events. The archive is intended to document Kansas ultrarunning as a whole.

Historical Resources

Three properties, one Foundation.

The Kansas Ultrarunning Historical Foundation maintains three connected historical resources.

KansasUltrarunningHistory.org is the Foundation’s primary historical archive and public website.

Kansas Ultra Races is the Foundation’s race-focused resource, documenting active, discontinued, and historical ultramarathon events conducted in Kansas.

Kansas Ultrarunners is the Foundation’s people-focused resource, documenting runners with a meaningful and supportable connection to Kansas ultrarunning.

The three properties cross-reference one another while remaining focused resources, allowing race history, runner history, results, and source material to be organized in greater depth.

Founded August 24, 2026

A dedicated home for the record.

The Kansas Ultrarunning Historical Foundation was founded by Wichita native and longtime ultrarunner Eric Steele to give the history of ultrarunning in Kansas a permanent institutional home.

The Foundation grew from a recognition that an enormous amount of Kansas ultrarunning history existed without a single dedicated place to preserve, cross-reference, and explain it. KansasUltrarunningHistory.org is designed to connect those fragments into a durable public record while still giving credit to the original publications, organizations, photographers, writers, race directors, runners, and other sources that created the historical evidence.

An Ongoing Record

This archive is intentionally unfinished.

This archive is intentionally unfinished. New source material will continue to surface. Additional race results will be located. Old photographs will be identified. People who were there will remember details that were never written down. Existing conclusions may occasionally need to be corrected.

That is not a flaw in the project. It is the nature of serious historical work.

Kansas Ultrarunning History will continue to evolve as the evidence evolves, with one standard guiding the work: preserve as much as possible, verify as much as possible, and be transparent about what is known, what is uncertain, and where the information came from.