The man behind the Dirty Half

Dirty Half Trail Run benefits the Deschutes Land Trust.

He didn’t get the nickname “Super Dave” for nothing.

Dave Thomason founded Bend’s popular 13.1-mile trail race: the Dirty Half Marathon. But that’s not how he attained “super” status. He is a talented mountain biker, too, and was given the nickname by a fellow rider a number of years ago.

Thanks largely to Thomason’s involvement in local races, the pet name stuck. (Not to be confused with the bumbling stuntman who made his modest fame in TV in the 1980s.) Thomason says he tried to compete in “every race that came down the pike.”

Members of the local running community virtually all know Thomason as “Super Dave” for having produced a number of distance trail races in recent years under the banner of his main employer, FootZone running store in downtown Bend. The three primary races he directs are the Horse Butte 10-Mile Trail Run, the Dirty Half and the Dirty Dozen.

Coming up this Sunday, the Dirty Half — staged on Phil’s Trail in northwest Bend — is in its seventh year and is bigger than ever. The Dirty Half entry cap of 800 was met in six weeks.

“There’s a lot of aspects of the Dirty Half that I think people really appreciate,” says Thomason, noting that a number of local women make the race their only regular competitive run. “They don’t race ever: whether it’s a 5K, whether it’s a marathon — they race the Dirty Half and they’re done.

“Then I have the really fast people that are trying to better their time,” Thomason adds. “It’s a very competitive field, but at the same time being a noncompetitive, nonthreatening environment. … It’s got something for everybody.”

The Dirty Half has become “THE race” for some local runners. Those who are not so serious aim simply to complete the race, while others try to make specific times — and others try to set records.

“Some people,” says Thomason, “are like, ‘I’m trying to beat my time from last year in the Dirty Half, or I’m trying to beat this guy from the Dirty Half or see how fast I can go in the Dirty Half, or I’m going to go complete the Dirty Half for my seventh time.’ So, yeah, I think it’s kind of bringing people to running.”

Thomason says he tries to think locally when planning his races.

“I try to keep it in Bend,” he says. “I could sell this thing (the Dirty Half) out online in two days if I wanted to probably, but I wouldn’t have all these people who have made the race what it is in the race anymore. I like these people here. They live here, and that’s the race they do and they support us and they shop at our store (FootZone). I mean, I want people to come into town, but they are not my first priority by any means.”

Benefiting nonprofit organizations that promote the preservation of outdoor recreation spaces in Central Oregon was one of Thomason’s main motivations for starting the trail races in Bend. The three primary FootZone races support the Deschutes Land Trust, the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the Central Oregon Trail Alliance.

“(The Dirty Half) is a benefit for the (Deschutes) Land Trust,” notes Thomason. “And hopefully one day we will have more open space for us all to keep doing these things, and for the next generation to come down and have a good time and be out in the woods.”

According to Thomason, he and FootZone have donated more than $30,000 of race proceeds to the Deschutes Land Trust in the last three years.

“We have this great Skyline Forest (forest along Skyliners Road in northwest Bend) out there that hopefully will one day be developed into another trail system (where) we can all go hike and bike and run and jump and throw rocks in rivers and hang out,” Thomason says. “People that live here have to remember that that’s why we live here, so we can do those things. I think that’s kind of the impact that we (FootZone and race supporters) have had.

“I’m not above doing a race for profit,” he adds. “I’m going to try to do that in the next couple of years. But I think I will always give back to the community. I have ideas as to how to make it work.”

After some years of competing in the Central Oregon racing scene, Thomason says, he thought the running community could use a few good trail runs.

“I kind of saw that, you know, we’re going to have to do something,” says Thomason. “And I thought that I could put on a pretty good event. … I mean, there were no trail races at the time (in 2000, when Thomason staged his first trail race, on Horse Ridge southeast of Bend). … Trail running was kind of in its infancy. And I was like, well, we need to put on a trail race. We live in Bend, and we have killer trails.”

The first Dirty Half, staged in 2001, attracted 160 runners. From there the race slowly grew, and in its fourth year the number of entries skyrocketed. The 500 runner slots were filled quickly that year, and every year since then the race has been in high demand.

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Thomason, now 36, began working for FootZone in 1996. He has always been interested in outdoor sports and races, mountain biking, running, downhill skiing and multisport events. He says that back in the day he was one of a small group of avid racers who competed in all the outdoor athletic events offered around Bend.

“I was always racing and running locally, doing Pole Pedal Paddle and things like that,” he recalls. “I was out there doing stuff. And that used to be such a small community of (racers). Ten years ago there was only a certain amount of people doing these things. Now it’s gotten so big.”

Thomason’s interest in sports obviously didn’t end with his own athletic pursuits. He graduated with an associate degree in exercise science from Central Oregon Community College in Bend in 1995, and he graduated from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1998. Then he spent a few years teaching activities courses like mountain biking at COCC.

Thomason is father to a 1-year-old son named Clay. His wife, Carisa, is an accomplished runner who ran competitively in college at West Virginia State and COCC.

When Thomason is not looking after his little one, working as a salesman/manager at FootZone, or organizing one of the three big local trail races or fun training runs, he is running or mountain biking for his own fitness — and competing in a few races.

Thomason has been a Bend resident for 16 years since moving from Seattle and says he tries to embrace what Central Oregon has to offer.

“For me, races keep me going,” he says.

“There’s something beautiful about a half-marathon. It’s just a great distance.”