HERC Open, $25K prize money, only 100 racers WTF

speed hiking? I don't understand what the distance was, and is this like speed walking, or is the terrain just absurd?

I was trail running. Don't know why they called it speed hiking. There was no rule against running, it was not a speedwalking competition. The RD said on the website the terrain was very difficult, so it might be faster to hike than run. Obviously the RD is a big pussy.

I was part of the production team for this race. Paul Low and the top racers, in fact much of the field, tore this course up a lot more than we expected they would. One of the thoughts behind calling this "speed hiking" was to try to draw some competitors that might be intimidated by calling it a "mountain race" or something that implied running. We knew we'd got runners due to the cash but we wanted to draw from the large pool of people who hike on a regular basis. There is a course map and elevation profile on the website,

www.hercopen.com

. The long course was 15.5 miles with over 6600' of vertical. There were 5 "major" climbs and a couple other signficant uphills. To define "major"...the first 2.5 miles gained almost 1700', an average of ~700'/mile or 13%. Mile 3 to 4 gained about 1500'. 6.5 to 7.5 gained ~900'. 10 to 12 gained 1700' in two different pitches. 3 to 4 and 11.5 to 12 were so steep that we couldn't get up them in the 4 wheeler to mark the course.

The other thing with this course is the steepness of some of the downhills...The guy who designed the course tried to avoid the steepest trails down for safety's sake but there were more than a few instances where the descents were on black diamond ski trails.

After seeing this course earlier in the summer I really thought 3:15 would be an outstanding time (~12:00/mile). Of course, when I was on it most of the grassy areas had not been mowed. Cutting those this week definitely speeded the course up, particularly on the downhills. But still, for Low to do sub 8:00 miles on this course and another 10 to run sub 10:00 miles blows me away.

One thing about this race, you were either ready for it or you weren't. We had just short of 100 registered for the long course. 66 finished.

As for prize money being awarded by weight categories rather than gender, all I'll say is that was a decision of HERC, the race sponsor, not the company that produced the race. If you know anything about the owner of HERC, she has written that gender breakdowns in society and sport are discriminatory (if I understand her correctly). Personally, I thought going by weight was kind of arbitrary, after all why not go by height or shoe size? Or why not just put all the prize money in one pool and go 10 deep with a little higher top prize? Ultimately it wasn't our call to make and I'm not going to be critical of HERC because they tried to do something different that meshed with their beliefs so good for them to jump into the sport with both feet. Despite all that I'm surprised none of the women got into the money because there were some talented runners of both genders at this race, and as we've seen in the past with the likes of Ann Trason and Pam Reed, you never know who will come out on top in long hard trail races or ultras.

I'll let the "Obviously the RD is a big pussy" comment slide. Triyoda didn't show up to race so what does that say about him? (Read my tone I'm trying to be humorous here!)

i'll be very honest with you.

i saw the advertisement for the race in an adirondack outdoors magazine, and thought about competing, however, the "speed hiking" title stopped me from making the trip.

from experience, such a title usually results in overwhelmed directors, volunteers, and my biggest fear; upon finishing the race having run the course, being admonished for running instead of 'speed hiking', and eligible for squadoosh at the end.

too bad you over thought the title, could have had a much better field.

Unither Nutriceuticals Inc. is the maker of HERC, an all natural, dietary based supplement that contains the amino acid, Arginine.

"Nutraceutical" is a portmanteau of "nutrition" and "pharmaceutical" and refers to foods claimed to have a medicinal effect on human health. The word has not been around that long, maybe less than 20 years.

The race was in some sense sponsored by a drug company. Was this sanctioned by USATF? USDA? or FDA?

So the questions are, what business does a drug company have in throwing so much money at a (frankly) poorly attended race with unorthodox categories? What do they gain by it? What messages do the trail runner participants consent to in accepting such a large an unorthodox payout for such an event?

Maybe the whole thing could be considered an inexpensive form of "guerilla" marketing? I mean, $25K is super cheap for an ad campaign. Actors, designers, publicists cost much more. And look, it worked, it made it onto letsrun.com!

No offense, but this is lets run so HTFU.

Are you familiar with the USATF New England Mountain Running circuit?

http://www.usatfne.org/trail/

Look at some of these courses, yours is a little longer, but probably not much tougher than Cranmore or the New England Championship race. Calling it speedhiking probably confused people, with $5K for the winner, there was no way anyone was going to be walking.

As for attracting hikers, hiking is free, why would you expect anyone to pay $50 to enter if they were going to hike. Runners going for big dollars will drop $50 to race, but most hikers would just think it is stupid. You had a nice website and a nice course, but I think you were way off the mark in marketing this race, unless your goal was to keep it small.

I amr racing Mt. Washington on the bike next week (already race it running in June), so I was not going to risk and injury on a downhill section of this race when my A race is just around the corner. Since it costs $300 to enter Mt. Washington and I have no chance of winning money there maybe I should have made you race my A, it would have been a lot cheaper.

I like what HERC did. Racing by weight seems "fair" although I don't know what the sponsor was smoking if she thought there was anyway women were going to win a dollar of the prize money.

It will be interesting to see if people actually get paid from this race.

Two things kept me out of this race. First was the difficulty of the course. I did not want to risk injury, because I don't run on courses like this much, if at all. Maybe that makes me a wuss or something, I don't know.

Second was the old saying, if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Meaning the money seemed too good to be true. Who hasn't won some money in a race and been told it would be mailed, only for it not to show up, with calls and emails to race organizers unanswered.

I too am surprised at the very low turnout. I thought a lot more of the trail guys from the NE would show up.

aithariog, you struck a nerve. We have produced races with prize money since 1989. We have NEVER not paid a runner who finished in the money. NEVER. I have won money a few times, albeit a long time ago. Never got stiffed. Not sure why you would expect to be stiffed by a company with our track record.

Ask anyone who has dealt with us. Wenneborg would be a good source, as would Pete Fleming, Wardian. Wejo won money at one of our events. We return calls and emails promptly. We try to be responsive to runners of all levels, elites to the back of the pack.

Now that I'm looking at their website I'd say they didn't do a great job of noting that we were producing the race. There are a couple of links but nothing overly evident. Our website has good links to HERC and if you google HERC Open you get our website down a couple listings but I'll say it could have been more clear.

reader rabbit - Unither paid a lot more than $25G to put on this event. I have no idea what the total budget was for this event but in addition to the prize money I'm sure Sugarbush didn't give use of the ski area and their employees for free, plus they had a band, banquet food, hired a production company, timing company, built a website, had a dedicated employee to put this together. Plus you've got event insurance and all the peripherals that go along with producing any race such as bib numbers, shirts, stocking aid stations, etc. As for this being a "cheap ad campaign", from sitting in on some race planning meetings (some, not all) I can tell you that other reasons for putting this race on were discussed such as raising funds for pulmonary research, challenging racers and bringing a summer event to the Mad River Valley. I can honestly say that at no meeting I attended was "advertising HERC" brought up as a priority although you'd be naive to think that never crossed the mind of the company owner.

Can't get into whether or not this event met their goals and whether or not they gained by putting it together because that's not my end of the game.

Race was not USATF sanctioned which is no different than most races. HERC as a product has not been FDA evaluated, as stated on their label. HERC is marketed as a supplement. So is the multivitamin I take every morning. If Flintstones vitamins wants to start sponsoring trail races I'll be happy to do one of their races.

You all are a tough crowd! I would think that any company that wants to put cash into runners pockets in the form of prize money would be well received. Tiger Woods made what, $1.6M this weekend? How much do trail runners tend to make at most races? Any cash up for grabs in our sport should be seen as a plus.

triyoda - no offense taken. I appreciate your input even if you picked Mt Washington over our race :-)

By the way, as far as "no one was going to be walking" goes, I spoke with a couple of money winners and they said they didn't run the North Lynx ascent which is mile 12 or so. This is a black diamond ski trail. One guy I spoke with is a sub 17 hour 100 mile racer, another guy is a top level ski racer. My aid station personnel in the area said they saw Paul Low running up North Lynx but he won by 15 minutes so maybe that was where he made the time.

I'm very familiar with the USATF NE Mountain circuit. With all due respect, I've got to rate HERC's terrain tougher than Cranmore. Cranmore's downhill can bust you up, but the climb is all on "green circle" trails. Plus the climb is only about 2.5k before you get to the top of the lift. Cranmore's total mountain vertical is stated as 1200'. The first ~4.5 miles of HERC gets you ~2400' vertical, and that includes a fairly sizable downhill section right after the 2.5 mile mark. I have not run Northfield so cannot comment on how HERC might stack up against that course.

As for hikers paying to hike, I'll admit that was pushing the envelope. I don't remember all the angles, but I do remember there being thinking that by having a nice food spread and a band that we'd provide value beyond what a hiker gets by going out on a normal weekend. Having been involved in producing races for 20+ years I can tell you that sometimes what people will pay for surprises me. And if you look at the back of the pack results for HERC, especially the short course, you'll see that we got a few pure hikers in the event.

If it had been up to me I probably would have marketed this event by calling it a "Mountain Race". I'd definitely stay away from calling it trail running because to me trail running has an element of single track and is designed to test you on ups, downs and flats. HERC hardly had any flat. I'd be open for suggestions on what to call this kind of event keeping in mind we want to draw both hard core trail runners as well as people who are more comfortable mixing mostly hiking with some running.

Good luck on Mt Washington next weekend. I hope you guys get reasonable weather to keep things safe and fair.

Who the f*** are you to criticize anyone. Whatever happened to you and your big mouth talking about becoming a great young pro triathlete?

Yoda:

I did the HERC race this weekend. I've done every trail and mountain race in the Northeast and many in other parts of the country. It was brutal. Not sure what your frame of reference is for these kinds of events but I hope to see you out there next year. Please come. Those of us that finished in the money and in one piece this year (not everyone did) would love to see more people give it a try so they can speak from experience.

I hiked the course with very little running until a bit

towards the end.

You stated that a bit less than 100 people were registered

for the long loop and only 66 finished. How many actually

started the long race?

Thank you for clarifying many points. Especially about how there were different parties behind the production of the event and the financial sponsors of it.

I think most reasonable adults can perceive a marketing spin to the race and its promotion, charitable side shows notwithstanding (the first link on the race website is to a product description). Even if the budget to put on this event were $100K, I'd say that would still be a fairly small ad expenditure for any family of "nutraceutical" products. (Still, that amount of dough which would be insane, given how few people attended. It's almost the per-capita expenditure of a GOP white tie fund raising gala!) The supplement industry is itself a big economy, on the order of $10B per year and growing. I don't think it would be out of line to anticipate 30% of revenue from such products would be spent on ads. Perhaps the rate could be higher, considering the FDA regulatory exemption, meaning no other development costs associated with (very expensive) clinical trials.

I must disagree with your opinion that money from just any source should be seen as a plus in running. This is because accepting that money can be seen as a de-facto endorsement of the product, services, or ideas of the sponsor(s). Drug companies paying runners is not an image that I think the sport particularly wants; it bears the perception of impropriety. Likewise, do runners really wish to claim prize money from an event that disenfranchises women runners by design (however inadvertently)?

I've included a link to one blog that discusses the potential sexual discrimination aspects of the Herc Open. For further discussion.

d2xccoach wrote:

Despite all that I'm surprised none of the women got into the money because there were some talented runners of both genders at this race, and as we've seen in the past with the likes of Ann Trason and Pam Reed, you never know who will come out on top in long hard trail races or ultras.

Reed and Trason run 100 milers, not mountain races. Not even close to the same thing.

I gave up triathlons to try to big a professional mouth. It seems to have worked well for you, the part about being a professional mouth, not the part about being a triathlete.

Not sure where you got the idea I was going to become a great young pro triathlete, since I am a) old and b) have a real job that pays much better than being a "pro" triathlete. I have thought about cherrypicking some races to possibly get a pro card, just to prove they will give them to almost anyone. I'll just stick to sandbagging with Dev and the rest of the NE clique guys.

This is a better forum for you than ST, you ought to enlighten letsrun with some of your extensive knowledge.

Regarding the Herc Embarrasment Link you posted:

Wow, how the heck did I miss this back August.

Well, here’s another perspective from the back of the back.

I did the long course as well. I DNF’d. Made it back to the starting line but missed the cut off time. This was my first trail race EVER ! What a way to start, but I wanted to push myself hard.

I have gained some weight the last few years and wanted to see just how pathetic I had become. Still very active, former collegiate cross country runner, age grouper triathlete, very compeitive during those years. So I have been hiking a lot lately and doing some light running so I figured what the heck. I knew I was going to be in for a long day when I heard at the race meeting “this course is the toughest course east of the Mississippi”. I laughed it off when the race volunteer who was doing the sign up sheets asked me if I was doing the short or long course and when he said long, said “you are crazy, you are never gonna make it”…fair enough, my 240lb frame (5′10″) deserves that kinda jab.

I said, it’s fine, I am gonna try it anyway. First off, thank GOD, I did not preregister. The preregister fee was $90 and for that kinda cake, with my like I would have sprained my ankle in the days up to the race, so I figured I would sign up when I got there..wich I did. Luckily for me, at race day sign up, the fee had magically dropped to $50.00. Great news for me, but I would have been pissed off if I was one of those that paid the $90. The decrease in fee may have been due to the fact that there were a lot o no shows.

I can only assume that the turnout was somewhat for 3 main reasons.

1. The $90 fee is a bit steep for the weekend warrior (at least you thought it was going to be $90).

2. The course was advertized as a brutal course and I think it was..that may have kept some away.

3. The prize money/weight category blunder.

First of all, speaking to the first post on this blog, potentially thinking that some of the other sponsors were anti-women or supported some sort of gender bias is a freaking joke. The EMS folk probably had little or no idea about how the prize money was going to be distributed, nor would that be something they would normally get involved with. The race was a “First time” even put on by a company that DOES NOT DO races…..so they made a few blunders.

Hopefully they will learn.

Most sane, well educated folk, come to accept and even embrace the fact that men and women are NOT equal in certain types of athletic events. Anything where speed and strength are a huge factor, there is going to be a male advantage. Cycling, running, swimming, etc….

The only athletic events where a woman has an equal shot at beating the top man is perhaps bowling, pool, etc. Something were SKILL is more of a factor, not strength. Even when they let the top women golfers play in the men’s event…they don’t do well (compared to the top men). This has been an accepted fact for years..why the organizers at Herc wanted to challenge or experiment with this is comical. I would be mad to if I was a women that would have cashed in, if she finished like she did at Herc at a regular type event with conventional price money categories.

The reason the prize money was so big was simply a marketing ploy…they just wanted their name out there, to generate a little buzz for the company. If that cost them $25 grand, that is a drop in the hat to most marketing budgets. It obviously was NOT to try to attract elite top runners from around the country….look at the finishers…only a few out of staters. It was for marketing reasons, so don’t get too bogged down on trying to discet their motivations…Herc was not being gender bias at all…I think they just screwed up the prize money distribution cuz the organizers are new to game…..a little wet behind the ears……newbies, that’s all.

Now, back to the course. Yes, I saw most of the people who took that wrong turn where the short and long course went in different directions. The little paper plates were CLEARLY marked if you had any sort of experience with cross country running..it pointed an arrow that said “1st loop, long course and had an arrow”..and the other plate said “2nd loop, short course” or something like that and pointed a different direction. I thought it was obvious and MOST people went the right way. But when some of the front runners make the mistake, then people just follow them without thinking…..one BIG suggestion for next year though would be to simply put a volunteer stationed at this spot….having people go off course is pretty much the biggest fault a race can have…don’t make that mistake twice. Again, most had no problem, but I think at least 20 people went off course and if ONE goes off course, it’s too many.

Put a freaking person there…don’t let it happen again.

For those who took the wrong course, it was a BRUTAL mistake..the hilly terrain was comical. At one point I almost fell backwards.

I too was hoping it would be more fire roads, etc..and less ski slopes..basically they took a tractor and mowed about a 4 foot space up and down the ski slopes…..I did enjoy the course though and will be back next year with better training behind me.

I thought the aid stations were adequate and had no problems.

There were TONS of flies on the course, I did not expect that.

One thing that kinda bugged me though is that on the website and race application it said there was a 6 hour cut off to be an official finisher… then at race day , they changed that to you had to be back at the starting line (about mile 12) in 4 hours…so they changed the cut off time the day of the race. For those of us whose goal was to simply FINISH…that was a kick in the face..you can’t do that.

Overall I had a good time, was a bit dissapointed I did not finish, but I gave it my all on that particular day. Now I know what that course delivers are far as elevation gain/terrain is concerned and will train harder this coming year.

I will be back for sure.

Definitely fix the weight category fiasco, drop the entry fee down to about $50 and make sure no mistakes on the course can occur.

Looking at the finish list, compared to the starting line, I would say about 25 people DNF’d. That eased the pain just a tad to be able to swallow my own DNF….but I will be back with a vengence next year.

I think the original poster had to much of a conspiracy hat on though….the organizers of the race were amateuers and made some planning errors….nothing more then that…..the fact that they ponied up 25 large in prize money did not change the fact that they were still newbies as far as organizers are concerned.

…oh and to the lady that felt self concious getting on a scale at the race…I would agree with you if we were at a fashion show or tea party…..but at a running/trail race, your fellow runners were NOT chasticing you under their breath or behind your back…you have been around these sort of people in your other racers…runners are not that sort of ilk. You know that. That was a weak argument.

Because the organizers already goofed on putting in weight classes, they had to be consistent with the goof by at least making sure they put people in the right category. Come on now, you said you finished 7th in the women’s division at some other prestegious race not too long ago…..I can guarantee that you destroyed many other women who weighed less then you…..you should not have been so distraught about getting on scale in front of “these” type of people, your own kind. Besides, they told you on the website and race application there would be a weigh in.

..looking forward to next year.

Problem is, I have absolutely ZERO hills/mountains within 50 miles of me that would simulate anything close to what I endured at Herc…but I will have to make due.

Is this company even still in business?

Their website...www.buyherc.com is no longer valid.