So the San Diego rock and Roll marathon is now know as...

I guess all of the participant shirts will be purple now.

Never should have added a half or relay.

Tell me about it. Raising money for charity is horrible. And increasing the visibility of the fundraising efforts is even worse! I hear ya, brother.

Don't want to let the cat out of the bag but word on the street is the East Coast Games will be held in San Diego this year

So I am having a conversation a few weeks back with the director of the local running club.

When I mention I won't run the Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon in Virginia Beach just due to the ridiculous cost of it, he tells me a story about how Elite Racing/Competitor the last couple of years has come to him wondering why attendance numbers are down.

He went on to say mention how he and the club view it as multiple things. Price, weather (early September), but the main thing being that when they first came to VB (10 years ago), this race was one of FIVE Elite/Competitor held around the country. It WAS a destination race and event. Now they have something like 25 races throughout the US, all times of year, in great locations.

He said Elite/Competitor refused to acknowledge that and basically said the local running club wasn't doing enough to promote the event. His mentality now is that they aren't marketing to the hard core runners but your weekend warriors who do this as their one "race" a year.

OldManRunner wrote:

He said Elite/Competitor refused to acknowledge that and basically said the local running club wasn't doing enough to promote the event. His mentality now is that they aren't marketing to the hard core runners but your weekend warriors who do this as their one "race" a year.

Of course they market it to weekend warriors and once-a- year marathoners. If they only marketed it to hardcore runners, they would get Miniscule turnout, with a large number of wannabes seeking comps, complaining about the corrals, the water stops, the course conditions, the volunteers, etc. Hardcore runners are oftentimes whiny assholes. Weekend warriors are just happy to be there. Just be aware that the walk-joggers are the ones who make it possible for these races to go on. If competitor group only marketed to hardcores, they would have 0 (zero) races.

Bottom line is Elite/Competitor is in the business of making money and perhaps they are oversatruating the market with the Rock N Roll event series of Half and Full Marathons, which would result in a drop of participants. I have run the San Diego one four times (including the first year) and it has gone from a unique event to a cookie cutter formula designed to appeal to the masses. The race has lost its appeal, at least to me. The race (at least San Diego) has no soul like a NY or Boston. They hype it to death, but the appeal is to the massess not the minority of runners who are or consider themselves to be elite/competitive. Look at their elite fields. Mainly Africa males, Eastern European females for the most part (who they did not pay appearance fees to, at least when Tim Murphy was running the show). They are changing now with Ryan and Deena. They can whine about the local clubs not promoting the event, but promotion is not the local clubs job unless Elite/Competitor is giving something to the club. The prices are getting higher, but so are costs (even though the new San Diego half has the same entry fees as the full marathon, sorry but $95, going up to $115, then $140 for a half marathon is way too high). But as long as the walker/joggers will pony up the ever increasing fees, Elite/Competitor will try to squeeze ever dime out if they can and put on as many profitable events as they can.

they should name a race after mike long.

winnie wrote:

Bottom line is Elite/Competitor is in the business of making money and perhaps they are oversatruating the market with the Rock N Roll event series of Half and Full Marathons, which would result in a drop of participants.

I think we have already seen some of this. Although I'm sure the economy hurts destination marathons, registration was substantially down for the San Diego R 'n' R race this year, and some of the Competitor employees I talked to think it was due more to the new Seattle R 'n' R event in June than it was to the downturn.

money money mr. wrote:

Tell me about it. Raising money for charity is horrible. And increasing the visibility of the fundraising efforts is even worse! I hear ya, brother.

My problem with the San Diego RNR is that the TNT runners get treated by race staff like they are some kind of special. You may be a walker who drops out at mile 10 due to not training, but you are special and better than those who finished but were not TNT!

And then there is this little number about how much money really goes to the research.

Why did you capitalize "miniscule"?

of course wrote:

OldManRunner wrote:

He said Elite/Competitor refused to acknowledge that and basically said the local running club wasn't doing enough to promote the event. His mentality now is that they aren't marketing to the hard core runners but your weekend warriors who do this as their one "race" a year.

Of course they market it to weekend warriors and once-a- year marathoners. If they only marketed it to hardcore runners, they would get Miniscule turnout, with a large number of wannabes seeking comps, complaining about the corrals, the water stops, the course conditions, the volunteers, etc. Hardcore runners are oftentimes whiny assholes. Weekend warriors are just happy to be there. Just be aware that the walk-joggers are the ones who make it possible for these races to go on. If competitor group only marketed to hardcores, they would have 0 (zero) races.

winnie wrote:

They hype it to death, but the appeal is to the massess not the minority of runners who are or consider themselves to be elite/competitive. Look at their elite fields. Mainly Africa males, Eastern European females for the most part (who they did not pay appearance fees to, at least when Tim Murphy was running the show). They are changing now with Ryan and Deena.

Yes, but no. Bringing in Ryan and Deena (like Geb with his half record attempt a few years ago in AZ, featuring a field of just him and some rabbits) is about the most frontrunner move ever. It's just a marketing ploy to add some splash to their event when the reality is that they have no real intentions of ever giving anything more than lip service to helping develop the competitive side of the sport. This move just helps the rich get richer and doesn't really benefit the sport at all. When (Sub)Elite Racing/(Non)Competitor Group start providing better opportunities for up-and-coming runners then I'll reconsider my view.

hardset nipples wrote:

It's just a marketing ploy to add some splash to their event when the reality is that they have no real intentions of ever giving anything more than lip service to helping develop the competitive side of the sport. This move just helps the rich get richer and doesn't really benefit the sport at all. When (Sub)Elite Racing/(Non)Competitor Group start providing better opportunities for up-and-coming runners then I'll reconsider my view.

This is exactly right. Competitor doesn't care about the sport; they care about making money off of the sport. They're owned by Falconhead, a private equity firm, and people don't give their money to a private equity firm in the hope that they will try to grow the sport of running; they do it for a return on their investment. Anger accomplishes nothing: marketing the sport better; making meets and races more telegenic; having a strong, competent, and transparent national (and international) governing body that gives the sport a coherent structure and narrative; putting on better running events that are still actually about the running--those things do.

Anger? Just calling a leech a leech. Supporting this bunch goes against the best interests of the sport. I couldn't care less about their ownership or who invests in them and why. Exploiting a community for profit without giving back to that community is all of what's wrong with the modern corporate model. The more of us who call them out for it, the better the chances are that these carpetbaggers will go find some other golden sheep to fleece. We can work towards all the idealistic things you list in that run-on sentence while calling out the leeches who work against our sport's health.

Its true, they are all about squeezing every dime out of the runners. Same price for the full and half? Give me a break. $75 for a technical shirt from the race. Really?

I think we're pretty much in agreement in that I don't like what Competitor is doing, either. However, your posts lead me to believe that you expect us to be able to pressure Competitor into changing; I think that is highly unlikely, as the number of people who care about growing the sport of running is so small that Competitor can afford to ignore us (especially if what we demand for our support costs more than our support generates in revenue). As such, in my last post I felt the need to explain the model that causes Competitor to act this way, and proposed some alternatives (or things that could be done in addition) to not supporting Competitor--things that I feel would really make a positive difference for our sport, as they would make our runner-oriented events more non-runner friendly. It's not that I disagree with your anger, I just think that at times anger obscures the need for changes within our sport which could have positive effects. Self-reflection is among the best methods for self-improvement (with, in this case, "self" referring to our running community).

I don't share your defeatist view. If we can spread the word about how Competitor is hurting the sport then we can get everyone who values the sport to support a boycott. There are more of us than you probably imagine, and the cause would also be furthered by enabling a healthier structure for the sport. Whether that winds up encouraging Competitor to change in a way that benefits the sport or simply hurts their business, it's all the same to me. Simply carrying on and turning a blind eye to their practices is not going to help.

Good stuff, I have taken a similar view of Devine Racing. It is important to counter the hype coming out of their marketing machine with spreading the facts of how they impact the sport. Awareness goes a long way.

That David Hays link is quite interesting. So these people are fundraising for all of the circus involved as well as research. Not quite the claims the fundraisers claim.