Large road race, which stiffed me in 2017, is being held again in 2018. Solliciting ideas for relatively harmless payback.

Channel your inner Paula...but don't pull over to the side of the road, do it right at the middle of the finish line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6I2-YP42rs

Hire an airplane to fly over pulling a banner shaming the race director. That's proportionate to your ego.

Seriously, you're doing the Color Me Rad 5K again?

Kneel during the national anthem

The best revenge is a life well lived... but since you have been stewing on this for about a year consider the advice of the Bowler Hat Guy from the kids' movie Meet the Robinsons:

Bowler Hat Guy: “No! Everyone will tell you to let it go and move on, but don't. Instead, let it fester and boil inside of you. Take these feelings and lock them away. Let them fuel your actions. Let hate be your ally and you will be capable of wonderfully horrid things. Heed my words, Goob. Don't let it go!”

Yeah it sucks, but RD's suck and the volunteers that help them suck and the Local Running Store that helped sucks. Really only some of them do, but they are just people. Go in person and ask like a man. If they still can't help you or give you one of the 50 lying in a box behind the counter at the store then get your "I am special" affirmation at this years race. Train hard, place and when they give you an award say, "hey you still owe me one from last year too".

I see your point though. When your kids and grand-kids visit you on your deathbed the missing 2017 5k award is sure going to bring the room down.

How much we talkin? $50? $75?

If it's not money then forget about it (should have forgotten about it a long time ago). If there's ANY amount of money involved I wouldn't let it go or try to exact some petty revenge and I'd go so far as to take 'em to small claims court.

The race organizer is not locally based and is a private company that hosts a lot of races in this region... not a local running store, charity, etc.

This isn't festering inside me, I'm not outrageously angry about it. At this point, I'm more curious than anything... why the radio silence? Even if they contacted me and said, "Sorry, we aren't giving out awards" or something like that, I'd sure think it was stupid... but would drop the issue immediately.

File a lawsuit, bro. That is fraud

YeahI'mThatGuy wrote:

If it's not money then forget about it (should have forgotten about it a long time ago). If there's ANY amount of money involved I wouldn't let it go or try to exact some petty revenge and I'd go so far as to take 'em to small claims court.

This. I may do this with a race I recently won cash at. I'm expecting the check to never arrive and will take them to court if necessary. If I have to do that I will tack on considerable compensation for my time.

I had a race not pay me $300 in prize money once. At first, I was just going to let it slide because they held themselves out as being a fundraising event for a very good cause. I have done a couple volunteer race directing gigs and know that it is difficult to make these events work. After a little digging, I found out that they were running the race through a for profit LLC and were just contributing a "portion" of race proceeds to charity. Rumors were that the "portion" was less than $1,000.00 at a race that had almost 2000 finishers with entry fees of $60-90 depending on when you sign up. I sent a demand letter via certified mail and got paid within three weeks.

At a point where lots of sponsor reps are gathered, stop, moan, apologize and poop hard. Right in front of them.

While we're talking about it, has anyone been stiffed by Rock n Roll?

sdfsdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

YeahI'mThatGuy wrote:

If it's not money then forget about it (should have forgotten about it a long time ago). If there's ANY amount of money involved I wouldn't let it go or try to exact some petty revenge and I'd go so far as to take 'em to small claims court.

This. I may do this with a race I recently won cash at. I'm expecting the check to never arrive and will take them to court if necessary. If I have to do that I will tack on considerable compensation for my time.

Hey! That's almost my name!

Anyway, OP, it really does matter if it is cash or a trophy of some sort.

If a trophy and you really want to go down a rabbit hole with this, my suggestion is to take out some ads for the race of a fictional perpetual trophy for each year's top three for the race.

Make sure to slightly change the name and logo just enough to protect yourself under free speech laws, in case they take offense. If you live in a low population area, you can hit everybody in the area with Facebook ads pretty cheaply.

Or, with Google ads, you can target anybody who has been to the race website for not too much money.

Try contacting a few of their bigger sponsors and let them know that their names and reputations are being sullied by a dirty RD.

If it was money involved, I would try the demand letter as posted above and then small claims court.

Go public with social media.

As you are getting ready to cross the finish line,

Stare at the RD

With one hand, point at said RD for a few seconds

With your other hand, grab your crotch and yell

"Gobble Gobble MotherF******!!!!"

Drop a dumptruck full of manure near the finish line

Go up to the RD and tell him "The jerk store called, they're running out of you!"