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Rojo Speaks: December 14, 2000

Show Me The Money!!!

Time for A Recount!!!

One of the fringe benefits of having a running website is that I get a ton of press releases about the sport of running. That's the good news, the bad news is that I don't ever have time to read half of them (which explains why this is my first column in five months afterall - and I only got it done because it snowed in DC last night and my paying job was cancelled) and the half that I do read seem to rarely offer anything of substance.

The other day, however, I actually read one which grabbed my attention. However, it just made me angry and do a double take.

It came via email and appeared to be entitled "U.S. MARATHONERS ENJOYING GOOD EARNINGS". Knowing first-hand the dismal financial state of the sport, I thought I must have done one too many 5:45 a.m. morning runs before school and was so tired that I was hallucinating.

However, I most certainly was reading things accurately as the opening sentence stated that "American marathoners are having a strong year for prize money earnings." The press release went on to say that the total amount of prize money earned by US runners in marathons so far in 200 (combined male and female) was $738,993 - a 123% increase over the full year totals of 1999.

After reading the entire press release, I wanted to throw up. $738,993 for all of the US marathoners combined (and this included the $105,000 Khannouchi earned in Chicago) is a positive sign. Give me a break! Time for a recount!!!

If you looked closely at the numbers, you saw that the No. 4 male on the list, Mark Coogan, earned a whopping sum of $20,000. Thank God he only has two kids as otherwise they'd likely go hungry.

The women's side wasn't much better. No. 4 Anne-Marie Lauck has earned $25,000 so far this year - which is only slightly better than Coogan (although she doesn't have any kids to support).

To add insult to injury, I just got emailed another press release yesterday that was touting the large amount of money that Americans can earn on the roads at distances less than a marathon in 2001. It bragged that $210,000 would be given away this year on the the men's and women's USA Running Circuit. Mind you this $210,000 total is a combined total for both men and women and is a year-long total, not a single race's purse. That's less than half of what's given away at a single event at a minor league golfing event. Pathetic.

How are US runners supposed to compete with the rest of the world with such poor financial support? It's not like there are a lot of clubs/sponsorships out there that are going to support you if you don't do nicely on the roads. My brother has probably dropped over $750 dollars this year on equipment alone as he doesn't even have a shoe sponsor (admittedly he hasn't tried all that hard to find one, but let's don't let facts get in the way of a good story). But even if he did have a sponsor, after shoes and if he was lucky some travel money he'd be on his own.

Admittedly, US marathon times this year have been so dismal that one might say that US runners aren't deserving of financial payments. After all, yours truly is currently the proud holder of the nation's 49th fastest time in the marathon this year with my 2:23:11 clocking at Las Vegas this year (and keeping my fingers crossed that someone doesn't come up with a fast one in the next two weeks at some obscure marathon to knock me out of the top 50).

Actually, I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. 2:23:11 is a very good time - a very good time for a woman that is. I mean five women have run faster than me year . Maybe I should inquire about the cost of having a sex change. It's not like it would be a huge sacrifice. Trying to fit in 100 mile weeks while being a first year teacher isn't exactly doing wonders for my social life.

Seriously, though, without increased financial backing, there's simply no way Americans will do well in the marathon. I think it's pretty much been established over the least few weeks on the message boards that the key to success at the marathon is mileage. 150-200 mile weeks don't leave much time for a job.

Someone on the message board the other day was claiming that it was possible to work half-time, run 200 miles a week and get the proper medical care. I seriously doubt it. What about having time to go to the bathroom or take a shower, let alone trying to have some semblance of a normal life.

Actually, trying to have some semblance of a normal life probably is a major reason why Americans aren't cutting it at the international level of marathoning. We're the richest land on earth and thus are spoiled to a certain degree. Many of us are unwilling to make the required sacrifices necessary to excel at the marathon.

Probably the greatest summary of the sacrifices it takes to excel at the marathon comes from the great Japanese marathoner Toshihiko Seko who said in his prime, "The marathon is my only girlfriend. I give her everything I have."

(I wonder if he was actually serious when he said this or was just trying to come up with an excuse for his lack of success with the ladies. It is a great excuse afterall - one that I'm currently using to explain away my single status. I only wish it was true. I asked the marathon to be my girlfriend but she turned me down as I'm not fast enough.)

Certainly some Americans are unwilling to do what it takes to truly succeed at the elite level. However, we are a very large country (way more populous than Kenya that's for sure) and thus there are a ton who most definitely want to be the best but simply lack the financial resources.

For example, did you know that Jerry Lawson, just three (or is it four?) years removed from his American record setting performance in the marathon in Chicago, has been reduced to stocking shelves in the middle of the night to earn some cash while trying to fit in 130 mile weeks on six hours sleep? Yes, it's true and it's an absolute disgrace.

What the US needs is a group of corporate running teams like those that flourish in Japan. Do you think it's a coincidence that the man who beat Jerry Lawson's American Record, David Morris, was running full-time with full-financial backing from a Japanese corporate team?

Actually that's not true. David did have to work. He went in to the office and emailed friends or studied Japanese for a few hours a day. Americans trying to be successful here face a much more difficult task. Jerry Lawson doesn't even have time to email anymore - he recently apologized for not getting back to me for two weeks as he said he was just too busy with his night job and running.

Without corporate sponsorship, it's virtually impossible to cut it financially as a marathoner. I should know as I've lived the marathoning lifestyle for 6 months earlier this year in Flagstaff, AZ and quickly went through my savings.

I never actually figured out how much I blew and ever since then, I've consistency put off the painful task of actually trying to figure it out. However, I guess now's as good as time as any to start my analysis of how much it actually costs to train correctly for the marathon as I'm into month four of procrastinating in writing letters to potential corporate sponsors for a potential training group. Oh well, here goes.

My brother and mine's place in Flagstaff, AZ cost $800 per month and was two bedrooms. If we wanted to double up, we could house 4 people there - as long as you are willing to follow Seko's advice and forget about having a girlfriend. Throw in another $200 a month for utilities and that's $12,000 dollars a year. Actually that's ridiculous as the rent is double in the summer and I believe every runner should at least have his own room - after all naps are crucial when running 150 mile weeks. Thus let's up this $18,000 per year for four people.

What about food? Say perhaps $5,000 a year (that's only $3.42 per person per day) - I guess we won't be going out much or ever actually. This is a wild guess as I like to eat meat and fast food and spend much more. As a result, originally I had $15,000 or roughly $10 per day (about what I spend now) but my good friend Chris Lear of Run With the Buffs fame claimed that four people could easily do it on $5,000 a year "if they eat a lot of rice and beans and peanut butter and jelly which all are good for you". (Maybe this explains why you always see the Kenyans leaving road races with about 40 bananas each.)

Mind you that this advice is coming from Mr. Cheapskate himself. Chris' running career was sidetracked for a year after a summer of living the runner's lifestyle in college in Boulder, Colorado when he was either too poor (or too cheap depending on whose version of the story you get) to buy any red meat for the final six weeks of the summer and became terribly anemic.

As a result, I can in good faith revise my estimate based on Mr. Lear's advice. He's a literary type afterall and not very good with numbers in the first place. I'll thus go with $15,000. It's important to eat tons of proteina nd red meat when running 150 plus mile weeks at altitude and I can't tell you how nice it was to be able to have Guinness with dinner every night. It was the one indlugence and only semblance that we allowed to have ourselves in Flagstaff and it did a lot for our mental well being since we didn't get out too much.

That brings us to a total of $33,000. What else? Transportation is big. Considering that my brother and I were on pace to put about 40,000 miles on our car (which is quite doable when your making twice weekly 250 mile round-trips to Phoenix to run) and the going rate is .23 cents a mile that $9,200 so call it $10,000 as we need an SUV to nap in during the drive.

So we're up to $43,000. Of course, we're still screwed as it's not like we're going to get hurt ever or need frequent medical treatment let alone massages. Without some sort of sponsor, you're likely to shell out $3,000 per person ($12,000 total) for medical insurance and probably $5,000 total for massages (that's roughly one $50 massage every two weeks, when in actuality people like Todd Reeser are getting 4 hour massages every week) so now were at an even $60,000.

I'm sure there's a lot of other stuff to worry about (editor's note: ie travel to races) but Let's stop here as it's a round number. $60,000 divided by four comes out $15,000 per person (now you understand why I'm a high school math teacher) if you want to live as a complete pauper. Any semblance of a life and your closer to $20,000 dollars per person. Since only four Americans marathoners made that much this year in marathons, I guess we'd better get the top four Americans living together (but then we're still in trouble as the cash rich Olympic Trials don't happen for another four years and thus No. 4 will likely earn much less in 2001).

Thus I hope you now see the need for some sort of corporate sponsorship. Without it, you're forced with a bunch of unenviable options. You can drop your mileage and work which sort of goes against the goal of trying to be the best marathoner possible. If you don't pick up a job, you are forced to pick and choose your marathons, trying to find some obscure slow one where you can win a lot of cash. With corporate sponsorship, one could actually go to Chicago and worry about running as fast as possible. Imagine that.

Without corporate sponsorship or some sort of cush job (my brother is trying to pick up contract consulting work that pays well per hour), being a successful marathoner means one doesn't make long distance phone calls (I guess we could use net2phone and talk for free), go out for a beer or even think about saving for graduate school/retirement.

9 times out of 10 what happens though is the potential marathoner chooses to have these "amenities" and thus ends up working and not running as much as they should. They then put in like 95% of the required work but don't truly excel as marathoning requires total commitment.

American marathoners are caught in a catch 22. They badly need corporate sponsorship, but they are currently too slow to garner any from the traditional sources (shoe companies).

Which brings us to the answer of one life's deepest questions, "Which comes first the chicken (fast marathoning) or the egg (sponsorship)?

I'd clearly say the egg.

Do you want to send Robert an egg or a random thought? Email him at robertjohnson@letsrun.com.

Click here to read other columns by Robert.

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Editor's Note: Robert Johnson, co-founder of LetsRun.com, has been running all of his life, but only competing seriously since the Fall of 1997 after a serious of injuries in curtailed his high school career and prevented him from running in college.

Since returning to competitive running, Robert has progressed quickly, and just missed out on qualifying for the 2000 US Men's Olympic Marathon Trials by running a 2:23:11 marathon at the 2000 Las Vegas Marathon.

When not running or working on the web-site, Robert teaches high school math in Washington, DC.

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