Why is CIM so expensive now?

It's basically all the same pot. A "free" hotel room isn't always free to the race, they pay for it. A "comp entry has costs. Flights are never free, someone is paying. People working, the board, and all the people working for the race are not volunteers and someone is paying for them. Elites cost money to support. People complain about elites not getting enough support and then complain about the rising costs of races, they go hand in hand.

Of course it's not an infinite pool and there are opportunity costs. Title sponsor usually contributes so that press releases and press conferences mention "[insert corporate brand] [insert city] Marathon" throughout. Like John Hancock with Boston for years. It's a donation, often a tax write-off. Having a budget with line items means it's literally not "basically all the same pool." Some marathons give nothing to elites and still have to cover road closure, aid stations, police presence, security, et cetera. Those that want elite presence have to decide to build towards that and court sponsors that can help with that. Houston found out the hard way when they stopped catering to elites in the early Aughts and it showed in a massive drop in entries with knock-on effects. At any rate, CIM certainly hasn't improved the quality of its elite fields noticeably so that's clearly not an area where expenses have ramped up to force entry fees up.

In protest, just be a TURD (The Unofficial Running Delinquent). That's what we did in the old days when race fees jumped from $1.50 to $3.00.

We, unfortunately, rarely get to see budgets & just feel the effects of inflation but I would give the benefit of the doubt to CIM. Their costs have to be going up & they have become one of the best domestic marathons. They also do a ton for sub-elite & elite runners. Now maybe that's not the most appealing argument to mid-pack runners: Pay a little more so we can comp people shooting for OTQs. But they do a lot of good work there. Gotta find a balance.

I ran CIM last year. Really enjoyed the race and post race…a little sparse on the goodies, but a decent IPA and well organized race. I agree, high fees. I understand costs increase, but these big destination races (Rock N Roll anyone?) with huge fees and no goodies are influencing everyone else to scale back, raise fees, and imo, drive away people from racing because its too expensive. Its killing road racing for many people new to the sport.

IT is an expensive sport, marathoning. Shoes and entry fees! CIM is not unusual in charging like that.

But for Nor Cal distance runners, here's a real treat!

The DSE Club in S.F. offers the Lake Merced Half Marathon in August for $10. Sure, it's no frills, but DSE runs a tight ship, and it's a pretty fast course. I note: Save something for the last 1.5 miles, it's a mile uphill. I cratered a bit on it last time I hit this run in 2018. Highly recommended.

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Lake Merced Half Marathon & 4.5 Mile

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$5 a person would buy a few port-a-potties....

The designation "TURD" was first used by Jack Leydig in his magazine The NorCal Running Review in the '70s. It stood for The Unofficial Running Deviate. He would target an unofficial runner, usually a well known runner, and run a short article in his magazine. His track club, WVTC (West Valley Track Club), also put on races. I think he got fed up with all the TURDS and started calling them out. It was pretty effective. Very few seasoned Bay Area runners ran unofficial.

Its a net downhill (366 ft) but a lot of rolling hills.

You're paying for the huge fees the government agencies charge (city of Sac, state for CHP course support), and funding the Sac Running Assoc for the year, subsidizing their local races throughout the year.

It's not really cheaper for me anymore. Post covid I can't get direct flights anymore. I can't even get into bay area (San Jose, Oakland, sf) on a direct flight anymore. They're only seasonal. And I live next to major hub. Top 10 busy airports in nation. Oh. I can get frontier direct. I'm no diva, but I'm not sitting on frontier for 6hours.

On something of a tangent, I just got an e-mail from ‘KLM running’ saying I could get a bib for the Amsterdam half marathon for 5429 Air France/KLM Flying Blue frequent flyer miles. Bib for the full Amsterdam is 15K frequent flyer miles.

The travel hacker in me went to ‘is that a good cent per mile redemption value?’ Flying Blue miles are pretty valuable- if you’re not getting at least 2 cents per mile, you’re getting ripped off. So I went to the Amsterdam web site and their fee structure is-

105 euros for the full (about $115 at current exchange rates)

38 euros for the half (about $42 at current exchange rates)

So save the Flying Blue miles for the trip to Amsterdam, pay cash for the race entry.

I think there might be a bridge or two in Amsterdam that go to two meters or so above normal street level so not a pancake flat course but close. Weather will probably be cool and mild

Since you went on a tangent, so shall I. People overuse “pancake flat.” They even use “flat” and “mostly flat” liberally. Amsterdam is no where near pancake flat. I’d be lucky to get more than a couple hundred feet of gain on a long run where i live. The splits will show 0ft, 0ft, 0ft, 0ft, 2ft, 0ft, etc. You guys really don’t know what flat is. Then you label a race flat and people show up and realize it’s NOT flat.

Case in point: CIM is NOT flat to downhill the last 10k like so many people say. When you live in flatland like me, those small rises are incredibly noticeable. There’s a bridge in the last few K and at least two rises the last mile that remind you you’re not on a treadmill. I’m in no way complaining (about the course). I’m complaining that people misrepresent how hilly the course actually is. It’s definitely not hilly the last 10k but it’s nowhere near flat. I’d say it’s flat the same way Albany, GA marathon is flat

I will note that when I did New Orleans in 2005, it was almost as flat as you can get. IIRC, the high point of the course was literally something like an overpass over the Interstate. And I live in coastal Florida, so I know the difference between flat and ‘flat’.

I live in Seattle. There are no flat or nearly flat marathons with more than 200 runners here. I can either do the Seattle marathon with 1000+ ft of elevation gain or do a downhill marathon. If I'm going for a PR, neither of those works for me. For a variety of reasons, I like winter marathons, so I'm either going to do CIM or Houston. A $50 to $100 increase in the cost of the marathon itself is small compared to the cost of the flight, hotel, and other travel costs. I suspect there are many in my shoes who have to travel if they want to run a fast race that's not down a mountain, and we're relatively insensitive to the cost of the race itself compared to travel costs.

However, last year, I was hoping to run CIM and ended up coming down with a severe sinus infection a couple days before the race, fortunately in time to cancel my hotel and change my flight. I ended up doing Houston but had to eat the cost of the race entry fee. It's one thing to pay $200 for a race. It's another to pay $200 and not even get to run it.

Because of the cost of CIM, I decided to pull out. No CIM for me.

I imagine some the price increase has to do with how much money was lost during Covid. I think there was two or so, maybe three years where CIM was allowing runners to defer their entry to the next year. If you had a lot people taking that route that’s money lost on the following year’s entry so I’m sure they’re trying to recoup that plus the price for event permits etc etc….

Now Grandmas Marathon is one I won’t touch anymore because of the price of securing housing/hotel and just the travel to get there alone is nuts. Not only that, I signed up just before COVID hit and instead of allowing people to defer, they took my money and offered a measly 10% off discount on the following years entry fee. That was criminal IMO.

my GF lets me CIM for nothing.

Ever heard of Joe Biden and it's economy?? There you go. Science has proven this