Letsrun Faithful: What changes would you like seen made to road races

I want the option to wear rollerskates, assless chaps and a tshirt that says "Cum Dumpster"

I agree they need less age group categories.

18-39 needs to be one age group or eliminated from age group prizes.

SER wrote:

2. That a one question test be given to EVERY race participant at registration on race day as to something going on in the sport.

Who recently set an american record in the 10,000 meter? for instance...or "name one college cross country coach or any of the top 20 finishers at the NCAA Championship?"

If they don't know, their money is refunded and they are denied entry.

The biggest problem with our sport in my opinion is that 99% of the people who partake in it..don't actually even like the sport.

This is stupid. So if I love to run, train 80, 900, 100 mpw with hard workouts, long runs, etc, but I don't spend my time on the internet reading about what some pros are doing, I shouldn't be allowed to race? How is that logical?

Knowing what the pros are doing isn't the same as liking the sport. There are millions of armchair quarterbacks who can recite stats for every guy on their local MLB team, should we use that as the basis for allowing them to play in the minors?

That's like saying you don't like music if you can't remember Beethoven's birthday.

salsa for breakfast wrote:

2) flat, accurately measured and marked course

3) accurate, quick and reliable timing system including accurate clocks at each mile or kilometer marker

Or let's make races hilly, and not worry about measurement and split clocks every 400m, and then we'll advertise that "pansies and hobby joggers need not apply." I'm sure you can use your Garmin to check your splits anyway.

A few weekends ago I raced a local trail 10k; hilly as hell, advertised as "at least 10k," no markers, not USATF certified, no clock except for the finish. Best race I've run in a while.

w/o going through the whole thread....

- more "real" post-race food. i'm sick of paying $85+ for a race and getting more bar food and low carb beer when i finish. i'm not saying to have steak and dom perignon at the finish but some chocolate milk and pancake would be nice.

- explicit information about prizes. it sucks to look at a race brochure, see the "awards" will be given to top 3 overall, skip the race, then hear that someone ran a 17:00 5k and won $100.

Lots of good suggestions. To develop our sport to appeal to serious post-collegiates who want a team competitive challenge and training partners directed toward winning together:

Serious, deep amounts of team prize money for 5 runner open USATF teams that are, wearing uniforms, starting in a designated team box, introduced as teams before the race, and scored and announced as soon as scored.

The money should add up to more than the combined team entry fee for the last awarded team. This should be the charity for road races to support clubs.

The top team runners are the heros, the rest of the participants are the fans.

Tom

1. Well marked corrals or a wave start. Get the slow pokes off the starting line. We don't want to see a trampling.

2. Entrances to every corral. Nothing like needing to be on the starting line and having to enter from 100 yards back, or hop a shaky fence.

3. More port-a-potties.

4. Race results posted to the internet immediately.

5. Award ceremonies that aren't 2+ hours after the finish (except for maybe the marathon).

6. Big visible mile markers.

7. D-tags, there are still some races that don't have them.

8. Finish line food.. and ability to go back and get more, especially water. I've been stuck after a race dehydrated and a 30 minute shuttle away from my car and told I can't go back and get another water bottle.

9. Reasonable prices. Rock'n'Roll races are too expensive. I won't pay $100 to run a half, forget it.

AnEngineer wrote:

Or let's make races hilly, and not worry about measurement and split clocks every 400m, and then we'll advertise that "pansies and hobby joggers need not apply." I'm sure you can use your Garmin to check your splits anyway.

A few weekends ago I raced a local trail 10k; hilly as hell, advertised as "at least 10k," no markers, not USATF certified, no clock except for the finish. Best race I've run in a while.

I like hilly races and club races too and as long as the race was advertised that way I would be very happy with it (everybody knows trail times are relatively meaningless anyway). In general an accurate course if very important to me though.

Why should we listen to you? You sound jealous cause you're not good enough to win money, nor do you understand how hard we work to win it.

I recently won a road race by over 3 minutes, paid $20 entry fee and you know what I got for it, nothing.

All the prizes (and there were a pretty large number of them) were given to people who bought raffle tickets. I understand that this helps attract more people to a race, but I think the top runners should get the best prizes (if prizes are available). Maybe like, the top Male and Female runners get prizes, then the rest can be given off in a raffle. Otherwise, I'd just by 20 raffle tickets, eat the food, and win prizes.

There always needs to be something to attract all levels of runners at a road race not just really fast people that want to scoop up cash or some walker who wants to win a raffle.

Silly Old Fossil wrote:

More no-frills races with $5 entry fee...and no t-shirt.

Let's get back to kegs after races.

yes and yes!

(by the way, come to Europe sometime, they do this quite regularly)

Long courses at the start of a season and progressively shorter courses as the year goes on. I want a PR every race!

Love the idea about post-collegiate team races, Tom.

I was thinking the other day that it'd be kind of cool if someone set up a road race that was scored 5 deep like a cross-country race, then offered prizes to the best teams. It'd be fun to see a McMillan Elite vs. Hansons-Brooks vs. ZAP Fitness dogfight.

My two cents for road races:

-I love the later start time idea that's been mentioned several times, as well as a stricter time-cutoff to minimize the impact the race has on local traffic. The later start would mean if you're traveling to a race, you don't have to spring for a place to stay.

-I also liked the suggestion that appearance fees get greatly reduced or eliminated in order to make normal prize money deeper and in larger amounts.

The appearance fees for the elite men at London had to be at least a million dollars. Can you imagine taking $800,000 of that (leaving 200,000 for elite travel, hotels, expenses, etc) and spacing it out over the first 20 finishers?

We need to stop just having anyone show up. We need to take a clue from biking, where you have certain levels of competition. So you have a series of races that cater to competative runners, some to fun runners, etc.. Also by having different levels it would give runners something else to shoot for.

Just an idea.

[quote]Aquafina wrote:

We need to take a clue from biking, where you have certain levels of competition.

A very good idea. In my first road race in 1966 I placed nearly last at about 6 minutes per mile. This year I ran about 7 minutes a mile and beat several thousand people.

A runner racing at 5 mins per mile, and one at 7 and so on may as well be in on other planets. Varsity races, JV races,

A races or B races.

Tom

There is a real derth of track meets for post-collegiate runners in the 14:20/3:50 vein. Running unattached at a college meet makes you feel like a tool, and running at an invitational would be rediculous. For someone at this level who still wants to race it makes the most sense to hit the most competitive road races they can find.

Sorry, last post was reply to above.

Silly Old Fossil wrote:

More no-frills races with $5 entry fee...and no t-shirt.

Let's get back to kegs after races.

More getting back to core road-race distances....8km, 10km,15km (or their mile equivalents. This means fewer marathons and halves.

Less tying of charities to racing...enough already.

QFE - agreed.

I want to confess something.

I am the father of Kara Goucher's baby.