Race wants prize money back

Ahole elites wrote:

To all of those who are reading this, I am a board member on the organization that runs this event and I want to explain what happened from our perspective. First we would like to thank Runner's World for posting this so people could see what really happened. Second we hold no ill feelings towards elite athletes, if we did we wouldn't have prize money for elite athletes every year. The article reflects what happened between a few of the athletes and the Race Director.

The Race Director made an honest mistake. We added a 10 mile event with prize money for the 2015 race and so had to scale down on the prize money for the 5K and 10K. This is why 2014's and 2015's prize money look the way they do.The Race Director advertised $15,000 in Total Prize Money. If you account for the $1,500 for the Masters Division, $2,000 for the Costume Contests, $2,000 for the largest teams and the 5K/10K/10 Mile prize money you'll see that it adds up to$15,000 not $24,500. The way the Race Director advertised the prize money for the 5K/10K/10Mile was confusing, but definitely not intentional. It was a mistake on the Race Directors part and one he is very upset by. He's not playing the victim or hero as some of you have said. He's just been stating what has happened and that's all.

Move forward....When (December) we were deciding on prize money for the 2016 race, Robert (RD) came to the conclusion that we had paid out $24,500 in prize money and that he screwed up. Phone calls were immediately made to the elites, of which 1/3 of them responded favorably by offering to pay the prize money back. 1/3 of the elites responded with "That's your problem" "Too bad and good luck" "Who cares, that's your problem" "‘I will take all your prize money and I’m going to laugh in your face, and I’m going to participate in your run next year and I’m going to win the prize money and I’m going to laugh in your face again,’” "We are the reason that your run is successful. It’s the elite athletes that make this event happen" and a couple of other comments that were disheartening. This is when Robert (RD) became upset and felt betrayed. The other 1/3 of the runners never responded. This is when we decided to get our lawyer involved. Again, Robert could have handled some of his wording better, but please remember that he only started using lawyer verbiage when he felt that no one was going to continue to respond or he was going to keep getting bashed by the elites who won the prize money. Do we think he handled this correctly, no. But it is what it is and he tried his best to rectify it by reaching out and apologizing to everyone.

Let continue on.....

After further conversation and reviewing the website, Robert decided that it was his error in the way he wrote the prize money structure. He immediately called up the elite athletes, apologized, offered them free entries to them and told them to keep their prize money. Yes, he could have dragged this into court, but he decided that it was his fault and it would be a waste of everyone's time and ultimately he was wrong in his wording.

He has since tried to contact all of the elites again and has had success with some and has been unsuccessful with others.

For those who don't understand why we give prize money out when we are a charity here is the answer. We attract a significant amount of people and participants who want to compete for the costume contest winnings and the largest team winnings. People we might not have attracted to attend this event. We had 700+ people sign up for the costume contest and largest team divisions. The return on this $4,000 prize money is well worth it, and the money that 700+ people can go towards more marine mammal rescue recovery cages, special needs youth projects, scholarships, beach wheel chairs, Mobility mats, recycling programs and much more. To see exactly where our race proceeds go visit

http://surfingmadonna.org/where-the-money-goes/

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Now, the reason we give the elite athletes prize money is to create a competive event that is professionally timed and adds an element of excitement to the event. Is the elite prize money the best choice on where our prize money should go? We don't know. Maybe a few of you can comment on that. We would love to hear suggestions.

This year we decided to try something different. We decided to split the prize money up a bit more and offer the common runner/participant a chance to win prize money as this is more of a community event.

We've decided to give prize money to parent child teams, all of the age division 18-70+, more to the largest teams and $500 to both the male and female who can break previous course records in the 5K/10K. In all there is $16,000 in prize money. The response we've had from past participants and new participants has been encouraging. Yes, the elites won't receive as much prize money and for those who don't want to participate in our race because there isn't enough for them to win or they would have to travel to great of a distance to win that money, that is their choice. About .2% of our runners are elite athletes so we don't think it is fair to our participants that we give roughly 3/4 of our prize money to .2% of our participants.

In short, Runner's World contacted us before our October 25th, 2015 race and wanted to do a feature on our race, how different it is, where the money goes and the wild people that participate in it. Instead we got dragged into a controversial story that doesn't make anyone look good. It is what it is, we learned a valuable lesson and hope that we can all learn something from this.

On a more positive note, it's almost a blessing that this happened. We feel it gives us a good perspective on where to split up the prize money. More people know about our race, what we do for the local communities, how much we care for the common runner/walker/jogger and will start focusing on putting more of our event to cator to those who just want to show up and have fun. As of now, we have more people signed up then we had in December in the previous 3 races and look forward to a fun and successful October 15, 2016 race. To take a look at our event and provide feedback please visit

http://www.surfingmadonnarun.org

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This year we may add more prize money to our elite category, but it will all hinge on how this is handled between the elites on the thread and the Race Director. Does this sound fair, or should we keep pointing fingers and accusing one another. P.S. I'm new to this so if I'm suppose to post in a different area please let me know. I hope I have not offended anyone with my post and am just trying to get our side of it our there on this page. Again, please be respectful. We've admitted fault, I'm not sure what else we can do, but if you have suggestions please let us know. One quick question, should I post from Robert's account or create my own?

Thank you,

Board Member