These weekly races are still pretty cheap at NYRR and the new series is just for the dedicated with the no frills. However, the NYC half and the marathon are out of control expensive.
For truly cheap, no frills races with some decent competition, run the Lake Merced series in San Francisco. Beautiful setting, bike path around the lake, some small hills, and something like a $1 fee because the city charges that for parking, and they usually bring tasty brownies or cookies or the like, for free.
I think most people are alright with the cost of major city marathons. You usually plan your season around those races, they involve shutting down half the city, there's dozens of good runners, etc.
The problem is that non-destination races are doing the same thing, so it's very difficult/expensive to find a race a week ahead of time. Some of them justify the cost by talking about the "premium", but really, I have no interest in your premium. If I want a running jacket, I'll buy one.
What's even worse is that certain races around me now hold race expos and don't have race day packet pickup. That means I need to make a 2 hour round trip after work to pick up my bib, or else shell out an extra $20 to have it mailed. So I'm looking at $80-100 and hours of time to run a race with 1-2 good runners (talking about Corrigan racing, for anyone in Baltimore).
buffalo street runner wrote:
The race premium is usually a very nice, top-of-the-line running shirt with the race logo. Sometimes it's a jacket. These are not your cheap "tech tees" that most races give out. They are shirts that would usually cost $50+.
Great. Last time I counted I had 108 race shirts in the closet, I give some away to the local cross country team, I wear older ones as work shirts, and I always take the no shirt option if it is available!!
That's exactly the problem. Most of the better runners are out there doing more races and don't want bands, $50 tech shirts, finishers medal and expos at every race. It's no big deal if you mainly do 2 marathons a year and not much other racing. I would pay a little more to be able to run the marathon in the city I wanted to go to. You can't convince me that completing a 10 mile race is the ultimate achievement for most of the runners there that need it to be treated like a destination marathon.
Anybody else have some good races in their state they want to list?
iwk wrote:
jamin wrote:The reason that big races do the "register severals months out" thing is because they'll make a lot of money off the people who get injured in training, get hit with an unexpected commitment or are too lazy to show up.
Lol this is the dumbest thing I've heard today
The Pittsburgh great race capped registration at 10,000 for the 10k and 5,500 for the 5k. They sold out
8,013 finishers in the 10k
4,414 finishers in the 5k.
I doubt there were huge numbers of starters that dropped out after starting since the weather was ideal.
That's approximately 3,000 people that paid but didn't use any of the services. 75,000 dollars
You don't think this race knows that approximately 20% of people that register won't run? This is even one of the "good" races where the 5k was still open I believe within a couple weeks of the race. I'm sure the races that make you sign up much sooner have a greater % of no-shows.
Those "expensive" t-shirts are stitched by tiny fingers in Bangladesh or other Asian countries for pennies. That's all profit.
If you're looking for a race in the PA area, consider the State College Half Marathon in December. It's about as old school as you can find these days, show up race day pay 20 bucks and race. No finishers medals or any other crap.
jjjjjjjjj wrote:
Those "expensive" t-shirts are stitched by tiny fingers in Bangladesh or other Asian countries for pennies. That's all profit.
I have race shirts in the closet made in these countries. I even found 4 made in the United States!!
Vietnam
Madagascar
Malaysia
Honduras
El Salvador
Mexico
Dominican Republic
Guatemala
Nicaragua
China
Haiti
Tanzania
Correct, I am talking about the Celtic Solstice 5 miler. It is a great race, but it is headed in the direction Rock'N'Roll races.
When I last ran the Celtic Solstice in 2007, the premium was optional. It cost something like $25 for the race, or $40 for the race + the (quality) jacket. That option effectively does not exist anymore because the race invariably sells out. So, you are forced to pay $65 for a 5 mile race ($13 per mile!) or bandit.
It seems likely that the only reason to eliminate the premium option is because the race makes more $$ that way. Going after profits at the expense of everything else is straight out of Competitor Group's playbook.
Organise a race
Nice find.
Humboldt Redwoods marathon is the third Sunday in October every year. This year, prior to September, the entry was $55.
It goes up to maybe $70 race day. And that is a beautiful race under the redwoods in Northern California.
There are still numerous regional marathons with entry fees under $70. But even that is a big increase over years past.
In Puerto Rico, the San Blas Half Marathon.
I used to live in central North Carolina. There wasn't exactly world class competition, but you could certainly find plenty of races with 14-15 minute type performers in them.
I just hate to see someone lumping one of Jim Adams' races in with the color run/rock'n'roll/mud run group.
That saves the organization between nothing and $3, depending on the race. T-shirts are not a true cost factor.
Do you remember when people actually "ran" races?
state wrote:
In the UK, you can race every week end, for free:
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/They are only 5k, I believe.
The competition varies, but that's another great thing about it - one week, 18 minutes wins your park run, the next week someone turns up and runs 15:30. It has not only created an opportunity to race any weekend of the year, anywhere in the country, it has also created a huge running boom. Since my club started organising park runs, our membership has more than doubled.
Park runs require lots of unpaid volunteers of course - maybe in the US, that would be considered socialism?
The NYC Marathon and NYC Half Marathon would sell out at a higher price. Both races include world-class elite fields and considerable street closures which require much planning and complicated municipal cooperation. The NYC Half doesn't have a title sponsor to alleviate costs. They're priced correctly.
jjjjjjjjj wrote:
These weekly races are still pretty cheap at NYRR and the new series is just for the dedicated with the no frills. However, the NYC half and the marathon are out of control expensive.
For truly cheap, no frills races with some decent competition, run the Lake Merced series in San Francisco. Beautiful setting, bike path around the lake, some small hills, and something like a $1 fee because the city charges that for parking, and they usually bring tasty brownies or cookies or the like, for free.
I feel the pain of racers these days. During the first boom, races tended to be very affordable. If you wanted a t-shirt you paid extra. Otherwise races were pretty cheap. What we wanted was competition and an accurate course. We didn't stand around twirling our medals because you generally didn't get one unless you finished in the top three in your age group.
Like professional sporting events, the cost of racing is escalating.
The participants (hobby joggers) are taking over and they're willing to pay.
It's their time.
college meets wrote:
College races are a good way to go. Many schools allow unattached runners at their track and XC meets. I lived near a Big Ten school for a while and was able to jump into the occasional mid distance race during their home track meets. I'm sure I could have run in their XC meets as well if I'd been interested in longer events.
This. If you're looking for a no frills race with solid competition, jump in a collegiate XC meet. Unless you truly live in the middle of nowhere, you likely have pretty regular opportunities to run unattached within a short drive.
Unattached Runner wrote:
This. If you're looking for a no frills race with solid competition, jump in a collegiate XC meet. Unless you truly live in the middle of nowhere, you likely have pretty regular opportunities to run unattached within a short drive.
How good do you have to be to run unattached in a collegiate XC meet?
You say that NYC marathon and 1/2 are priced correctly but you fail to take account that NYRR uses them to fund most of its other programs, meaning that they make a very large profit off of those races. Just during the five years I was racing NYC marathon, the price doubled.