Road Races out of control

In the UK, races are selling out well in advance. This never happened just a few years ago. I just checked out a race in March 2025 and already it's sold out. This is getting ridiculous.

I ran my first marathon in the early 70's. There was no electronic clock at the finish where you could clearly see your time. instead, there was a person holding a tall wooden stick with horizontal wooden attachments at the top to which were attached large pieces of cardboard with big numbers written on them for the hours and minutes. each minute that went by the 'minute' cardboard was flipped over. Results were tabulated by hand and volunteers at each 5-mile interval recorded the race number on a sheet of paper which indicated the racers time split. These were then transcribed to punch cards and fed into a computer. Weeks later you were mailed a race summary which included each individuals 5-mile split + finish time. Plus an 8 x 10 black and white finish photo. Of course back then it was possible to do this with an adequate number of volunteers and only a few hundred (300-400) race entrants. Chip timing and electronic clocks came a few years later as race fields grew very large and nearly unmanageable.