Why are hobby joggers drawn to road races and not track meets?

mystery wrote:

I looked up some results from the local road race (pre 2020), and the median men's time was around 27 minutes for guys under 40.

Just for clarification, that 27 minute time was on a flat 5K course. The winning time was a few seconds under 17 minutes.

when you're running a 35 minute 5k on the roads, nobody sees you until the finish line. anyone still watching the finish line at 35 minutes is largely going to be supportive and encouraging of you.

that same 35 minute 5k on the track is 35 minutes of embarrassment. you're gonna get lapped 5 times, and people are watching every moment of you slogging along in absolute pain, thinking, "wow, i would not want to be that guy, what was he thinking?"

Idk where you are, but we don't have track meets...

Jeremy R wrote:

Idk where you are, but we don't have track meets...

not having track meets is a symptom of this.

for every 100 runners, like 5 of them do acceptable mileage, and 1 of them does workouts on top of that

all 100 are willing to run a 5k road race. 3 would be willing to run at a track meet.

why host a track meet if nobody is going to sign up?

Because the experience would be really bad for them. Say they turn up to a track meet. They enter the 800m. There might not be many entrants. Imagine there are six people. They start to warm up but probably feel intimidated. All of their training has been either on the road, grass, pavement or little trails. They see people prancing about kicking the air. People are wearing things on their arms (arm warmers), they have spikes on, they are in gym knickers (bun huggers). I suppose people wear these in road races but it's not as common. There is more variety in road races - people in vest tops, T shirts, long sleeved T shirts, maybe even tracksuit bottoms, tights, leggings and so on.

They look around nervously. There are lots of new rules to follow, etiquette. They get to the start. Everyone is looking! It's in a stadium and they are stunned by the lack of people. It feels so empty on the start! Just a few people and these other people appear to be sprinting very fast up and down the track and then stopping. They are told to go to their line. BANG! The gun goes off. Everyone flies away... sprinting as if they're running for dear life! Trot trot trot... the runner stumbles around the bend in her trusty Nike Pegasus. The other five people are way ahead down the track. They block it all out and carry on. Whoops! There's some kind of flag on the floor. The runner kicks it out of the way and moves on, realising they are in lane five and are now allowed to be in the inside lane at long last! The runners disappear into the horizon. Huff huff huff... she runs past a group of spectators who do a little clap for her.

At 400m, a loud bell sounds. By this point the other runners are nowhere to be seen. She carries on, embarrassed, humiliated almost, past more spectators, feeling like all eyes are on her. Voices boom from the PA system. She feels like all eyes are on her - the stadium is built up on one side and she gallops past everyone in the vicinity. It feels like everyone in a mile square can see her! Thank goodness, she's back to the back straight. Familiar territory and far away from the scary crowd on the other side of the stadium. She concentrates on her running. The final bend... people clap but she can't tell if they're being sarcastic or not. They're being nice but a sympathy clap is the worst thing she could hear right now! She just wants to disappear into the floor. Bursting across the line, she falls onto the floor, panting and red-faced. 2:42!!! The man announces. It's below her goal but she doesn't have that same glow, the sense of achievement. She just feels silly! The other runners have disappeared, walking off the track into the small crowd. One stays behind and shakes her hand, says well done. She just felt it was so sparse when she was running.

There is no medal, no memento, no T shirt, no cushy drink, no food. She grabs a bottle of water from the little hatch and pays £2.25 for it. What a bargain! The other runners all seem to know each other and are dressed up like superheroes in slinky lycra and they gather together to run around the track to cool down. Their cool down seems faster than her race pace! There is no one finishing around her, no one finishing behind her, there was no one for her to race really. She is embarrassed and quickly tries to leave before anyone talks to her, nice as the people seem to be.

The next day she tries to log onto the site to access her results but there don't seem to be any results anywhere. The next weekend she trots along to her local parkrun where she has more of a social event and finishes with runners all around her, hidden in the crowd.

This is why I feel people don't turn up to track races. It's not the fault of the meet organisers. It's a simple fact that if there are 100x less people in the race, people will feel more self conscious and I think that's what's affecting the slower runners and putting them off. Hobby joggers would not enjoy this experience IMO.

Their abysmal performances can not be hidden on the track, wheres in a road race, they can essentially blend in with the crowd.

America's cities and towns. are for Road Races where the real runners compete,

Tshirts, medals, post-race food and 'crowd support'.

Interesting response, but a 2:42 would not look out of place in an all-comers women's 800. It's nothing to be embarrassed about.

The results for some of the all-comers meets I've run in can easily be found online if that's what they're looking for (they sometimes remain online for many years after the race as well, see

as an example).

this illustration is perfect, actually

Existing collegiate meets are practically closed to open entries. Some allow it with stiff qualifying standards. So basically. excluding everyone but the very serious with at least some talent.

Ok, so there are all-comer and community meets of various sorts.

As a sometime meet organizer, let me offer...

Facility managers jealously guard their facilities. Even showing up with a nice fat liability policy, they won't budge. Heck, they are paid to keep the facility nice, and the easiest way to do that is not let anyone use it unless forced.

If you can get past that gate, the facility is probably not available because it is booked by youth soccer or lacrosse.

If you can get past that gate, facility fees range to the stratosphere. Youth soccer, to an extent, can get twice as many people on the field by cutting the field to a smaller size. Does not work for games, but practice sessions can work that way.

Throwers and jumpers are rare -- and they are subsidized by the other events.

The thinking among most runners is, if a 5K costs $25 (say), that 100m race should be less than a dollar. The reality is, the part of the course in the middle is all fixed costs (law enforcement officers on a road course, or close to nothing on a trail). It's the start and finish that cost. No economy of scale for the sprints. No chip timing at the finish. And the start has to be good, three commands for block starts, quarter second between "set" and the gun, none of the squishy stuff we see with the local sponsor doing a countdown from ten.

By the way, any leads on available facility in Princeton, NJ area, please let me know. Only interested if I can use the facility installation type equipment (hurdles, pit rake, cage, landing mats). Not doing PV first time out due to special safety planning needed.

Jeremy R wrote:

Idk where you are, but we don't have track meets...

California. Before 2020, you could hop in an all-comers every week from December - February and from June - August if you wanted to. From March - May, you could run unattached in a D3 meet and have a good chance of not DFLing (I ran the sprints for the hell of it and had no idea how to use blocks properly, but I was still able to beat a few guys)

Post 2020 sucks, you either have to get a PCR test or go out of state to race on the track.

Well how can you even sign up for a track event?

I once did a 1 hour event on the track. That was the closest I came to track running.

If you not started your running career on track chances are high that you never run on track ever.

36 + years of running here.

princetonac wrote:

Existing collegiate meets are practically closed to open entries. Some allow it with stiff qualifying standards. So basically. excluding everyone but the very serious with at least some talent.

Pre-pandemic or post?

Prior to 2020, I've run unattached in 5-6 college meets each year despite not having the talent to walk-on to any D1 school in the country. Maybe some of the lower-tier D2 ones may have let me join their team if I got really lucky.

But I never felt out-of place and did get 1st or 2nd in my (slow) heat a couple of times. There is (was?) definitely a place in the college track scene for no-talent guys like myself.

track chick wrote:

Because the experience would be really bad for them. Say they turn up to a track meet. They enter the 800m. There might not be many entrants. Imagine there are six people.

...

This is why I feel people don't turn up to track races. It's not the fault of the meet organisers. It's a simple fact that if there are 100x less people in the race, people will feel more self conscious and I think that's what's affecting the slower runners and putting them off.

YMMV, but it seems to be far more common to have too many people packed in an 800 than to have too few runners in an 800. Everything's on a rolling schedule, and the fewer heats there are, the earlier the meet ends.

Here's a good example - at the start of the race, it's a mad stampede with one guy (in red) nearly shoved to the ground:

in my experience with NYC meets there will be a ton of entries in the mile, including a few hobby joggers. normal to see a couple of 6:30s or whatever.

800m at the same meet will have 9 people and 2:16 might be DFL

flvmmox wrote:

in my experience with NYC meets there will be a ton of entries in the mile, including a few hobby joggers. normal to see a couple of 6:30s or whatever.

800m at the same meet will have 9 people and 2:16 might be DFL

I would be lapped 2 times in a 800m event.

This is a poor attempt at a troll.

Hobbyjoggers aren’t running 27-minute 5k’s.

Most of the people at races like the one described are walkers and people who have a friend or family member that dragged them to the starting line against their will who haven’t run at all in the past.

If I was going to run one race, then would I want to go to a road race that starts at a specific time in the morning and then leave shortly after the race and move on with my busy day, or would I want to be randomly scheduled to run at some time that I do t know until the day before and is more likely to interfere with busier times of my limited weekend days?

Could be that people don't enjoy making left turns and catching someone's elbow or saliva.