Over 1 hour for a 5K??????

the hell do you care?

I'm just curious as to why anyone would pay money to walk 20 minute miles in a 5k. A few have attempted to answer, but I still don't get it.

An unrelated question wrote:

Thanks for the insight. It just seems that, and I'm sure I'm missing something here, if I were with a charity group, and I was looking to raise funds, there would be a much easier and more effective way than putting on a race. It would appear that the financial return on the effort invested would be much higher doing a dinner or something.

The only thing you're really missing is the value of the publicity. Putting on a dinner or writing a grant may well gather more money initially but the contacts made during an event like a race or golf tournament have a lot of side benefits.

I directed a race for the AIDS Care Service a few years back that made virtually nothing on race day. But they got a little TV and radio coverage and a list of names that expanded their fund raising during the rest of the year.

What place did you come in?

People are about to bash me wrote:

I'm just curious as to why anyone would pay money to walk 20 minute miles in a 5k. A few have attempted to answer, but I still don't get it.

Has nothing to do with racing. People pay $100 a plate for rubber chicken and a bad speech or $200 to play a round of golf.

They're just supporting their cause.

keith Stone wrote:

People are about to bash me wrote:

I'm just curious as to why anyone would pay money to walk 20 minute miles in a 5k. A few have attempted to answer, but I still don't get it.

Has nothing to do with racing. People pay $100 a plate for rubber chicken and a bad speech or $200 to play a round of golf.

They're just supporting their cause.

First, congratulations on the correct usage of "they're" and "their". This is rare at letsrun.

You're right on the "supporting a cause" reason. As a previous poster pointed out, yes, a higher percentage would go to the cause if they just donated the $100 instead of attending the dinner or the $200 instead of playing golf. However, the fact of the matter is that most people will not do so. They want to feel like they're a part of something, and running a race, attending a dinner, or playing in a tournament gives them this feeling.

An attempt to clarify my earlier comment...Imagine this, happens all the time:

Skinny Jack: They're putting on a 5k to benefit the animal shelter.

Fat Joe: Hey, I adopted "Fluffy" from that shelter. I'd be glad to help them out. Count me in.

Skinny Jack: But the only time you run is to be first on line when they bring out the fresh new batch at Dunkin' Donuts. You'll never make it that far.

Fat Joe: F--- you, runt. How far is "5k" anyway?

Fat Joe enters to support the cause. Gladly pays $20 to walk for an hour, while helping the cause and shutting up Skinny Joe.

Joseph McVeigh wrote:

An attempt to clarify my earlier comment...Imagine this, happens all the time:

Skinny Jack: They're putting on a 5k to benefit the animal shelter.

Fat Joe: Hey, I adopted "Fluffy" from that shelter. I'd be glad to help them out. Count me in.

Skinny Jack: But the only time you run is to be first on line when they bring out the fresh new batch at Dunkin' Donuts. You'll never make it that far.

Fat Joe: F--- you, runt. How far is "5k" anyway?

Fat Joe enters to support the cause. Gladly pays $20 to walk for an hour, while helping the cause and shutting up Skinny Joe.

I'll buy that. Just one follow up question. If Fat Joe is doing it to show up Skinny Jack, wouldn't Fat Joe have some motivation to try to do well in the race? Even being fat, Joe should be able to go faster than an hour, allowing that he's not handicapped. 20 minutes per mile is a slow, slow walk. Almost painfully slow.

People are about to bash me wrote:

I'll buy that. Just one follow up question. If Fat Joe is doing it to show up Skinny Jack, wouldn't Fat Joe have some motivation to try to do well in the race? Even being fat, Joe should be able to go faster than an hour, allowing that he's not handicapped. 20 minutes per mile is a slow, slow walk. Almost painfully slow.

A 20 minute mile walk isn't painfully slow. It's the average walking pace for a normal adult. Jump on a treadmill sometime and try a 15 minute mile pace walk. You'll be surprised.

As far as motivation to do well in the race you're missing the point. It's not about the race, the motiviation was to show/prove support for the cause. Fat Joe got his ass over to the event and showed his support, mission accomplished. The time it took was irrelavant.

People enter races for many reasons. For most it's simply a social event with exercise added. It's easier to walk or jog 3 miles with a few hundred people around you than by yourself. Plus you get a T-shirt. Nothing wrong with that.

Alan

im going to go out on a limb here and say those hour+ walk/crawlers were really really fat

People are about to bash me wrote:

I'm just curious as to why anyone would pay money to walk 20 minute miles in a 5k. A few have attempted to answer, but I still don't get it.

I'm really fat - but for the past 2 years I have trained myself to run 10k - I haven't lost weight because I still like crisps, ice cream and rosé wine but I do love running.

I run very slowly. I've always been terrible at sport but here in my forties I have found something that I love doing and it has taken me two years to overcome the fear of people judging me on the fact that I am, to a lean mean runner, hopeless at it. This is partially why I got so fat because even when I thought I was a lot thinner I still thought people thought I was fat and would judge me and criticise me when I did sport. I run very slowly because its difficult when your thighs slap together and when effectively you're running carrying 6 large shopping bags. But hell I'm still lapping the rest of the fatties sitting on the sofa so quite frankly IMHO you should be zooming past these slow heavy runners applauding them as you go for their motivation in the face of adversity not how they are getting in the way of someone who probably doesn't even need to exercise but does it purely for competition and feeling that they want to be first in everything.

Why judge? Go get better things to do than lashing out about others who have done nothing to harm you. Open your mind. Your way of being successful in the world is yours alone. Try being a beginner at something. You are probably a pretty dang good runner, but there are millions of activities/sports where you wouldn't even be at a beginner level. Has nothing ever been difficult for you? Did you never fail at anything? Are you still sprinting slower than Usain Bolt? Chances are you do your best and put in time to see good results, but we all have different ways of measuring success.

I did track in high school and do enjoy running. I was super embarrassingly slow, but I did it! I enjoyed every minute with my friends on the team. It was a building year so I got to do more than I would have otherwise. My only goal was to have fun.

I once did a 5K in over an hour. I was the slowest turtle out there, but I was out there and was well under 30. I am not embarrassed because I went through a time with very low cardiovascular fitness.

TL;DR: Develop humility and do your best. Success looks different to everyone on this planet, though some people struggle to understand that.

It's a 5k. If someone wants to show up and walk it, then that's cool. Why as a runner should I care? They're not denying me anything, nor are they getting in my way. It's hard for some runners to fathom, but people sometimes enter a 5k for fun.

A lot of runners take for granted that we are effortlessly able to run a 5k on a whim. But for a lot of people, it takes work and effort to get to that point where they can walk the race.

Let's look at Derek Mitchell. He weighs a lot. And yet he still finishes at a slow pace. He's losing weight and I admire the guy because he's struggling with real world stuff that we'll never know. So he shows up at the Rock and Roll 5k's, and walks the entire amount. Good for him. Runners should be supporting him.

Joseph McVeigh wrote:

An attempt to clarify my earlier comment...Imagine this, happens all the time:

Skinny Jack: They're putting on a 5k to benefit the animal shelter.

Fat Joe: Hey, I adopted "Fluffy" from that shelter. I'd be glad to help them out. Count me in.

Skinny Jack: But the only time you run is to be first on line when they bring out the fresh new batch at Dunkin' Donuts. You'll never make it that far.

Fat Joe: F--- you, runt. How far is "5k" anyway?

Fat Joe enters to support the cause. Gladly pays $20 to walk for an hour, while helping the cause and shutting up Skinny Joe.

lol.

I have far more respect for these walkers than the people who try as hard as they can but still only pull out a 15-18 minute 5K.

the__Wiz wrote:

Just try to understand that some people are different than you and they don't want to run it. They see it as a social event.

As long as they start out in the back of the race, I don't care and if the race organizers encourage it, you should not care either.

Correct. Just for fun, I looked up the results for my most recent big local 5K. The winning times were surely nothing to write home about, 17:26 for men and 20:28 for women. Out of 1557 total timed finishers, 169 were over one hour. That's well over 10% of the finishers. These people were mostly or entirely walking the course, some of them in costume, and they were doing it as a social activity, not a race. The 1-hour-plus folks mostly lined up at the back of the pack and didn't get in anyone's way, and many of them were cheering the competitive runners passing by on the way back.

I think it's great that these folks are out there. Covering 5K on foot in 65 minutes or whatever is a heck of a lot healthier than sitting on the sofa eating Cheetos. And all those noncompetive folks make old ladies like me, who are slow but still trying, look better. My 23:28 gave me 105th place out of those 1557 finishers!

Just looked back at the last 6 5ks from my local area - everyone had numerous people over 1 hour. I think it more uncommon when 5ks have no one over 45 min. Bet there aren't any.

dill-dough wrote:

the hell do you care?

Just another over-serious and over-sensitive hobby jogger who desperately needs for the world to think his 18 minute 5ks make him a special flower.