Letsrun Faithful: What changes would you like seen made to road races

more prize money, more toilets, less bullshit. And fewer fat people.

No traffic of any kind (including bikes), adequate police protection, results displayed soon after the finish on the front page of the race's website, actual woolen blankets at the end of marathons for those suffering from hypothermia, reasonable fees and actual hotel discounts for runners, age group awards going 5 deep in marathons, no busing to start nor from the finish, later starts (8 or 9AM), wave starts to avoid mob scenes, big signs to designate miles, digital clocks on the course, adequate shelter at the start in case of bad weather. Other than that, everything is fine.

An accurate course and an accurate time w/ fast results.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

An accurate course and an accurate time w/ fast results.

Let's try to keep this in the realm of the possible, okay?

More cute women with tight butts.

Donate more of the proceeds to charity instead of wasting our entry fees for free perks and gifts to Latimer, Wittenberg, Pinkowski, Elite Racing, etc. in exchange for similar free favors at their races.

More no-frills races with $5 entry fee...and no t-shirt.

Let's get back to kegs after races.

More getting back to core road-race distances....8km, 10km,15km (or their mile equivalents. This means fewer marathons and halves.

Less tying of charities to racing...enough already.

Results should be posted in a more timely manner.

No awards ceremony.

Post the results, and if awards are given, award winners just go pick them up. I've been to several races that handle awards this way and it is nice.

Quite often you have to wait well over an hour to get your award. If the award ceremony is sooner, then usually you're out doing a cool down and not there anyway.

Later starting times.

If they're going to seed it out, no nonsense like using a 5K time to get corral positions in a half or full marathon. I'm sick of working far to hard in the early miles of a race getting around Gallowalkers and charity tubbies that are in pens in which they don't belong.

Provide good course map ahead of time. Have well marked course and guides. Complete and accurate mile markers.

Start on time.

Get the results right.

And slow people are welcome. Make it a big crowd.

Helps to fund it.

Looks good when you are top 3 out of 1,000 instead of top 3 out of 50 even if the extra 950 people are joggers and walkers.

I did one where they layed on a stripper afterwards. I might make a comeback if they did that again

If you can't break 15 for the 5k then GET THE F*** OUT!

HRE wrote:

Later starting times.

Much later.

How about 7 or 8 PM. No one wants to wake up at 6 am so they can get to a race location early enough to get their number and then do their warm up. Make the race at night instead. A few races in my area have done this and the attendance is HUGE compared to the morning races. Night races equals better for the athletes, better for the people who wouldn't normally do a road race because they are traditionally way too early, better for the charity since more people pay entry fees, and better for the race director who gets credit for not being dumb and having his/her race at 7 freaking am that only a couple hundred people wake up for.

I would like to see them run on trails or on the track.

Unless it is fundraiser called a "run-walk", they should not allow walkers. This could be done simply by stating (for a 5K)"No times or results given after 32 minutes".

Too often you have these people who slowly walk a 5K in 50 minutes, and it is annoying. It keeps streets blocked longer, makes all volunteers hang around longer, delays awards, etc.

Many events have two races, like a 5K & mile, or a 5K & 10K. What is reeeeeeally annoying is when the slow walkers choose the longer race. OMG, just stay home and do that on your own time!

haha, YO (super serial) wrote:

If you can't break 15 for the 5k then GET THE F*** OUT!

If you can break 15 for 5000, you should be doing it on the track. Road races are for (ahem) fitness runners.

I'm with you. On top of all that you wrote, I'm usually totally trashed after I race which often leads to a headache for the rest of the day. A night time race would shorten the amount of time until I can go to bed.

Less people taking marathon belts stuffed with gels and Gatorade to a 10k. Cmon people, that's ridiculous!

In britain we have a lot of mid week evening race where you can race for about £5. We also have saturday 5k races that are usually won in 14:xx that cost nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I'd like to see higher "British only" prize money at our big events too!