Des Moines Marathon

Is that the race that was supposed to be the USA Half Marathon champs for women? Hoo boy, New Haven 20k field just got a whole lot better if so.

Link please...

There goes the National Champs for Women...

Bummer.

darn it.

Bandido Women were going to dominate!!!

Story here...the question is where next???

Financial problems end local marathon

Lack of sponsor leads to demise of popular D.M. running event.

By TOM WITOSKY

REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Copyright 2005, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company

March 23, 2005

The Des Moines Marathon and half marathon is to be cancelled permanently, the marathon's top official said Tuesday.

Helene Neville, the event's founder and race director, said the three-year-old annual race, scheduled for Sept. 18, is ending because of a lack of sponsorship support.

"To make it work, you have to fund-raise pretty much everything," Neville said. "To date, we have raised zero dollars. That's the problem."

The marathon's cancellation also will mean the USA Women's Half Marathon National Championships will be moved to another location. The half marathon, sponsored by USA Track and Field, had been expected to attract some of the top female runners in the U.S. and world.

Neville said the cancellation was particularly difficult because the event had attracted an increasing number of runners each year and was receiving national attention.

Last year, the event attracted 3,082 participants from 45 states and eight countries. In 2002, the marathon featured 1,700 participants. In 2003, 2,100 runners participated.

Both races would begin and end in Des Moines after following a course throughout the western and southwestern portions of Des Moines, including stretches through Water Works Park and the Gray's Lake area.

"We had a vision to bring as many people to Des Moines as possible and I think we accomplished that goal," Neville said. "We met that goal by making the event unique and appealing."

Neville said fund-raising never exceeded more than $30,000 in any year and that competing events made sponsorships scarce.

In 2003 and 2004, Mediacom served as the marathon's title sponsor. Both agreements were one-year deals and provided about $25,000 each year, Neville said.

Neville said Mediacom had not answered an inquiry about sponsorship this year and marathon officials had no major prospect out of a field of 300 sponsorship inquiries.

Jon Koebrick, senior director of government relations for Mediacom, acknowledged that Mediacom officials hadn't spoke with Neville, but suggested no final decision had been made on their sponsorship.

"This decision comes as news to us," Koebrick said. "We made no decision on whether to continue our sponsorship and are saddened if it is not going to go forward. We believed the event was a very good one for Des Moines and were proud to be a participant in it."

Neville added that most of the sponsorship agreements reached in the past were for in-kind contributions or other types of donations.

The event struggled financially through its three-year run. After the 2002 marathon, Neville acknowledged a debt of $53,600 - much of it attributed to costs of running the event.

"It's been very difficult for us," Neville said. "We have had some interest, but to date there has been no money offered."

Neville said the marathon still owes about $9,000 to the City of Des Moines for police traffic control assistance for the 2004 event, but that is the only major debt.

All marathon employees were volunteers, Neville said.

"We have done this as a labor of love, even to the point where some of our committee members have spent their own money to make this work," Neville said. " We just thought with all of the adversity and problems in the past, that if we kept putting on an awesome event with such momentum, people would look to us positively and sponsor us.

"This year was the worst. We have nobody, so we aren't going to continue to put this on."

brettnsuzy wrote:

Story here...the question is where next???

Philly half? Same time of year.

brettnsuzy wrote:

Story here...the question is where next???

Philly half? Same time of year.[/quote]

The whole situation was/is kind of goofy in the first place. Consider that just a few weeks before is the USA 20k champs (essentially the same distance) in New Haven. It's pretty stupid to have national champs at both those distances anyway, IMO, but doing so within 3 weeks of each other can't do anything but hurt both races. If USATF is smart they'd just let the half slide for '05, and start doing legwork now for '06. And I'll state upfront that I am not unbiased since I'm involved w/ New Haven athlete recrutiment, but as of right now the field there should be a whole lot better w/o a national half championship a few weeks later.

Ouch Jim! Both of these events were considered on the merits of their proposals. Both presented outstanding bids that were debated in full WLDR sessions at the annual meeting they were awarded (Des Moines-03, New Haven-04). The scheduling issue has been well debated and while not perfect, it is a work in progress as we move to a more fundamentally sound annual calendar.

Please remember that when Des Moines was awarded in 03, there was no bid in place for New Haven for 05, as stated above it was awarded just this last Decmeber. The WLDR Championships subcommittee was thrilled to accept and advocate for Des Moine's outstanding offer ($29,500) to support our USA Championships. Outside of TCM, by far the biggest single payday for our 05 Champs schedule. So, by these criteria, and the temporal sequence by which the circumstances played out, I do not feel it was anything but in the best interest of the athletes that Des Moines was awarded the Half Champs.

Finally, all legwork is done for 06. KC was awarded (again after much discussion in WLDR session) for next year while we were in Portland.

Do I want to, or will I let a Half Marathon Champs slide for 2005? No. Do I want to get as much support for our WLDR Champs program as possible? You bet. Thus, I press on.

You can buy me an O'Douls this weekend and we can put our thinking caps on.

Will Lindgren

WLDR National Championships Chair

[quote]runguru wrote:

You can buy me an O'Douls this weekend and we can put our thinking caps on.

/quote]

You got it Will. Thanks for clearing up the chronology of the bid procees.

I know USATF, nationally and locally, is sometimes between a rock & a hard place when it comes to championships. The races that have the $$ to be able to bid aren't always scheduled when we'd like them in terms of an overall yearly calendar. Still, I hearken back to the dark ages of AAU, when there was a "blackout" for sanctioned events - no one could stage another one within a certain distance on that date - of course back then there were a whole hell of a lot less events to conflict with each other.

Off the top of my head, I'd think about approaching the BAA about hosting the '05 women's champs at the Boston Half this autumn - good race, easy to get to, probably sufficient financial backing to sponsor a good purse, and far enough from New Haven that you wouldn't have a conflict for athletes wanting to run both.

OK, there's my idea - O'Doul's tomorrow.

When someone bids on an event, don't they have to prove their finances? I mean if the Mom and Pop 5k wanted a US championship and bid a million dollars wouldn't someone question where the money was coming from? This race has been in financial trouble since day 1 according to the race director. Shame on the committee.

Well, I wouldn't call the former Des Moines Half-Marathon a "Mom and Pop" event (or insinuate, as you have)

Also, for those of you who planned on doing a longer type of race in September and don't care too much about the half marathon championships and live in the mid-west; an alternative plan I would strongly reccomend is the Capital Pursuit 10 mile road race Sept. 11 in Des Moines. It's a super fun race that has accurate mile markers.

Laugh all you want, but it's a great race.

lady J wrote:

Well, I wouldn't call the former Des Moines Half-Marathon a "Mom and Pop" event (or insinuate, as you have)

.

It might as well have been. It raised Zero dollars in sponsorship this year and promised the world.

It raised zero dollars because everyone bitched endlessly about it (especially on this website!) who would want to be associated with that? In Des Moines, if a race is not associated with Fitnesssports, it cannot succeed. I have nothing against the store, but this is the truth.

No Bobby, they don't. Neither I nor the subcommittee have the legal authority to petition financial records. The National Office on the other hand does have controls in place that prevent the scenario you describe. And if you feel the need to cast shame please spare my dedicated committee. I'll be happy to discuss with you in person if you are in the City this weekend.

Did it fail to raise zero dollars because of bitching, or did it raise zero dollars because everyone had something legitimate to bitch about? As a business person, why would I commit $1 to something that sucked?

You have your facts screwed up about races and Fitness Sports. Makes me wonder how much you know about the race scene; actually it shows you don't know much. Plenty of races do great and have no formal association with FS. Take the Red Flannel Run and Capital Pursuit, just to name two of them.

The DSM Marathon had great potential, and should have worked. When the race director alienates him/herself from the community, this is what happens. Hopefully the race will come back and be run by less egotistical people. DSM deserves that race.

Please! Ha! do you really think Capital Striders and Fitness Sporst have no affiliation with each other?

And the Red Flannel Run- the NON-competitive road race put on by the YMCA? Is that ALL you could think of???

That's funny. Lets face it, the only way to get a road race advertised to the DM public is through the fitnesssports web site. You know this is true.

I am not arguing that there were some serious issues with the Des Moines Marathon and Half last year. But it is next to impossible to have a competitive road race in DM without the association of Fitness Sports.

Hmm, a group of runners associated with a store that sells running shoes, runing clothes, running accessories and one that promotes running/races throughout the state of Iowa, not just DSM. You're right, must be a conspiracy! How dare a running speciatly store be involved in races, egads!

Come on, "Lets face it, the only way to get a road race advertised to the DM public is through the fitnesssports web site. You know this is true." Um, what other venue makes sense??? It is FREE by the way, and ANY race no matter where or how big/small can put a race on the calander. What in the world do you have a problem with? Are you a jaded race director?

You sound like a Helene disciple, and believe that other forces outside of the race director are responsible for the demise. Let's stick to the topic - the marathon. Helene tied herself to the race; read the web page in which she memorializes herself. Go to the Chicago Marathon web site, the TCM website, the New York web site. See if there are any glossy's on Carey Pinkowski or any other directors. Nope, just good old race info.

She wanted the glroy, and now she wants to deny responsibility for it's death. Sounds like a huge case of denial.

Again, the race deserves to be held in DSM, and should be brought back with solid management. A marathon is too big of a race to try and do on one's own. Cooperation and collaboration is needed.

Get off FS, that is moronic.

[quote]lady J wrote:

Well, I wouldn't call the former Des Moines Half-Marathon a "Mom and Pop" event (or insinuate, as you have)

Actually the DM Marathon IS a Mom & Pop event...minus the Pop! Helene owns the event, makes all the decisions, and is financially accountable to no one. Anyone and everyone who disagees with her is sent packing. She claims it's a non-profit, but there's no board of directors and no financial oversight.

I would just like to note that Fitness Sports and Steve B has shown nothing but the highest integrity with all dealings I have ever seen him make, and I have known him for the last 20 years. When back in Iowa, there is no other running location I would go to for shoes and running info.

Kind of ironic that someone mentions "Mom and Pop" when the DMS logo was of the male and female farmers, rather a Mom and Pop look. I am not being mean, I just find that ironically funny.

Integrity, that sums it up. Steve - 100% Helene - 0%

Just saw her on the news, it was like a bad comedy routine. Calling the governor? For what? She cannot run the marathon effectively, so the government should step in? In one breath the marathon is not in debt, then she says she still owes the city money and cannot pay. She is so delusional it is unbelievable.

She is an embarassment to the city.