What happened to the road running scene of old?

Correct there isn't the same social media, but the costs of production have changed. Now we pay for websites, staff, police, permits, barricades, traffic management plans, food, timing (each person costs minimum $5 to a timing company), shirts, medals, equipment and vehicle rentals, medical (how many medical crew worked at a race back then?).

With any good idea, there's hundreds of people looking and waiting to make money off it. It's spiraled into a game where we need enough people to offset getting the event off the ground.

Here's some stats from the latest Race Director Compensation Survey:

•23.5 % said their income will rise

•63.2 % said their income will stay the same

•The remainder project a drop in income

•The number of race directors that describe themselves as full-time has not changed in the past two years and remains at 43%.

•Almost one in four manage just one event, while nearly three quarters direct two or more events and 20% direct 10 or more.

•About 80% of race directors reported they are compensated.

•There has been a sharp rise in the number of new race directors.

•Approximately half earn more than $50,000 annually, and about 20% make over $100,000, and 10% over $150,000. These figures are flat compared to the last study undertaken two years ago.

•30% receive no fringe benefits, while about 25% get some other benefits such as insurance or 401K's.

•Other popular perks are travel to educational meetings or other events, but only around half of the respondents get this benefit.

So what business does not want to maximize their profit. You're asking someone to work 6-8 months organizing an event and asking them to work for pennies. I wish my construction crew who is building my house worked like that.

I just did a quick glance at my budget, and for my single 2017 event, I paid over 80 companies, groups, organizations and service providers. My event is quite large, so my mileage varies.

500 may not seem like a lot, but it's far more than ten entries. Let's assume at $50 a head for an event. I would wager about $35+ of that goes to costs. Of that number, maybe half are fixed costs (permits, cops, etc.) that gets diluted as participants increase. If they're lucky, you can maybe budget $1-2 per registrant toward a competitive field.

Also seeing as these prizes are coming from registration fees in a lot of cases, why aren't prize winners thanking all the participants that paid them? Elites need the participants, but it doesn't work both ways. For a lot of directors, is it worth it?

Run Around wrote:

In the eighties there were fewer races and the race directors gave out free entries. If you placed top 5 the year before you could get a bib in the mail for the next year. Races were run as a race and not for charity. Running stores also had more teams were they would pay your entry.

Today you would be hard pressed to get a free entry so it could cost you 40 bucks to win a gift certificate worth 50 bucks.

Yes. Last weekend there was a 5K/10K race that my buddy tried to get me to enter. And it was of slight interest to me to run a 10K at this point in my training but I passed. His pitch to me was "You'll win your AG and they give out a $80 carwash with a 1AG". Problem for me was that it cost $45 to enter so IF I won all I had done was pay $45 for a fricking car wash. First off, I rarely wash my car and when I do I do it myself so a $45 carwash? No thanks. I just ran a tempo instead.

CanadianRD wrote:

For $100, do you think that would actually attract people?

Yes. Yes I do.

CanadianRD wrote:

1. Get 3-5 competitive athletes to approach a race not only as athletes, but ambassadors for the year

2. Each athlete gets a 5% or 10% promo/referral code

3. RD's can actually track the effectiveness of the athlete.

This is great. I regret not working more on my Instagram skills. I've never posted on there, Twitter, or SnapChat. I may see if I can push this on my local marathon that hasn't offered prize money in almost 20 years.

I'm long since retired from competitive running (and I was one of those hobby joggers who could win a few bucks going high-14/low-15 for a 5K), but I'd be pretty hard-pressed to enter a road race these days even if I wanted to mix it up in the Masters Division. The events are just too unorganized nowadays. And that's not a slam on the Race Directors; I can only imagine how difficult it must be to put on a race in terms of funding, volunteers, etc.

Case in point.....Several years ago when my kids were in elementary school, they wanted to run the 2K race in a local but sizable 2K/5K event. The 2K started first, and some of the people in the 5K subsequently cut the course because there were not enough course marshals to direct/police them. (A few 5K walkers cut the course simply out of ignorance, but there were some Junior High and HS punks...err....runners who were doing it on purpose).

Short story long, my youngest son won the 2K and my older son got second, but I had to act as an unofficial volunteer so that the chute workers would know that walkers "finishing" ahead of my kids were actually 5K participants. Then they screwed up the awards ceremony -- my son who won was recognized, but my other son's 2nd place medal was given to the runner who finished third. The race organizers eventually mailed a 2nd Place medal to my son, but obviously it wasn't the same. Bad experience for a couple of young kids who were trying to a taste of road racing.

It’s definitely the cost of races, to a lesser extent it’s the lack of prize money. In the twin cities there is a decent number of sub 16 type guys and if you look at the deepest races in the area with the exception of the twin cities marathon and TCM 10 mile they are all cheap.

With the cheapness of entries comes at a cost though, there is usually very little (if any) swag which most of the faster guys really don’t mind but you do see a pretty big drop in participation of the slower runners who are ultimately the most important for the races to be successful. I think that is the conundrum, it is nearly impossible to make a cheap, competitive, and attractive race for slower entrants on a road course. I feel like you can have two of those three things but not all three unless you do a superb job and become a “premier” race of the area.

You're nailing a key part of it. In Canada there's an outfit called Mountain Equipment Co-Op nationwide. They have road and trail series, where no race is more than $20. No shirt, but they do include timing. After years sticking to this model, some events now see 1000-2000 participants (huge success story).

They can afford this because it's a big company and they can draw from marketing/outreach budget. Also, they aren't competitive. They're designed to be grassroots, disrupting the current race scene. Hopefully people use these events to get a feel for the sport at a low-risk, less intimidating setting. After they get hooked, they hopefully migrate up to events with higher production value.

You can't hit all marks with one race. Directors are getting more collaborative now than ever to try and grow the sport. We need each other's to keep people in the game, and not move on to other outlets. It's all part of a new, changing ecosystem.

old fogie (not really) wrote:

I only started seriously running a year or two ago, but I often hear stories about local 5K road races where the winner would be sub 16 (15) or even 15(14). I'm sure that was the case where I lived too (confirmed this by looking at some old results). I understand that running became big for a while and there was a bubble, that burst, as can be seen in the decline from 2 or 3 races a weekend to 2 or 3 a month (if you're lucky) but what happened to it now? I've won road races with $50-$250 dollar prizes with a 17:xx (15:45).

What happened to all the fast guys?

It's been this way for decades. It keeps getting worse. Someone could have made your exact post when I started running in 2000. You'd just have to alter the numbers you mention (I bolded them and put them in brackets in your above quote to reflect those times). I had friends who ran 30:30-31:00 for 10k that would never win. I had female friends that ran 17:30 and never won anything.

In 2004 I was running 16:40 and placing top 6-8 in 95% of local 5k races. Now it would be a winning time in at least 70%.

I have to agree with others that I find it crazy that you have won money with a 17:xx. Around here, if any cash is offered the local B-team Kenyans show up and jog it for the cash. Must be nice to live somewhere where that doesn't happen.

[quote]dunwithrding wrote:

So what business does not want to maximize their profit. You're asking someone to work 6-8 months organizing an event and asking them to work for pennies. I wish my construction crew who is building my house worked like that.[/quote)

One thing that's changed with road racing since when I started is that has become a business. Races used to be organized by running clubs, the RRCA, occasionally by the AAU, and we're done to promote the sport rather than turn a profit.

Henry Rono ran Fresh Pond?! I'm going to have to start a Fresh Pond thread to hear some of these stories...

I remember running a 10K associated with a marathon back in like 10th grade. Ran about 36:56 as a sophomore in high school and only finished 10th or 11th in my age group! Finished like 170th or something overall! Plenty of women ahead of me, lots of masters runners ahead of me. Over 2,000 people. Obviously larger field helped and there was prize money that went about 5 deep overall and 3 deep masters, but that race slowly dried up (usually won in mid 29's for men and mid 32's to low 33's for women) as the focus moved to the marathon. This was early 1990's. I won a 10K race my second or third year out of college running 34-flat (using it as a tempo run/training) and won like $500. The women who won the 5K ran about 20+ and won like $200 or something. Ridiculously generous or had money to burn. Yeah, I agree, most races are now about participation, experience, catering to families, etc.. Gets more people out, but jacks the price up (because they want the 'experience', almost to be entertained while they are sweating/panting) for anyone who is serious...and that moved me to doing more open track meets my last couple of years of running.

Geezus, some of you are some whiny a$$ b*tches.

Times change. Prices change. It's not always for the best. Get over it.

Les wrote:

The sub-elite category -- those fast older times you refer to -- has pretty much disappeared. In the old days, runners, even though they were not as talented as elite runners, would still try to run as fast as they could. Mileage, intervals, long runs. Nowadays, the emphasis has shifted to participation, not running fast. Runners don't train like they used to since the goal is merely to finish without too much distress.

I would not encourage a kid coming out college to compete post-collegiately (sp). It is simply not worth it. There are the elites and hobbyjoggers = nothing in between.

Back in the day even slower runners took it seriously. They didn't stop mid-point to get married. Also, standard racing distance was 10K.

Last but not least = the disappearance of the post-race keg.

NotPC wrote:

Races aren't inexpensive to put on. I was RD for 1 race and swore I'd never do that again. The cost for traffic management alone sucked up almost all the money we made.

Yup, $250 per cop with 1 - 2 officers at each traffic section (in a city). Blew my budget. If you don't have big numbers, tough to make it work for less than $30 per head,

OldPollarBear wrote:

NotPC wrote:

Races aren't inexpensive to put on. I was RD for 1 race and swore I'd never do that again. The cost for traffic management alone sucked up almost all the money we made.

Yup, $250 per cop with 1 - 2 officers at each traffic section (in a city). Blew my budget. If you don't have big numbers, tough to make it work for less than $30 per head,

Should more races be cross country? And shorter in distance.

Can we get away from this 'thon, half 'thon crap.

Here in DC - we get a group of Ethiopians that travel by bus to races that have prize money. They show up on race day - one representative tries to get them all in for free since they're "elite". They run - have their rep put their names on the checks and leave. No talking to anyone - no thank you - probably because they don't speak english

Okay,

Here is my idea....

A 5k where you pay what you run*

Registration cost is $40.

All times are rounded UP to the closest minute (if you run 17:01, you pay $18). The faster you run, the more you get back (or the less you pay in general). Minutes are dollars.

Once finished, any money owed to you can either be given back to you or you can donate to charity.

As an example. If you run 22 minutes, you would be returned $18 ($40 minus $22). Or you can donate that money 100% to charity.

I'd even share the financials with the runners.

I think too much blame is being put on the races and race directors. The fact of the matter is that there are more runners but less people training hard and getting after it for the sake of competition and challenging yourself. We talk about prize money, but were there really that many more opportunities back then compared to today? Probably not. Even with the races today with prize money that bring out the runners, they aren't that deep. Guys were running fast because that's what they wanted to do and there was the appeal of this new, alternative activity. It's different now, but the only thing holding people back from training and racing hard are themselves and a bunch of excuses.

But I do believe the college system might be discouraging guys back from training hard after college. One guy in the sub-2:30 marathon thread mentioned that he was lucky to get out of DI without being burned out or injured. There is an intensity and dedication to serious college running that might take the fun out of it and you want nothing to do with it when it's over. In addition, the utter drop off in resources available to post collegiates compared to what they had in college.