Athlone 3/4 Marathon

To answer your question Racoon Queen:- The 3/4 Marathon is indeed being organised by myself and Bazman of fast running fame.
It is placed in the calendar to suit those doing Dublin and New York a few weeks later so we are hopeful it will prove popular and useful part of most training plans.

Other events listed on the left of my website are in association with various others:-
e.g. The West Wicklow and Achill Roar events are in conjunction with Total Experience

The shared google calendar on the site gives listing of various events that may be of interest to boardies not just the ones I am involved in.

The pricing "structure" has been a difficult one to do for this race for sure.

If the entry was €29 and somone told me we would get say 2,000 entered we would be happy but unfortunately as a first time event we do not have the luxury of knowing how many will enter.

As Ray Cun says, organisers need to get a good idea of anticipated numbers early on to try to get a handle on items to be purchased well in advance like race shirts and the likes or risk getting stung big time on un-used stock that have little value apart from to race participants.

We have tried to get as many as possibe to enter early by offering an early bird of €39/hd up to 31st July with a group (5+) discount to allow entry for €29/hd which essientially is a known loss leader to try to drum up interest in the event, provide for groups of friends, clubs, etc.
When the early bird was finished the regular entry was set to run up to 31st Aug was then €49 with the €39 available to 5+ groups

It is only by having a change in entry prices that folk come out of the woodwork and enter in general.
This is the trend for many events (evidence by for example the big sell on Electric Picnic tickets in the last 10 days!) in the current climate as no-one wants to risk their hard earned cash until the last minute where possible.

Bazman and I have first-hand experience of this as we both are regular participants in races.

We agree that 4 weeks in advance is probably a bit early to have a late entry price particularly as many are only finding out about the event now via the Irish Runner that was delivered early this week, flyers at Longford and Galway last weekend, etc.
We have changed the entry cost to keep the regular entry price at €49/hd until midnight on Monday 20th Sept with the 5+ group rate of €39/hd applicable until then also.
We have already given on-line refunds of €10 to anyone who has paid the full €59 price since 1st September.

We know from many of the entries recieved so far that there is extensive use of discount codes to reduce the price from that shown so average prices paid for entries is to date is less than €40 out of which also comes Active Europe's commission.
We don't add this onto your entry fee as sometimes is the case.
The bottom line fact is that we don't expect to make money from the event this year but if the folk that do come, enjoy the race and feel they get value for money then the numbers will increase in subsequent years.

This would be somewhat similar to the recent Tulfarris 10 event which folk that participated in felt was well run and great value and we hope that it will be viable next year with increased numbers.

At the end of the day we know the event has been well recieved by runners and definitely has a place in the calendar as a unique event.

We want a decent crowd there to experience what we believe will be a good event and a really useful one in terms of Dublin Marathon preperation in particular so hopefully we will see lots of boardies and more there